Wallace H. Coulter Lecture: Sustainable Nanomaterials for Sensing Human Health and the Environment

This talk will describe the use of sustainable nanomaterials for understanding reaction mechanisms, small-scale synthesis, and biosensing. Sustainable nanotechnology is the research and development of nanomaterials with economic and societal benefits and little or no negative environmental impact. Hence, there is a search for nano-synthetic methods that utilize sustainable materials without employing other reductants, capping, or dispersing agents. Notable developments include safer-by-design, electrosynthesis, sonochemistry, and the use of biomass, sugars, and flavonoid precursors. This presentation will discuss a new frontier for safe nanomaterials with tunable surface and electrocatalytic properties, high sorption capacities, and excellent reactivities. The sensing applications of these tunable materials will be presented for pain biomarkers and persistent pollutants.