Energy and Sustainability Symposium 2025
Introduction
The Department of Chemistry and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago hosted Energy and Sustainability Symposium on November 14, 2025 from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM, bringing together faculty, students, and industry researchers for an afternoon focused on clean energy, environmental remediation, and sustainable materials. The event featured keynote talks by Dr. William Dichtel of Northwestern University, who discussed advances in Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) capture technologies, and Dr. Amir Chammani of MilliporeSigma, who highlighted emerging battery materials and sustainable carbon-based anodes. Their presentations provided context for the broader challenges and opportunities facing the fields of water purification and energy storage.
Graduate students from the department of Chemistry and the department of Chemical Engineering at UIC contributed a series of short research presentations spanning catalysis, water treatment, material design, carbon capture, energy storage, and photocatalysis. Speakers included Atefeh Nadeali (Chaplin Group), Shilpa Choya (Jiang Group), Pragati Ganatra (Nguyen Group), Roushan Singh (Mankad Group), Ananthu M. (Mankad Group), Anwesa Samanta (Cabana Group), and Xin Zheng (Glusac Group), each offering a brief look into their ongoing sustainability-driven research. Highlights included electrochemical nitrate reduction to ammonia, achieving a Faradaic efficiency >72%, STM studies revealing nanoscale nickel confinement on graphene surfaces for catalysis applications, peptide-based porous frameworks designed for selective PFAS detection, and heterometallic complexes capable of stabilizing rare CO2•⁻ intermediates. Additional presentations explored the structural evolution in Mg0.5V2O5 cathode materials for battery applications, designing Mo(IV) based complexes mimicking enzymatic functions, and high surface area photocatalytic MOFs (2396 m²/g) engineered for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Together, these presentations showcased the depth of innovation within UIC’s graduate community and underscored the university’s strong presence in climate and energy research.
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Graduate students present their research: (a) Atefeh Nadeali, on Sustainable Water Purification. (b) Shilpa Choya on Metal Decorated Graphene for advanced catalysis, (c) Pragati Ganatra, on design of Porous Peptide Frameworks for detection of PFAS, (d) Xin Zheng on photoactive metal organic frameworks for CO2 conversion.
Graduate students present their research: (a) Roushan Singh, on harnessing aluminum radicals. (b) Anwesa Samanta on materials design for next-generation batteries, (c) Ananthu M. on synthesis of bioinspired catalysts.
