Our team focuses on adding value to Wyoming resources that lead to commercialization of high-valuedmaterials. The initial focus has been on one of the most valuable mineral resources of Wyoming – rare earthelements (REEs). The Center develops advanced technologies for 1) REE extraction and separation that areparticularly suited for Wyoming’s REE deposits and with minimal environmental impact, 2) development of REE-based permanent magnets, and 3) REE-based catalysts.
REE-based magnets and catalysts constitute the largest amount of REE use and will have the greatest impact ondiversifying Wyoming’s economy and moving up the REE value chain. Additional projects that are planned for thefuture include advanced materials for energy storage and utilizing byproducts from energy extraction andprocesses as raw materials in designing and producing high value materials.
Vision
Our Center is the lead organization for energy materials research and development at the University ofWyoming. We focus on collaborations within UW, outside of the UW community and with entities focused on thedevelopment of new materials for the energy sectors. Advancement of the understanding of new materials andtheir use is at the core of our mission. A current priority of our center is to contribute to and lead the R&D effortin rare earth separations & purifications, the development of REE permanent magnets & catalysts; andeventually help establish a manufacturing basis in Wyoming for products based on rare earth elements.
Outcomes and accomplishments
Publications
1. Engineering screw dislocations in Covalent Organic Frameworks. Bhausaheb Dhokale, Kira Coe-Sessions, Michael J. Wenzel, Alathea E. Davies, Taylor Kelsey, Jonathan A. Brant, Laura de SousaOliveira, Bruce A. Parkinson, and John O. Hoberg, J. Am. Chem. Soc. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c07859 (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c07859)
2. Functionalized graphene via a one pot reaction enabling exact pore sizes, modifiable
porefunctionalization and precision doping. Kira Coe-Sessions, Alathea E. Davies,
Bhausaheb Dhokale,Michael J. Wenzel, Masoumeh Mahmoudi Gahrouei, Nikiphoros Vlastos,
Jordan Klaassen, Bruce A.Parkinson, Laura de Sousa Oliveira and John O. Hoberg, J.
Am. Chem. Soc. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c10529 (https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c10529)
3. Covalent Integration of Polymers and Porous Organic Frameworks. Amjad Hossain,
Kira Coe-Sessions, Joe Ault, Felix Gboyero, Michael J Wenzel, Bhausaheb Dhokale, Alathea
E Davies, QianYang, Laura De Sousa Oliveira*, Xuesong Li*, John O Hoberg* Frontiers
in Chemistry 2024,DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2024.1502401 (https://www.frontiersin.org/Porous_Crystalline_Networks/10.3389/fchem.2024.1502401/abstract)
Student support
The center actively supports students from across the campus that are involved in materials research forconference travel. Recent student research presentations include:
i. Denver ACS National meeting in August. 2024
a. Felix Gboyero, Kira Coe-Sessions, Michael Wenzel, Alathea Davies, Oreoluwa Adesina
ii. Spring 2024 Materials Research Symposium, Seattle.
a. Masoumeh Mahmoud and Alathea Davies
iii. Fall 2024 Materials Research Symposium, Boston.
a. Masoumeh Mahmoud and Kira Coe-Sessions
PI Research presentations
- Hoberg attended the Materials Genome Initiative meeting in July 29-30 in Washington, DC. and presented“Designing Covalent Organic Frameworks for membrane separations and functionalized graphene with exactpore sizes.
- Oliveira gave an invited lecture at the 2024 NanoSeries conference: “
Nudging the status quo ofsemiconductors through functionalization: electron (and phonon) transport in two-dimensional covalent– andmetal–organic frameworks.” - Jing gave an invited talk at the 4th International Conference on Fundamentals and
Applications of CeriumDioxide in Catalysis (Ceria 2024) in Portorož-Portorose, Slovenia:
Fundamental Studies on the Growth of Ni-based Metal Particles on CeO(111) Thin Films.
Center infrastructure for shared use
The center recently obtained new software packages along with two laptop computers. These include SpartanWavefunction, Crystal Maker, Crystal Diffract, and Single crystal software suite. This software is used for makinghigh quality figures of solid state crystal structures for grant proposals and publications as well as modeling newcompounds that are theoretically predicted. This suite also includes two software packages that help analyzedata from single crystal and powder x-ray diffraction in addition to electron diffraction from transmission electronmicroscopes.
