Professor Wei-xian Zhang publishes article in top environmental journal

“Environmental Technologies at the Nanoscale,” an article co-written by Wei-xian Zhang, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, was published in the March 1 edition of Environmental Science & Technology, the top journal in its field. The article was co-written by Tina Masciangioli, an environmental science and technology policy Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The article probes the potential role of nanotechnology in improving the environment through pollution prevention, treatment and remediation.

Zhang says the article is one of the first peer-reviewed papers on the topic.  Zhang has a patent pending for a method he developed that uses palladium-coated nanoparticles of iron measuring 100 to 200 nm in diameter to treat contaminated groundwater. His method has been successfully applied to several manufacturing sites. Zhang also has a grant of $300,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to explore using nanoparticles to treat hazardous waste.

Zhang and Daniel W. Elliott, Ph.D. candidate in environmental engineering, previously published an article in Environmental Science and Technology titled “Field Assessment of Nanoscale Bimetallic Particles for Groundwater Treatment.”

Their remediation method has also been described in the journal Chemical and Engineering News.