We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

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September 26, 2013

Speaker: Paul A. Charpentier, Western University

Title: Supercritical Fluids- A Unique Methodology for Advanced Materials

Abstract: This talk will give an overview of our research groups recent advances in nanoscience for emerging areas in alternative energy and device fabrication. In particular, the talk will explore the work in our lab using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) as an enabling vehicle for the synthesis of a new generation of nanomaterials and nanodevices due to its low viscosity, high diffusivity, and “zero” surface tension. Our synthesis methodology utilizes sol-gel and polymer chemistry, while being able to combine these into a unique one-pot procedure. This methodology has allowed the formation of well defined nanostructures of metal oxides including TiO₂ and modified titania with ZrO₂, Fe, N and other dopants by this template-free scalable method, along with their polymer nancomposites. In addition, scCO₂ has been an invaluable solvent for producing advanced materials from carbonaceous substances such as graphenes, carbon aerogels and a variety of nanocrystals such as quantum dots (QDs). The formation of these nano structures has been monitored by in situ FTIR in which the titania alkoxides were found to form hexamer crystal structures that react and self-assemble by sol-gel and supramolecular chemistry through the acetate ligands. The directed self-assembly and interactions between graphene and TiO₂ were comprehensively studied using Vienna ab-initio Simulation Package (VASP) based Density Functional Theory (DFT). This talk will examine the structure-function relationship of these materials for several applications in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), light-selective nanofilms for greenhouse films, self-cleaning polymer coatings, and biomedical devices, where being able to control the nanostructure was found to provide unique functional materials with superior properties.