Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials

Carbon-rich compounds and materials have garnered much attention recently due to their small band gaps and thus applications as organic conductors and ferromagnets that form monolayers in solid-phase state. One such type of materials that can form carbon monolayers are [N]phenylenes, hydrocarbons built of fused alternating aromatic benzene and anti-aromatic cyclobutadiene rings. Vollhardt’s group has [...]

Planar electron-accepting π-systems are useful building blocks for both nonlinear optical and organic electronic applications. We have recently developed a convenient synthesis of dibromo bithiophenes and bithiazoles of type I (see below) that relies upon the base-catalyzed “Halogen dance”, in which the lithiation initially takes place adjacent to the bromine atom, before changing places with [...]

A series of presentations on light-matter interactions have been given at the West Las Vegas Middle School. These have served to promote connections between local schools and PREM program. Three NMHU PREM students organized four different science presentations, each approximately one hour in length for 80 students total for the science class of Mr. Michael [...]

1 Howard University, Washington, DC 20059 2 Academy of Sciences, Chisinau, Moldova 3 International Laboratory of High Magnetic Fields and Low Temperatures, Wroclaw, Poland. 4 Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 In topological insulators (TI) there is conduction by the surface Rashba states and inside of the material. A group lead by [...]

Scott Sinex, professor of physical sciences and engineering at Prince George’s Community College and co-PI of the PREM involving Prince George’s Community College, Howard University and the Johns Hopkins University was acknowledged by the Krell Institute and the Department of Energy, for developing interactive spreadsheets teaching materials science  and chemistry Sinex’s interactive spreadsheets, called Excelets, [...]

Download NMHU-PREM-0934212-X-ray diffraction Photodynamic therapy (PDT) combines a drug (called a photosensitizer) with a specific type of light to kill cancer cells. The general goal of LMITA Thrust 1 to find efficient synthetic route to obtain E,E-3,5-bis(thienylidene)piperid-4-ones with donor substituents, that will be tested as materials for photodynamic therapy as photosensitizer. Undergraduate student Rachel Lucero [...]

The energy content of the world’s standing terrestrial biomass carbon (i.e., the renewable, above-ground biomass that could be harvested and potentially used as an energy resource) is estimated as approximately 100 times the world’s total annual energy consumption.1 The catalytic conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into intermediates that can be used to produce fuels and high-value [...]

Download highlight On April 10, 2010 Wi(PR)2EM and the Science on Wheels Educational Center (SONW) organized and coordinated the NanoDays event at the Mayagüez Mall that we called in Spanish DíasNano.  The Mayagüez Mall is the main shopping mall in western Puerto Rico.  This large event was a collaboration between Wi(PR)2EM, SONW, the NSF funded [...]

JSU-UCSB PREM Participants presented Nanoscience exhibition at the Capital Science Museum at Jackson, MS. During the exhibition, several demos were used to demonstrate and engage the audience on the beauty of Nanoscience.. The overall goal of the event was to expose and prepare community students to consider various Nanobased science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) [...]

Dulal Senapati, Anant K Singh and Paresh Chandra Ray Department of Chemistry, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS, USA Acknowledgements: Dr. Ray thanks NSF-PREM grant # DMR-0611539 and NIH-SCORE grant # S06GM 008047 and DOD grant # W 912HZ-06-C-0057 for their generous funding We have demonstrated that real time evolution of intermediates of colloidal nanocrystals can [...]

Jhansi Rani Kalluri, Tahir Arbneshi, Sadia Afrin Khan, Adria Neely, Perry Candice, Birsen Varisli, Marla Washington, Shardae McAfee, Britinia Robinson, Santanu Banerjee, Anant Kumar Singh, Dulal Senapati, and Paresh Chandra Ray Department of Chemistry, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS, USA The contamination of drinking water with arsenic poses a threat to global health. As many [...]

The aim of the project is to develop a continuous and environmentally friendly process using twin screw extrusion technology for enzymatic conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to simple sugars and other high value end products. A significant finding of our current research is that commercially available enzymes (cellulases) are active in N-methyl morpholine oxide (NMMO) – [...]

The five technical divisions of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) -Electronic, Magnetic & Photonic Materials, Extraction & Processing, Light Metals, Materials Processing & Manufacturing, and Structural Materials – sponsored the Student Poster Contest during the 2009 TMS Annual Conference & Exhibition held in San Francisco on February 15-19, 2009. The Poster Contest winners [...]

During the 2008 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference held in Washington, DC on November 20-23, 2008 UPRM PREM student Ronald Carrasquillo (Chemical Engineering) presented the poster titled “Development of an Alternative Aluminum Matrix Composite for Bearing Applications,” which was co-authored by undergraduate students Roberto Rivera (Chemical Engineering) and Yarimar Martínez (Industrial Engineering), [...]

The National Science Foundation has recently awarded $5 millions to the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez for the establishment of a nanotechnology center focused on research and education of biomedical and energy-driven systems and applications. This five-year project, set to start on September 1st, is led by doctors Carlos Rinaldi, Arturo Hernández, Oscar Perales, [...]

In July 2008 the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society (MRS) has unanimously approved the establishment of an MRS chapter at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez (UPRM).

The American Society for Materials (ASM International) has named PREM professor, Dr. Kumar Sridharan a Fellow of the society. Dr. Sridharan is a distinguished research professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) Engineering Physics Department.

The summer of 2008 has become the most active season for outreach to diverse groups for the UPRM/UW PREM. Besides the scheduled research activities involving public high school teachers, this PREM partnered with other UPRM initiatives intended to attract and retain students interested in Engineering and Science. In early July five teachers from Mayagüez, Cabo [...]

The doping of MgB2 precast material with 2 at.% and 5 at.% TaB2 under varying high energy processing ball milling conditions with Pulverisete-4 and Spex mills was carried in order to investigate critical current enhancement condition. Higher critical current densities were achieved with the 5 at.% TaB2-doped MgB2 than with the 2 at.% doped MgB2. [...]