(Press-News.org) Zachary Tonzetich, an associate professor in the UTSA College of Sciences’ chemistry department, is part of a duo that has been awarded a one-year, $100,000 grant from The Welch Foundation for a project that could remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere.
Tonzetich and his research collaborator Anthony Cozzolino, an associate professor in Texas Tech University’s chemistry department, were the recipients of a WelchX pilot grant this past August. The WelchX program brings together leading chemistry researchers from across Texas to address challenging issues that are relevant to society.
Tonzetich and Cozzolino’s project, “Soft Lewis Acid Directed Reductive C-C Bond Formation for the Generation of Platform Chemicals from CO2,” proposes the development of a new technology to convert carbon dioxide from a greenhouse gas to an unprocessed raw material that could be used to produce new chemical products such as fuels or polymers. If successful, this project could create a productive new area of catalysis research and reduce greenhouse emissions that are harmful to the environment.
“Our plan is to create new catalysts that can utilize CO2 to generate molecules that will be useful to chemical manufacturing,” said Tonzetich. “The advantage of using CO2 as a source is that it is abundant, readily available, and we could potentially remove it from the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Tonzetich was tapped for the research grant due to his expertise in catalysis with Earth-abundant transition metals, which are metallic elements such as iron and nickel that are more common components of earth’s crust than scarce metals such as palladium. Additionally, he is widely recognized for his work in hydrogenation and hydroboration catalysis, two methods that can be used to transform alkenes (compounds with carbon-carbon double bonds) into new products such as detergents, fuel and plastics.
This past summer, The Welch Foundation hosted a retreat in Houston. Tonzetich was among the group of early to mid-career tenured faculty from across the state invited to participate.
At the retreat, themed, “Chemistry for Sustainability,” participants were asked to explore innovative solutions to clean energy, materials production and usage that could earn them a WelchX Pilot Grant.
The retreat included activities designed to encourage discussions about research collaboration and how investigators can be successful. Participants were tasked with finding a partner and developing a new research idea. At the end of the conference, participants were asked to collaborate with their partners to produce a full research proposal to the Welch Foundation that would be due in 10 days. Although the accelerated timeline posed a challenge, Tonzetich and Cozzolino submitted their competitive proposal within the allotted time frame, resulting in this new funding.
“The retreat experience was overwhelmingly positive,” said Tonzetich. “It gave me the opportunity to connect with my peers from around the state and to learn about different viewpoints on science and collaboration.”
Tonzetich’s research interests include earth-abundant metal catalysis, bioinorganic chemistry and coordination chemistry. The Tonzetich Lab specializes in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry with most of the synthetic work that occurs in the lab involving the manipulation of air and moisture-sensitive materials.
“With this funding from the Welch Foundation, we will explore a new paradigm in catalyst design that addresses the challenges of mitigating the harmful effects of carbon emissions,” said Tonzetich. “I thank the university for supporting my attendance at the WelchX Conference, which was an excellent opportunity to meet other researchers from around the state and share the exciting science taking place here at UTSA.”
The Welch Foundation is one of the largest and most established private funding sources for chemistry research in the nation. It supports fundamental chemical research at universities, colleges and other education institutions in Texas.
END
UTSA study could remove carbon emissions from atmosphere
2023-10-12
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New research shows why hunting for the cheapest plane ticket is a waste of your time
2023-10-12
Buy your ticket on a Tuesday. Search in your browser’s incognito mode. Use a VPN to pretend you live in Suriname.
“There are so many hacks out there for finding cheaper airline tickets,” says Olivia Natan, an assistant professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business. “But our data shows many of these beliefs are wrong.”
With four colleagues—Ali Hortaçsu and Timothy Schwieg from the University of Chicago, Kevin Williams from Yale, and Hayden Parsley from the University of Texas at Austin—Natan looked deeply into the structure and processes behind how ...
Commonly prescribed hypertension drug, amlodipine, not actually dangerous
2023-10-12
A new paper in the journal Function, published by Oxford Univetrsity Press, finds that a widely prescribed drug for treating hypertension, amlodipine, is not dangerous for patients, despite recent concerns from researchers and clinicians that taking amlodipine may have risks.
Approximately 700,000 Americans die from hypertension each year and researchers believe some 116 million Americans (and one in five adults worldwide) have the disease, which is responsible for 7.6 million deaths per year. If untreated, hypertension significantly increases ...
