Cafer T. Yavuz

Please visit CaferYavuz.com

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:32:00 +0000

I've been at KAIST since June 2010 and maintaining the following website. Please visit CaferYavuz.com to access the latest. Thanks for visiting.

www.caferyavuz.com

Visiting Princeton March 8-9

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:51:00 +0000

I'll be visiting Princeton University next Monday to give a talk on:

Sustainable nanoscale solutions for environmental challenges

Grand environmental challenges often require fundamental approaches to the chemistry that best tackles with them. And the good things do come in small packages. Together with the low cost and accessible technologies, there is great potential for durable nanoscale solutions that can be widely applied. Arsenic removal by magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals that are made from everyday chemicals such as edible oils and rust presents not just another way but one with significant potential for the dissemination of the procedure to the end users. With the power of the open source concept, this knowledge can be improved, tested and if necessary revised. Similarly, one can develop reversible carbon dioxide (CO2) capture by using metal oxides from the refuge or junkyards. We suggest that zinc and magnesium mixed carbonates or hydrotalcites offer the most feasible and reversible sorption. Catalysis with nano materials offers significant advantage in greenhouse gas (esp. CO2 and CH4) conversion to environmentally benign chemical feedstocks.

Elected to the advisory board of I-SWEEEP

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:26:00 +0000

I was elected to the advisory board of The International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering & Environment) Project Olympiad (I-SWEEEP) by the olympiad committee. The I-SWEEEP 2010 will be held between April 14 and April 19, 2010.

I-SWEEEP, the International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering, and Environment) Project Olympiad, is a groundbreaking science fair open to middle and high school students. It is the largest science fair event of its kind world-wide. I-SWEEEP is organized by the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit educational organization in Houston with a mission to establish college preparatory K-12 schools focusing on math, science, engineering, and computer technologies in an effort to provide a world-class education to public. Cosmos Foundation currently operates 19 high performing public STEM schools in Texas. Cosmos Foundation organizes this prestigious event with the support of K-12 public school systems, leaders of industry, and higher education institutions. I-SWEEEP works with local, national, and international science fair organizations to bring together the top-ranking participants and qualifying projects from these competitions. Houston will again be home to the third I-SWEEEP in April 14-19, 2010 in George R. Brown Convention Center.

One more in Nano Letters

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Jeongmin gave me the great news this morning. His paper on which I'm an author of, got accepted at Nano Letters with minor revisions. Here is the info:

"Pd-sensitized single vanadium oxide nanowires: highly-responsive hydrogen sensing based on the Mott transition", Jeong Min Baik, Myung Hwa Kim, Christopher Larson, Cafer T. Yavuz, Galen D. Stucky, Alec M. Wodtke*, and Martin Moskovits*

Papers in Nanotechnology and Nano Letters

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:37:00 +0000

I'm a co-author in the following recent articles:

“Applying analytical ultracentrifugation to nanocrystal suspensions”, J. A. Jamison, K. M. Krueger, J. T. Mayo, C. T. Yavuz, J. J. Redden, V. L. Colvin*, Nanotechnology. 20, 355702-12 (2009).

“Growth of metal oxide nanowires from supercooled liquid nanodroplets”, M. H. Kim, B. Lee, S. Lee, C. Larson, J. M. Baik, C. T. Yavuz, S. Seifert, S. Vajda, R. E. Winans, M. Moskovits, G. D. Stucky, A. M. Wodtke*, Nano Lett., articles ASAP.

Two recent articles

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:12:00 +0000

The following articles were out recently:

"Markedly Improved CO₂ Capture Efficiency and Stability of Gallium Substituted Hydrotalcites at Elevated Temperatures", Cafer T. Yavuz*, Brian D. Shinall, Alexei V. Iretskii*, Mark G. White, Tim Golden, Mert Atilhan, Peter C. Ford and Galen D. Stucky, Chemistry of Materials, 2009, 21 (15), 3473–3475.

"Magnetic separations: From steel plants to biotechnology", Cafer T. Yavuz, Arjun Prakash, J.T. Mayo and Vicki L. Colvin*, Chemical Engineering Science, 64 (10), 2009, 2510-2521

Please contact me if you don't have access to these journals and need a copy of the papers.

