Development of novel materials play a cruicial role in protecting the US warfighter.  This work will focus on the synthesis and fabrication of materials to support two critical areas; filtration and degradation of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) as well as smoke and obscuration with hopes of creating a multifunctional material to achieve the objectives of both areas.

The first area will focus on the development of novel materials for filtration and degradation of CWAs including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and active zirconia clusters bound to inert supports. These materials are synthesized in-house and characterized fully by techniques such as SEM-EDS, PXRD, nitrogen isotherm, TGA, and FTIR spectroscopy to determine porosity and composition. The resulting materials are assessed for reactivity by NMR and UV-vis studies to determine their ability to degrade CWAs and CWA simulants. Promising materials will be explored in engineered forms (fibers, pellets, etc.) for a variety of applications.

The second area will focus on development of obscurants materials which play a crucial role in protecting the US warfighter. They are materials which will absorb, scatter, or emit radiation in the visible, infrared (IR) and millimeter wavelengths to interrupt the line of sight between an objective and observer.  However, current fielded visible/infrared obscuration technologies (i.e., broadband obscurants such as brass and graphite) are limited in obscuring modern devices due to low obscuring performance, incompatibilities with explosive dissemination, and poor de-agglomeration of the materials upon dissemination in atmospheric conditions.  This work will investigate the synthesis of advance plasmonic ceramic nanofibers, this work is expected to provide new obscuring materials and synthetic strategies to address the Army’s need for broadband obscuration. In addition, the research proposed here will impact the broader scientific community for applications in plasmonic solar cells, enhanced photocatalysis, photothermal therapies, and more.

key words

metal-organic frameworks; zirconia; plasmonic; synthesis; spectroscopy; nanoparticles; aerosol

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral and Senior applicants