Symposium EN11-Nanomaterials for the Water and Energy Nexus

Many sectors of the economy are inextricably linked such that research and technology developments in one area can have dramatic impacts on other areas. This is especially evident in the case of water and energy sectors, where energy is used in water production, distribution, and recycling while water is required for energy generation. In many geographical locations around the world, the energy-water nexus is exacerbated by the high-energy intensity of the water production or treatment due to shortage of fresh water resources. This symposium will focus on research and development of new materials and structures for sustainable and environmentally friendly management of water and energy resources. Examples include new composite materials for solar-fueled water treatment and desalination as well as materials for renewable energy generation from solar and unconventional energy sources. Of particular interest are solutions based on using abundant materials as well as material processing technologies that rely on low energy and water usage.

Topics will include:

Materials for solar-driven water desalination and purification
Materials for waste water remediation and produced water treatment
Materials for dew and fog collection, and rainfall enhancement
Solar-driven water oxidation
Photocatalytic materials and nanostructures
Nanophotonic coatings and structures for spectrally-selective solar absorbers
Abundant material solutions for desalination and water-splitting technologies
Modeling of optical, electronic, plasmonic, and heat transfer properties of emerging materials and metamaterials for solar water treatment and photocatalysis

Invited Speakers:

Gang Chen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Junhong Chen (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA)
Yi Cui (Stanford University, USA)
Bin Ding (Donghua University, China)
Gideon Grader (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)
Naomi Halas (Rice University, USA)
Liangbin Hu (University of Maryland, USA)
Victor Klimov (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA)
Gibum Kwon (The University of Kansas, USA)
Shigeo Maruyama (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Baoxia Mi (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Suzana Nunes (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia)
Ralph Nuzzo (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Dimos Poulikakos (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Zuankai Wang (City University of Hong Kong, China)
Omar Yaghi (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Ronggui Yang (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)
Selcuk Yerci (The Middle East Technical University, Turkey)
Jackie Ying (A*STAR, Singapore)
Zongfu Yu (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
Xuehua Zhang (RMIT University, Australia)
Yongmei Zheng (Beihang University, China)
Lin Zhou (Nanjing University, China)
Linda Zou (Masdar Institute, Khalifa University of Science and Technology)