Department Seminar
Upcoming Seminar
Photochemistry in Natural and Engineered Environmental Systems
Dr. Garrett McKay, Texas A&M University
April 24, 2024
4:00pm-5:00pm in HSCI-105
The chemical structure of chromophores in dissolved organic matter (DOM) governs the mechanisms and rates of key processes in aquatic systems—elemental cycles, attenuation of contaminants, and productivity of the Earth's oceans, among others. Despite the importance of DOM chromophores, knowledge of the molecular-level phenomena that shape DOM's optical and photochemical properties remains elusive. A crucial step to obtaining this knowledge is to elucidate the chemical composition and quantitative contribution of charge-transfer complexes (non-covalent interactions between molecules that produce new, lower-energy electronic transitions) to DOM absorbance, fluorescence, and photochemistry. This presentation will describe my group's efforts to address this knowledge gap using a variety of approaches, including (i) selective reduction of chromophores in DOM with sodium borohydride, (ii) using autoxidized hydroquinone as a "bottom up" approach to test the charge-transfer model, and (iii) comparison of aquatic DOM to other carbon-based nanostructures (i.e., atmospheric brown carbon and eumelanin). These results will be used to discuss the importance of both specific functional groups and three-dimensional structure in governing DOM photophysical properties.
Seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:00pm. All are invited to attend.
Seminar Coordinator
For information and suggestions about our Department Seminar series, please contact the seminar coordinator:
Dr. Fangyuan Tian
Fangyuan.Tian@csulb.edu
Schedule
The following is the schedule for Spring 2024.
Date | Title | Speaker and Affiliation |
---|---|---|
April 24, 2024 | Photochemistry in Natural and Engineered Environmental Systems | Dr. Garrett McKay, Texas A&M University |
May 1, 2024 | Introduction of Defects and Ligands into a Metal Organic Framework | Lauren Benz, University of San Diego |
May 8, 2024 | (topic: inorganic chemistry) | Joshua Figueroa, UC San Diego |
Previous Seminars
Date | Title | Speaker and Affiliation |
---|---|---|
April 17, 2024 | From Betty Crocker Homemaker to Chemist in the Kitchen | Dr. Margaret Merryfield, CSU Long Beach |
April 10, 2024 | Solar Water Splitting using Ensembles of Artificial Photosynthetic Nanoreactor | Dr. Shane Ardo, UC Irvine |
March 27, 2024 | Quest for the Nature of Noncovalent Interactions Using Energy Decomposition Analysis | Dr. Yuezhi Mao, San Diego State University |
March 13, 2024 | The Chemistry of the Canopy: A Data-Driven Exploration of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Urban-Biosphere Interface | Dr. Sarah Kavassalis, Harvey Mudd College |
March 6, 2024 | Nanocrystal Self-Assembly: Designing Materials with Complexity and Function | Dr. Andrea Tao, UC San Diego |
February 28, 2024 | Measurement in Chemistry Education: Examining the Past and Supporting the Future | Dr. Regis Komperda, San Diego State University |
February 14, 2024 | From Ab Initio Data to Action: Leveraging Many-Body Potentials for Realistic Simulations of Water Harvesting and Carbon Capture Using Metal-Organic Frameworks | Dr. Francesco Paesani, UC San Diego |
The Seminar Archive has Department Seminars from previous semesters.
The Department Seminar is supported by The Allergan Foundation.