Projects
Metabolomics tools in investigating water PPCPs treatment using natural dye sensitized TiO2/ZnO photodegradation
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have been labeled as emerging contaminants by the EPA, but the removal of PPCPs from the wastewater treatment plant is incomplete, potentially drawing risks in public and the aquatic environment. The research aims at improving the efficiency of natural dye sensitized TiO2/ZnO PPCPs water treatment by clarifying dye components and plant metabolomic influence. TiO2/ZnO sensitized by a proper dye molecule is a low cost, easy-approach method to extend TiO2/ZnO light absorption to a longer wavelength region because pigment electrons are excited by a wider wavelength range and transfer electrons to a TiO2/ZnO conduction band. Our preliminary data shows that Begonia species dramatically increase PPCPs efficiency, however, the performance of different Begonia species extracts on different PPCPs compounds varies significantly. This indicates that a metabolomics study of Begonia species would elucidate the more detailed affecting factors for Begonia dye application in dye sensitized TiO2/ZnO PPCPs treatment and pave the road for the practical applications of this technique.
NMR-based metabolomics as a tool for the environmental toxicology assessment of the coral reefs using sea anemones
Increasing concerns have been raised from declining global biodiversity due to various anthropogenic activities such as overexploitation, habitat destruction, industry, and agriculture. Coral reefs, which have the highest biological biodiversity, productivity and ecological complexity of all marine ecosystems in the world, are exposed to an increasing volume and array of anthropogenic contaminants and suffer simultaneously with relatively rapid global changes in sea surface temperature and ocean acidification. Both global stressors such as the increased sea surface temperature and ocean acidification and a series of anthropogenic contaminants in the waters and sediments such as pesticides, herbicides and trace metals are providing a synergistic effect towards the marine ecosystems. Therefore, improved toxicological risk assessment for contaminants in threatened marine ecosystems and investigation of the synergistic and sequential effects of different environmental stressors are highly demanded and necessary. Our research focused on the metabolomics model to discover the sea anemones metabolomics response to combinational environmental stressors.
Natural dyes and modified natural dyes sensitized solar cells
Dye sensitized solar cells, which convert the renewable solar energy into electricity energy, have arisen as an economically alternative to the photovoltaic devices. The application of the abundant and environmentally friendly natural dyes is a promising development in the field of the technology. The dye sensitizer plays a crucial role in coordinating with the TiO2 surface through various mechanisms, of which the covalent bonding with TiO2 surface atoms is the strongest coupling and provides the most promising performance therefore improve the solar cell efficiency. The presence of a suitable anchoring group will provide effective dye adsorption onto the TiO2 surface and intramolecular charge transfer promotes electronic coupling between the donor levels of the excited dye and the delocalized acceptor levels of the semiconductor conduction band. There is evidence that anthocyanin-related pigments exist in Begonia species serve as the key anchors with TiO2 nanoparticles, therefore lead to the most important property of the solar cell efficiency. However, due to many Glucose-anthocyanins and catechol related components that exist in different Begonia species, no studies have been performed for systematic analysis of the detailed anthocyanin compounds with various functional groups and anchoring motifs. The synergistic or antagonistic effects among different pigment components are critical in improving the solar cell efficiency. Our research focused on the elucidating the structures of the dyes adsorbed on TiO2 particles using NMR, FTIR, and HPLC/MS and optimizing the side factors to achieve the best solar cell efficiency. Furthermore, functional groups modification and orientation of the binding motif optimization will also be applied to further improving the solar cell efficiency.