*denotes corresponding authors.

My first grant as a PI

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:03:00 +0000

Early Sunday, about 3 am in the morning, I got a phone call from my dear friend Prof. Mert Atilhan that the grant we applied for was awarded. This marks my first (substantial) grant as a principal investigator (PI). It's for $1,035,382 to be exact and the duration is 3 years. Thanks Qatar Foundation!

The abstract is as follows (from here):

"The aim of this proposed work is to create high surface area solid state materials that can be precisely defined at the atomic level in order to provide a high throughput basis for the optimization of CO2 capture, conversion and co-activation with methane.
This proposed work focuses on the design, production, characterization and testing of materials that potentially have a high capability of capturing carbon dioxide from natural gas precombustion feed and post combustion effluent gases. Conversion and coactivation with methane will also be sought in the scope of this proposal. First phase of our work is to design and synthesize the candidate materials. Second phase will contain testing for carbon dioxide capture performances and catalytic co-activation with methane. The sorbent catalysts that show promise will be advanced to the third phase where pilot scale tests will take place. Following groups will be investigated:
• Mesoporous materials with compositional and structural functionality for CO2 capture, conversion and coactivation
• Hydrotalcites
• Oxime based Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF)
• High surface area inorganic carbonates, borates and iodates
Upon completion of the material synthesis, Stucky and Yavuz will also carry out full characterization of the materials prior to CO2 capture capacity determination. Samples with high affinity to CO2 capture and conversion will be analyzed in detail at the Atilhan group’s “Magnetic Suspension Sorption Device” in Qatar."

Nano rust was on Science Channel

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:23:00 +0000

Discovery's Science Channel had our nano rust project covered in their "Nano water" episode along with MIT's Francesco Stellacci's nano sponges that soak up spills. Click the following link to view the video:http://science.discovery.com/videos/brink-package-nano-water.html

International Congress on Production of Safe Water

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:29:00 +0000

I will be attending the International Congress on Production of Safe Water, January 21-23, 2009, Izmir, Turkey. My talk title is "Pollution Magnet: Nano Magnetite for Arsenic Removal from Drinking Water"

There will be well known scholars of arsenic research (such as Arup K. Sengupta, Lehigh University) and poster sessions that reflect current technology for battling arsenic contamination in water resources.

This conference is very timely and beneficial to the people of Turkey, and will help motivate scholarly activity as well as public consciousness.

Academic Impact Index (AII)

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:07:00 +0000

From my nano blog, nanotella:

Hirsch index seems to be working better for senior or semi-senior professors. The untenured and yet to be graduated (e.g. grad students) are not easy to track in h-index. In other words, h-index is not that sensitive below 5.

Here's a suggestion for an academic impact index (AII):

Your AII = Total [(journal impact factor + times cited)x n]

n=1 if you are not the first, second or corresponding author
n=1.5 if you are the second author
n=2 if you are the first and/or corresponding author

For example, the 5th year chemistry graduate student Jack Sparrow has 3 journal papers (peer reviewed). His Chemistry of Materials paper has 4 citations, Advanced Materials has 11 and JACS (second author) has none because it's just come out.

His AII = (4.883 + 4)x2 + (8.191 + 11)x2 + (7.885 + 0)x1.5 = 67.976 = 68

So Mr. Sparrow's Academic Impact Index (AII) is 68.

Notes:
1. If there is no data for a journal's impact factor then put "0" for impact factor.

Advantages of this method:
1. Everything counts
2. The level of authorship matters (i.e. first, second or corresponding)
3. The journal you are publishing in is important
4. Any newly published papers have an immediate impact on your score

Nano Rust

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:33:00 +0000

My first book was recently published via VDM Verlag. Thanks to Gabriel Caruntu for hooking me up with them. If you're interested in buying please click here, it's only $116(!).

