This three-year award supports U.S.-France cooperative research in photocatalysis between David F. Ollis of the North Carolina State University and Pierre Pichat of the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France. The award provides travel support to Dr. Ollis and his students. The objective of the research is to improve the photocatalytic treatment of contaminated air at ambient pressure. The investigators propose two approaches. The first is to cause chain reactions induced by chlorine radicals. The second approach has the objective of increasing the efficiency of contaminant capture and its removal from air with the assistance of a solid adsorbent. The project takes advantage of French expertise in mechanistic and analytical chemical techniques and may result in improvements to photocatalytic oxidation.
