2019 SNO Conference

Sustainable Nanotechnology in the 2020’s

This year’s SNO conference will focus on looking forward in time to understand where nanotechnology is making the most significant environmental and sustainable scientific breakthroughs and demonstrate how applications using nanotechnology can be sustainably developed between 2020 to 2030. A group of dynamic experts to help lead and shape the field have been asked to organize sessions on: Emerging Nanotechnologies for Sustainable Energy; NanoEducation; Food and Agriculture; Water Treatment and Remediation; Fate, Transport and Exposure; Measuring Nanomaterial Exposure & Effects in Environmental Health Research; Green Synthesis and Green Manufacturing; and Nanomaterials in Indoor Environments. These topics are critical areas where nanotechnology can achieve major breakthroughs, and this conference provides a forum for approximately 150 attendees to share ideas, develop collaborations, and recognize accomplishments of leaders in the field.

2019 CONFERENCE SESSIONS

1A and 2A. Tribute to Arturo Keller
Chairs: Jorge Gardea Torresdey, UTEP; Adeyemi Adeleye, UC Irvine
Emails: jgardea@utep.edu and adeleyea@uci.edu
Arturo Keller has made outstanding contributions to the promotion of sustainable nanotechnology by pioneering research on the mass flow of commercially-used engineered nanoparticles throughout their lifecycle, advancing knowledge on the physicochemical fate of engineered nanoparticles, as well as their potential impacts on organisms in aquatic and terrestrial systems. He is also actively leading efforts in safely applying nanotechnology for water disinfection, pollution remediation, and sustainable agriculture. He is the Co-Director of a National Science Foundation center, the UC Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC-CEIN), and a US Environmental Protection Agency center, the Chemical Life Cycle Collaborative (CLiCC). As a key member of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization (SNO), Arturo Keller has chaired or co-chaired the SNO Conference twice—in 2013 and 2017. This session, in honor of the Arturo Keller for his immense contributions, will bring together leaders in different fields related to sustainable nanotechnology to share recent research findings, and discuss the next set of questions that researchers interested in sustainable application of nanotechnology need to be seeking to answer.

1B and 2B Emerging nano-technologies for sustainable energy
Chairs: Andrea Hicks, University of Wisconson; David Fenning, UC San Diego
Emails: hicks5@wisc.edu and dfenning@eng.ucsd.edu
This session includes photovoltaic and light emitting materials, selective absorbers/emitters, (photo)(electro)catalysis, phase change materials, and ion intercalation materials for energy storage, as well as fundamentals of nanoscale energy conversion and charge transfer mechanisms. In addition to emphasis on physical and materials fundamentals, this session will provide a forum for holistic consideration of barriers to adoption and cradle-to-grave impacts of nanoscale energy conversion technologies.

1C and 2C Food and Agriculture
Chairs: Yu Yang, University of Nevada, Reno; Hongda Chen, US Dept.of Agriculture; Leanne M. Gilbertson, University of Pittsburgh
E-mails: yuy@unr.edu, HCHEN@nifa.usda.gov and leanne.gilbertson@pitt.edu
There is a globally recognized need for solutions to sustainably advance the future of food and agriculture systems. Novel applications of nanomaterials are being developed and propose substantial benefits through their use in applications across the agriculture system. Our symposium will highlight the recent advances in this emerging area of sustainable nanotechnology research. We specifically invite abstracts on the topics related to applications (e.g., precision agriculture input, disease detection and intervention, food quality and safety improvement, etc.), assessment of potential implications (we are particularly interested in studies that advance our mechanistic understanding of nanomaterial plant interactions), lab- and field-scale studies, and systems-level sustainability assessment.

3A and 4A Water Treatment and Remediation
Chairs: Navid Saleh University of Texas Austin; Debora Rodrigues, University of Houston
Emails: navid.saleh@utexas.edu and dfrigirodrigues@uh.edu
This session presents new and emerging technologies for water treatment. This section is related, but not limited to, studies implementing nanotechnologies in membranes, photocatalysis, adsorption, and other water treatment technologies to remove chemical and biological contaminants.

3B and 4B Fate, Transport and Exposure
Chairs: Yandi Yu and Stacey Louie both University of Houston
Emails: yhu11@uh.edu and slouie@uh.edu
The session encourages abstracts on new research to better understand and predict the fate and transport of nanomaterials and their biological interactions in natural environments as well as engineering and biomedical applications. Topics covered will extend from fundamental nanoscale investigations of nanoparticle transformations and cellular interactions, to broad system-level analyses of nanomaterial fate, transport and exposure. Innovative approaches to address these topics through laboratory experiments, field studies, and modeling are all encouraged.

3C. Measuring Nanomaterial Exposure & Effects in Environmental Health Research
Chair: Christie Sayes, Baylor University
Email: christie_sayes@baylor.edu
This session highlights some of the most recent advances in nanomaterial characterization and its relevance to environmental health sciences. There are many engineered nanomaterial physicochemical characteristics (PCC) to measure, but not all are imperative to successful and sustainable product development and environmental health considerations. There is a need to define which PCC is critical versus trivial. The question must be asked: does this PCC have a potential to impact safety, efficacy, or quality? If no, the PCC may not be critical. If yes, the PCC must be measured and added to the list of product-specific critical characteristics. Together, all critical metric should be used to assess the relative magnitude of safety, efficacy, or quality impact to the surrounding environment.

4C. Green Synthesis and Green Manufacturing
Chair: Desiree Plata at MIT
Email: dplata@mit.edu
This session seeks to define some of the critical challenges facing nano manufacturing scalability and translation to market, some of the chief environmental concerns that may exist, and emergent design rules to help simultaneously surmount those issues and enable the translation of nano materials to market. Utilization of the principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering will be emphasized. Many of the largest environmental impacts from emergent nanotechnologies are associated with manufacturing of those materials, and efforts are needed to overcome these challenges. Realizing the promise of nanotechnology requires scalable, sustainable processes, and the pathway to those scaled production practices can be illuminated by a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to the nano-enabled performance and nano-derived environmental hazards.

5A. Nanomaterials and Indoor Environments
Chairs: Candace Tsai, University of Colorago; Kyle Doudrick, Notre Dame
Email: Candace.Tsai@colostate.edu and kdoudrick@nd.edu
This session will focus on the presence, release, and behavior of engineered and incidental nanoparticles in indoor environments. Nanoparticles, whether released from consumer products (e.g., cleaners, food) or formed from household activities (e.g., cooking), can have a potential impact on the indoor environmental quality. Key topics of interest include nanoparticle use and release from consumer products (e.g., paints), the incidental formation of nanoparticles from anthropogenic sources, the interaction of nanoparticles with indoor pollutants (e.g., VOCs), and the interaction of nanoparticles with indoor surfaces, and the mass flow of nanoparticles (e.g., dust accumulation).

5B. Nanoeducation
Chairs: Jorge Loyo, Rice University; Anjali Mulchandani, Arizona State University
Email: jl149@rice.edu and anjalim@asu.edu
This session will explore different strategies to include nanotechnology and sustainability concepts in education programs, and their role in attracting students to careers in STEM. We welcome contributions on education programs and curriculum development in nanotechnology-related areas including undergraduate and graduate courses, project-based learning, collaborative online learning, K-12 STEM engagement, and exploration of policy, economics and societal issues.