Innovation through Design strategy: A material’s journey from coatings to biomedical intervention

Monday, September 13, 2021: 3:00 PM
227 (America's Center)
Dr. Sudipta Seal , University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
Nanoparticles in a variety of forms continue to grow in importance for fundamental research, technological and medical applications. Rare earth metals/oxides in nanoscale are widely studied for their use in catalysis, energy, environmental and bio-medical applications. Recently nanoceria, a redox active material in rare earth family is used as high temperature coatings and additives for Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) slurries in microelectronics. The morphologies of nanoceria plays an important role in determining their redox and catalytic performances. Therefore, the most important aspect in the design of nanoceria needs an understanding of the roles of synthesis variables. The design strategy finally decides the stabilities of crystal planes, phase equilibria, thermodynamics, and defect equilibria in crystal growth mechanism. Our research involves examination of the synthesis design strategies of CNP with various shape and sizes and their effect on the surface chemistry. We rationalize how fluorite structured ceria which is crystallographically isotropic, can grow anisotropically to form nanoparticles, rods, and cubes using a simple hydrothermal route. While high resolution HRTEM is used to follow the particle structure-morphology evolution, the defected surfaces are studied using high resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Atomistic computer simulations were used to help rationalize how the synthetic design impact the particle chemistry. Recently we also discovered the unique antioxidant properties of the same rare earth ceria nanoparticles, where it protects mammalian cells against damage caused by increased reactive oxygen or nitrogen species and has been shown to act as effective superoxide dismutase mimetic in vitro. This presentation will provide a brief overview of the biomedical applications of these redox active nanostructures.
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