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Nano-Materials are a new frontier of research at the molecular scale. In this domain, properties are no longer solely determined by the materials employed but by their size and structure. Unique properties such as high chemical reactivity, tunable optical behavior, and new electron transport can be observed. MST researchers are conducting research into many aspects of nano-materials:

Synthesis: Making structures that are many times smaller than a human hair is a great challenge and there are many new ways of solving this challenge. Approaches include high-quality nanofabrication, ingenious use of self-assembly, self-organizing growth processes, and synthetic chemistry.

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Characterization: Many new and exciting things can be learned from the behavior of nano-materials such as how chemical reactions proceeds or how light behaves. The challenging aspect of these studies is the tiny amounts of materials involved which requires new breakthroughs in characterization techniques, such as high powered microscopes and sophisticated detectors.

Application: Nano-materials have shown the promise to improve the performance of existing things and enable unprecedented future developments. Breakthroughs in nano-materials could lead to new sensors, more efficient solar cells, and faster computers.

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The integration of materials with living matter opens new routes to improve our lives. Technological applications of biological processes can produce new structures and efficiently convert energy. On the other hand, the application of technology can enhance body functions and improve therapy. Finally, advances in characterization can shed light on important processes and cure diseases. MST researchers are working on many fundamental aspects of Bio-materials such as:

Biofabrication of Materials: The control over biological processes can be employed to produce new materials  with unprecedented properties and structures.

Biointegration of Materials: When materials interact with biological systems, care has to be taken to provide suitable interfaces and biocompatible surfaces.

Nanoporous Materials: The surface of a material could be used to carry cargos, such as biomolecules, contrast agent. A porous material could carry more cargos compared with a non-porous material by its high surface area; furthermore, the surface properties of porous materials such as pore size, porosity, hydrophilicity could be modified for different applications. A drug delivery system (DDS) is developed by combination of nanoporous material and therapeutic molecules to promote the efficacy of drugs. A series of nanoporous material such as mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HANPs) are synthesized by self-assembly and co-condensation with controllable physical and chemical properties. The nanoporous materials are characterized with transmission electron microscope and nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherm to realize the morphology and surface area of carriers. Therapeutic drugs, pilocarpine is loaded into MSNs while doxorubicin is loaded into HANPs by a simple adsorption process. The release behavior of nanoporous was observed by monitoring the concentration of therapeutic drugs in a simulated environment. The pilocarpine-containing MSNs have a sustainable release behavior, showing a release of pilocarpine for 1 month, while doxorubicin-containing HANPs have a controllable release behavior, showing a release of doxorubicin only in acidic environment. The pilocarpine-containing MSNs are applied for controlling intraocular pressure (IOP) induced by glaucoma. The IOP of glaucomatous rabbit gets controlled for three weeks by injection of drug-containing MSNs. The doxorubicin-containing HANPs are applied for killing bladder cancer cells by intravesical therapy. The efficacy of doxorubicin on killing cancer cell is promoted around 20 times by loading doxorubicin into HANPs.

It is acknowledged that biomass is the most attractive alternative source for fossil feedstock. Nature produces around 170 billion metric tons of biomass per year by way of photosynthesis and out of this ca. 75% is assigned to the class of carbohydrates. But, only 3-4% of these compounds are used by humans for food and non-food purposes. Hence, there is much scope for the development of efficient methods for the conversion of carbohydrates into Sustainable0601 01bc9chemicals. Utilization of biomass feedstock instead of fossil feedstock has various important advantages such as it can make process carbon neutral, biomass is widely available, inexpensive, renewable and sustainable. Therefore, it is highly desirable to convert renewable lignocellulosic biomass selectively into platform chemicals under mild reaction conditions, which can be subsequently be used for the sustainable production of various chemicals.

Water scarcity has long been an issue, forcing us to rely increasingly on degraded water sources such as recycled wastewaters for drinking water or any other purposes. With this increase pressure to reuse, natural attenuation can be a low-cost and ecologically beneficial step to truly ‘close the water loop,’ providing safe, sustainable and publically acceptable way to reuse and final polish the water, a great way to integrate water management with green processes. Many of the existing water reuse practices have included natural attenuation as one of the last step in purifying the water, giving public a sense of ‘nature’ in their recycled waters. Among all the natural purification processes, sunlight photolysis is a powerful process to degrade many of the trace organics, including emerging contaminants, in the aquatic environments when other technologies failed to decompose these pollutants at trace levels. With solar irradiation, the unlimited source of energy, two classes of photochemical mechanisms (direct and indirect photodegradation) occur in natural waters and purify the systems.

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