Here's the blurb from the back:
This work describes the first size dependent magneticseparation in nanoscale by using rust like iron oxide. Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals of high quality and uniform size (4 nm to 33 nm) were synthesized. Batch synthesis was shown to go up to 20 grams which is more than 10 times of a standard nanocrystal synthesis, without loosing the quality and monodispersity. Reactor design for mass (1 gram per hour) production of magnetite nanocrystals isreported for the first time. A green synthesis thatutilizes rust and edible oils was developed.
The cost of a kg of magnetite nanocrystals was brought down from $2600 to $22. Size dependency of magnetism was shown in nanoscale for the first time. Reversible aggregation theory was developed to explain the low field magnetic separation and solution behavior of magnetite nanocrystals. Arsenic was removed from drinking water with magnetite nanocrystals 200 times better than commercial adsorbents. Silica coating was successfully applied and magnetite - silica nanoshells were functionalized with amino groups. For the first time, silver was coated on the magnetite -silica nanoshells to produce triple multishells.

Yenigun daily featured my comments on their frontpage

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:14:00 +0000

On the Arsenic crisis in Izmir's (Turkey) drinking water system, I urged the public to be calm and not worry much. The issue will be resolved in 4 months and the toxicity of the current levels will not surmount to the fatal level although the carcinogenic effect of Arsenic is still at large. Scientists still not sure about how much arsenic in water can trigger tumor formations and for this very reason I would be cautious when drinking water with high levels of arsenic.

And CNN Turk interviewed me over 7 pm prime time news about our "pollution magnet" study.

Times Higher Education interviewed for Elsevier spam email

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:08:00 +0000

Finding me from the blog post I wrote in May, Times Higher Education included my comments in their story about the recent Elsevier spam email. Click here to read the full story.

It starts like this:

24 July 2008

By Chloe Stothart

Spam messages calling for research papers could lead to loss of personal details, says Chloe Stothart

Most e-mail frauds are concerned with selling fake Viagra or persuading people to send their bank details to a beleaguered, fictional politician on the other side of the world.

But, in a new development, the fraudsters now want your research papers.

Aktuel interviewed for the recent Arsenic contraversy in Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:02:00 +0000

The popular Turkish magazine, Aktuel interviewed me once again but this time for my comments on the recent Arsenic problem in Ankara, Turkey's capital city. Click here to reach to the article.

Chemical Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:18:00 +0000

For a long time I've been thinking about such idea, making a chemical specific search engine. Not just chemicals, also glassware, some key physical properties and other related tools. Isotopes of the elements were also added when I finally got down to it - thanks to the Google Custom Search tool. And yes, here it is: Chemical Search Engine

Biography of Cafer T. Yavuz

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Dr. Cafer T. Yavuz received his B.S. degree from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He completed the 4 year program in only 3 years being the first in the honor program's and second in the Chemistry department's 40 year old history. When he was in high school, he attended the 29th and 30th International Chemistry Olympiads representing Turkey twice and got a silver and a bronze medal in Canada and Australia, respectively. He was admitted to Rice University in 2001 with Welch scholarship and received his Master's and Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Vicki L. Colvin. His research focused on production of magnetic nanocrystals and their use in arsenic removal. His paper in Science magazine received Forbes magazine's "Top 5 nanotech breakthroughs of 2006" honor as well as 80+ different news coverage in media outlets such as New York Times, BBC, Houston Chronicle and The Guardian. His recent work was selected among the "Six Ideas That Will Change The World" by the Esquire Magazine (December 2007). He is currently a Research Associate at the UC Santa Barbara with Dr. Galen Stucky working on CO2 sequestration, conversion and co-activation with methane (CH4).

Email: contact@caferyavuz.com

Recent coverage by Aktuel magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:03:00 +0000

One of the leading weekly magazines of Turkey, Yeni Aktuel, featured our study in its latest issue. Titled as "Dunyanin Arsenigini Bu Turk Temizleyecek!" (This Turk will clean all the Arsenic in the world), story (by Urun Dirier) highlighted Esquire magazine's recent honor.

