CSE Grant News-Green Chemistry | Dickinson College

CSE Grant Funds Help Student Obtain Student Travel Award for Green Chemistry

Ciba Student Travel Award from the Green Chemistry Institute of the American Chemical Society

Aaron BrumbaughAaron Brumbaugh '14 applied for and was awarded a Ciba Student Travel Award from the Green Chemistry Institute of the American Chemical Society. This award will cover up to $2000 of costs for him to attend the April national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans and present student-faculty research conducted at Dickinson College in the Summer 2012 with support from the Center for Sustainability Education (CSE). Only four awards were made from a national pool that included high school, undergraduate, and graduate students working in green chemistry. And Aaron is the only recipient from a liberal arts college. Aaron will present a poster in the Division of Inorganic Chemistry and in the symposium Undergraduate Research at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry.

Authors:

Aaron Brumbaugh'14; Katelyn Cohen '12; & Sarah K. St. Angelo, Department of Chemistry

Title:

Green synthesis and characterization of bioreduced nanoparticles

Abstract:

In this study, aqueous metal salts were reacted with with plant leaf extracts to produce nanoparticles. Nanoparticles were synthesized using mild reaction conditions and a plant-based reducing agent. UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy was used to determine if colloidal samples contained anisotropic nanoparticles. A wide range of nanoparticle size was observed, with HR-TEM being necessary to visualize the smallest nanoparticles. SEM-EDS was performed on nanoparticles synthesized from a mixed-metal solution to determine particle composition.