Cycling in school improves teenagers’ mental health, but wider social factors may impact benefits
2023-10-12
Physical activity has positive effects on mental health and yet, activity rates are declining. This is particularly worrying because the mental well-being of teenagers continues to deteriorate. In the US, one in six school children is diagnosed with some type of mental disorder.
Riding bikes is a promising approach to introduce school-aged children to physical activity. Now, researchers in the US have investigated how adolescents’ psychosocial well-being changed after participating in a school-based cycling program.
“Participation in a school cycling education program during the Covid-19 pandemic was associated with improved psychosocial well-being amongst middle schoolers in the ...
New technology for customized air purification of toxic gases
2023-10-12
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in daily products such as paints, adhesives, furniture, cosmetics, and deodorants make our lives easier. However, constant exposure can cause serious health problems such as respiratory illness, headaches, dermatitis, and cancer. Natural ventilation is the most effective way to reduce VOCs in indoor air, but recently, air purifiers have become a common method to maintain indoor air quality due to the frequent extreme outdoor condition (e.g. high concentration of fine dust, heat waves, and extreme cold). Generally, air purifiers remove ...
Enlightening insects: Morpho butterfly nanostructure inspires technology for bright, balanced lighting
2023-10-12
Osaka, Japan – As you watch Morpho butterflies wobble in flight, shimmering in vivid blue color, you’re witnessing an uncommon form of structural color that researchers are only beginning to use in lighting technologies such as optical diffusers. Furthermore, imparting a self-cleaning capability to such diffusers would minimize soiling and staining and maximize practical utility.
Now, in a study recently published in Advanced Optical Materials, researchers at Osaka University have developed a water-repelling ...
Majority of cancer patients interested in complementary therapies for treatment
2023-10-12
WASHINGTON (Oct. 12, 2023) – Patients and oncologists are supportive of complementary therapies, such as nutrition counseling, exercise, massage, and mediation, for cancer treatment, according to a new survey conducted on behalf of the Healing Works Foundation. However, a disconnect exists between this growing interest and oncologists’ perceptions of patient support. One-third of oncologists said their patients lack interest in these therapies, but only 13% of cancer patients cite lack of interest when asked ...
TikTok may help farmers cultivate empathy around climate change
2023-10-12
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Farmers are used to growing crops and producing other goods, but a new study led by Penn State researchers suggests the social media platform TikTok may help them cultivate something new: empathy around the issue of climate change.
The researchers published their work in the Journal of Rural Studies.
The team, who analyzed responses to climate change TikToks posted by farmers, found that many people responded to the videos with warmth and compassion, signaling emotional empathy.
However, the researchers also found that the videos were not as successful at triggering cognitive empathy ...
Japan’s technology progress pushes laser fusion energy closer to commercialization Ex-Fusion and Tokyo Tech establish collaborative research cluster
2023-10-12
EX-Fusion Inc. (CEO: Kazuki Matsuo, hereinafter referred to as "EX-Fusion") has established a Collaborative Research Cluster focused on advancing liquid metal devices (Terminology 1) for the realization of commercial laser fusion reactors (Figure1, Terminology 2) in collaboration with Tokyo Institute of Technology (President: Kazuya Masu, hereinafter referred to as "Tokyo Tech"). The signing ceremony to formalize this partnership was held on October 11, marking the official commencement of their joint efforts.
The ‘EX-Fusion Liquid Metal Collaborative Research Cluster’ has been established with the support of the Tokyo Tech's Open Innovation Platform. ...
Flooding that closed Alaska's Dalton Highway also caused widespread ground sinking
2023-10-12
The massive 2015 flooding of the Sagavanirktok River in northern Alaska had immediate impacts, including closure of the Dalton Highway for several days, but it also contributed to longer-term ground subsidence in the permafrost-rich region.
That’s the finding by assistant professor Simon Zwieback at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute in a study published Sept. 27 by the journal Permafrost and Periglacial Processes.
Zwieback is the paper’s lead author. UAF scientists Mikhail Kanevskiy, Donald Walker, Vladimir ...
Private renting is making you age faster
2023-10-12
A new study, jointly conducted by the University of Adelaide and University of Essex, has found that renting, rather than owning, a private-sector home leads to faster biological ageing.
The negative health impacts of renting were shown to be greater than those of experiencing unemployment or being a former smoker.
“Our findings demonstrate that housing circumstances have a significant impact on biological ageing, even more so than other important social determinants, such as unemployment, for example, and therefore health impacts should be an important consideration shaping housing policies,” ...