The article starts like this:

Amerikan Rice Üniversitesi'nden aralarında bir Türk'ün de bulunduğu bilim adamları sudaki arseniği kolay yolla yok edecek bir yöntem geliştirdi. Kimya doktoru Cafer Yavuz'un katkısıyla çok ucuza mal edilen ve bugün kullanılan pahalı filtrelerden 200 kat daha etkin olan "kir mıknatısı", içme sularına karışan arseniğe bağlı sağlık problemleri yaşayan Türkiye gibi ülkeler için umut kaynağı oldu.

Esquire Magazine selected our work in "Six Ideas That Will Change The World"

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:05:00 +0000

The Esquire magazine selected our rust and edible oil method for making magnetite nanocrystals as one of the "Six Ideas That Will Change The World". Listed as the 3rd, it was dubbed "The Pollution Magnet". The article appeared in their "BEST & BRIGHTEST 2007" section.

The others ideas are:

Breaking Down the Firewall by the Citizen Lab (UToronto)
Electronic Skin by Stéphanie Lacour (Princeton)
Machines That Fix Themselves by Hod Lipson
Burying Our CO2 by Kurt Zenz House (Harvard)
The Next Plastic by Geoffrey Coates (Cornell)

Now a doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:12:00 +0000

Although one officially becomes a doctor at a conferral date, passing an oral defense with signatures is considered to be enough for the title.

As of November 1st, I may be called Dr. Cafer T. Yavuz. Thanks to everybody that came to the defense and thanks to all that helped me get to this level.

Visit to Philly

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:06:00 +0000

Couple weeks ago I visited the Murray Lab (click here for the news story of Chris Murray joining UPenn) at the University of Pennsylvania. That was by far the best chemistry lab I have ever seen. Cleverly design with the latest technology, the lab calls you to do experiments.

Near the end of my stay I got around the city of Philadelphia. And there I had these pics:

Notes from recent visits

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:49:00 +0000

These are the pictures taken by the camera of my cell phone and shows views that I found interesting or noteworthy.

San Francisco: View from my hotel room. You can barely see the Bay Bridge at the back. It is about the sunrise.

Washington, DC: At the capitol hill. The iconic ladies of the congressional history. (Left to right: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott). The rumor is that the first ever woman president will be carved on the hump back.

New York City: Manhattan of course. After an excellent dinner at Dervish Restaurant on 47th, I walked around the Times square in the evening. It was cold but well worth it.

Buffalo, NY: The town was awfully quiet. That was before Sabres lost against Senators of Ottawa though (in hockey. I figured the people of north care about hockey more than anything).

Toronto, Canada: Freezing cold (in May!). The pictures are from the bus trip from Buffalo to Toronto.

Niagara Falls, Canadian border: While waiting in the traffic to pass the border, we had a good view of the niagara falls. The middle picture shows the very point that divides these two countries. And marked by a street light. How interesting :)

My new webpage

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:44:00 +0000

Since April 2007, I've been working on my new webpage and finally it's fully renewed and operational. Please visit the links on the menu and let me know what you think by filling the form at the contacts page

I will be at MRS Spring Meeting, April 11-13, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:34:00 +0000

For those of you who will be at Materials Research Society's Spring 2007 meeting (Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, CA), I'll be talking on Friday, April 13, at the following session:

10:00-10:15 AM. Room 2001 (Moscone West),
DD17.6: Ultra Large Scale and Green Synthesis of Monodisperse Magnetite Nanocrystals.

C. T. Yavuz; J. Cox; C. Suchecki; A. Tran; V. L. Colvin;

Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals were synthesized in size distributions below 10% and in mass
quantities. We present the first reactor that would produce highly monodisperse and uniform magnetite nanocrystals 1g/hour. The most environmental friendly (green) synthesis was reported for high quality nanocrystals. Cost of manufacturing of magnetite nanocrystals cut down to industrial standards.

Our work listed in Top Five Nanotech Breakthroughs of 2006 by Forbes

noreply@blogger.com (Cafer T. Yavuz) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:33:00 +0000

In a Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report (on 12.27.06, 8:30 AM ET), Josh Wolfe listed our work as one of the "Top Five Nanotech Breakthroughs Of 2006" under the title "Nanomagnets to clean up drinking water". Click here to view the article.