Monolayers Materials Research Laboratories

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is researching the use of self-assembled monolayers on mesoporous supports (SAMMS) technology for the removal of metals and radionuclides from liquid and gaseous hazardous wastes. SAMMS combines two technologies—mesoporous ceramic material and functionalized monolayers. The ceramic material has pores that increase its surface area. This ceramic material is coated with functionalized monolayers that form stable, covalent bonds with the contaminants. 

One of the points made in Schwenz and Moore was that the physical chemistry laboratory should better reflect the range of activities found in current physical chemistry research. This is reflected in part by the inclusion of modem instrumentation and computational methods, as noted extensively above, but also by the choice of topics. A number of experiments developed since Schwenz and Moore reflect these current topics. Some are devoted to modem materials, an extremely active research area, that I have broadly construed to include semiconductors, nanoparticles, self-assembled monolayers and other supramolecular systems, liquid crystals, and polymers. Others are devoted to physical chemistry of biological systems. I should point out here, that with rare exceptions, I have not included experiments for the biophysical chemistry laboratory in this latter category, primarily because the topics of many of these experiments fall out of the range of a typical physical chemistry laboratory or lecture syllabus. Systems of environmental interest were well represented as well. 

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