Nanoparticles and nanocomposites applied to targeted applications sustainable energy, water remediation, and biomedical applications

Website conceptualization and administration: Erwan Rauwel

Research overview:

Sustainable energy, climate change mitigation, water remediation, and biomedical applications

Our research activities are in the frame of 5 UN sustainable development goals: Good health and well being, Cleaner water and sanitation, Affordable and cleaner energy, Climate actions, and Partnership for the goals. Our projects objectives fall in EU-decarbonized energy transition of 2050, and EU Green Deal principles of sustainability and green industry by promoting reusability of new technology and circular economy. Our research team regroups PhD students, researchers and professors from Estonian University of Life Science and Estonian Aviation Academy. Our main goal is to develop solutions based on nanotechnology to present societal problems related to climate change, energy and water scarcity and health.

Our research activities are presently mainly funded by the ETAg TEAM Grant (PRG2115), Thematic research and development programs from Estonian Ministry of Research / ETAg (TEM-TA144) and Mobilitas+ grants (MOBJD1200 and MOBJD1204).
We are a material science and nano-engineering research group with the main research focus on metal oxide and metal nanoparticle synthesis. Our research group is more particularly interested by silver, cobalt, copper, copper nitride, zinc oxide, hafnium dioxide, and hybrid nanomaterials. The main targeted applications are sustainable energy, biocidal coatings, water purification, optoelectronics, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, decrease of air freight carbon footprint, and biomedical application.

In addition to the conventional synthesis methods, green synthesis is an objective of ours. Team main expertise includes also thin film synthesis (ALD, MOCVD, PLD, sputtering), sol-gel chemistry, transmission electron microscopy and related techniques, vacuum techniques, CMOS technology, photoluminescence, scientific writing, research projects.

Our research activities were partially funded by the Estonian Centre of Excellence EQUiTANT TK134 (2015-2023) and EMÜ Bridge Funding (P200030VLVB) (2020-2023).

Latest updates

01/10/2024

Dr. Emmanuel Umejuru started a new position as Postdoctoral researcher in our research team. He will work in the frame of the PRG2115 team grant on the haeavy metal ions extraction from polluted water. Welcome in the team Emmanuel!

19/09/2024

Our research team attended the E-MRS conference 2024 in Warsaw. It was a good opportunity for the PhD students and the postdoc to present their research outcomes. A total of 6 contributions have been presented there (2 oral presentations and 4 poster presentations). It was a nice experience and stay for Priyanka, Sadaf, Keshav, Patrico and Reynald.

26/08/2024

Congratulations to our PhD student Keshav Nagpal who successfully defended his PhD thesis on ZnO nanostructures applied to photodiode at EMÜ, in Tartu, Estonia. He enjoyed the fruitful discussion with his two opponents Prof. Ola Nilsen and Prof. Bertrand Vilquin. We thank them for the very constructive questions and discussion.

Polymer encapsulation of zinc oxide nanostructures for photodiode for LED applications
Congratulation Keshav!

07/06/2024

Keshav Nagpal who is PhD student and will soon defend his thesis, just published his fifth research paper on the study of hybrid UV photodiodes based on ZnO nanorod hierarchical structure in Applied Physics Letters Materials (AIP). Congratulations Keshav!

“Fabrication and evaluation of figures of merit of ZnO polymer-based hybrid UV photodiodes“

24/05/2024

Our PhD students received the award of the best presentation during the Ph.D. students’ Days of the Faculty of Food Engineering, Tourism and Environmental Protection of “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad. Congratulations Patricio (1^stplace) and Reynald (2^nd place)!

21/05/2024

We recently published a manuscript that describe a new methodology to assess the antimicrobial properties of metallic nanoparticles, in International Journal of Molecular Science (MDPI).

“Use of Aloe Vera Gel as Media to Assess Antimicrobial Activity and Development of Antimicrobial Nanocomposites“

16/04/2024

This is big news for the whole team! Our Thematic research and development programs from Estonian Ministry of Research (TEM-TA144) got funded! The Estonian Ministry of Research and Education and Sihtasutus Eesti Teadusagentuur (ETAg) will support our research activities related to Development of nano-additives to optimize jet fuel combustion and reduce carbon footprint.

15/04/2024

Reynald Ponte who is PhD student just published his first research paper on the synthesis of SnO₂ nanoparticles in Journal of Material Science (Springer). Congratulations Reynald!

“Surface-defect tailoring in SnO₂ (CNT) nanomaterials via sol-gel routes and its influence on the cycling stability“

08/01/2024

This is great news for the whole team! Our Team Grant research funding application PRG2115 got funded! Sihtasutus Eesti Teadusagentuur(ETAg) will support our research activities related to water remediation (extraction of heavy metal ions, dye removal and removing bacteria).