This Nanotechnology in Undergraduate Education (NUE) award to Professor Harry Dorn at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is made by the Division of Chemistry to support a short-course for undergraduates involving over thirty small colleges in the Appalachian Region (with the Appalachian College Association). The course will focus on hands-on preparation and characterization of the new carbonaceous nanomaterials discovered during the last twenty years. The course on the preparation, properties, and applications of these new nanomaterials will be conducted at both Virginia Tech and Emory and Henry College with visits to local nanotechnology firms. The course will demonstrate how new nanomaterials can be prepared and purified with very simple equipment that can be transferred to any of the small colleges involved in the program.
Carbonaceous materials, such as fullerenes "buckyballs," endohedral metallofullerenes, and nanotubes are evolving as important new building blocks in nanotechnology. This project endeavors to educate and train undergraduates in the Appalachian region in the newly emerging field of nanotechnology as part of an effort to spur economic development in the area. One of the participating nanotechnology firms, Luna Innovations, is planning to build a new plant in Southwest Virginia to manufacture fullerenes, trimetaspheres, and nanotubes. The course is designed to interest and train a new, better qualified, workforce and to educate undergraduates for advanced academic degrees.
The proposal for this award was received in response to the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education announcement, NSF 03-044, category NUE.
