Clarkson University

About: Clarkson University is a education organization based out in Potsdam, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Particle & Turbulence. The organization has 4414 authors who have published 10009 publications receiving 305356 citations. The organization is also known as: Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology & Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial College of Technology.

Activation with Li Enables Facile Sodium Storage in Germanium

Abstract: Germanium is a promising sodium ion battery (NIB, NAB, SIB) anode material that is held back by its extremely sluggish kinetics and poor cyclability. We are the first to demonstrate that activation by a single lithiation–delithiation cycle leads to a dramatic improvement in the practically achievable capacity, in rate capability, and in cycling stability of Ge nanowires (GeNWs) and Ge thin film (GeTF). TEM and TOF-SIMS analysis shows that without activation, the initially single crystal GeNWs are effectively Na inactive, while the 100 nm amorphous GeTF sodiates only partially and inhomogeneously. Activation with Li induces amorphization in GeNWs reducing the barrier for nucleation of the NaxGe phase(s) and accelerates solid-state diffusion that aids the performance of both GeNWs and GeTF. Low rate (0.1C) Li activation also introduces a dense distribution of nanopores that lead to further improvements in the rate capability, which is ascribed to the lowered solid-state diffusion distances caused by the eff...

Spatial variability of fine particle mass, components, and source contributions during the regional air pollution study in St. Louis.

Abstract: Community time-series epidemiology typically uses either 24-hour integrated particulate matter (PM) concentrations averaged across several monitors in a city or data obtained at a central monitoring site to relate PM concentrations to human health effects. If the day-to-day variations in 24-hour integrated concentrations differ substantially across an urban area (i.e., daily measurements at monitors at different locations are not highly correlated), then there is a significant potential for exposure misclassification in community time-series epidemiology. If the annual average concentration differs across an urban area, then there is a potential for exposure misclassification in epidemiologic studies that use annual averages (or multi-year averages) as an index of exposure across different cities. The spatial variability in PM2.5 (particulate matter < or = 2.5 microm in aerodynamic diameter), its elemental components, and the contributions from each source category at 10 monitoring sites in St. Louis, Missouri were characterized using the ambient PM2.5 compositional data set of the Regional Air Pollution Study (RAPS) based on the Regional Air Monitoring System (RAMS) conducted between 1975 and 1977. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) was applied to each ambient PM2.5 compositional data set to estimate the contributions from the source categories. The spatial distributions of components and source contributions to PM2.5 at the 10 sites were characterized using Pearson correlation coefficients and coefficients of divergence. Sulfur and PM2.5 are highly correlated elements between all of the site pairs Although the secondary sulfate is the most highly correlated and shows the smallest spatial variability, there is a factor of 1.7 difference in secondary sulfate contributions between the highest and lowest site on average. Motor vehicles represent the next most highly correlated source component. However, there is a factor of 3.6 difference in motor vehicle contributions between the highest and lowest sites. The contributions from point source categories are much more variable. For example, the contributions from incinerators show a difference of a factor of 12.5 between the sites with the lowest and highest contributions. This study demonstrates that the spatial distributions of elemental components of PM2.5 and contributions from source categories can be highly heterogeneous within a given airshed and thus, there is the potential for exposure misclassification when a limited number of ambient PM monitors are used to represent population-average ambient exposures.

Aptamers: a promosing tool for ochratoxin A detection in food analysis.

Abstract: The contamination of food and feed by mycotoxins has become an increasingly serious problem. Mycotoxins represent a major risk to human and animal health, as well as economics. Herein, we focus on Ochratoxin A (OTA), which is one of the most common mycotoxins contaminating feed and foodstuffs. OTA is a secondary metabolite produced by various Aspergillus and Penicillium strains. Upon ingestion, OTA has a number of acute and chronic toxic effects. It is nephrotoxic, teratogenic, immunosuppressive, and carcinogenic (group 2B). As a consequence, some regulatory limits have been introduced on the levels of OTA in several commodities. The toxic nature of OTA demands highly sensitive and selective monitoring techniques to protect human and animal health. As alternative to traditional analytical techniques, biochemical methods for OTA analysis have attained great interest in the last few decades. They are mainly based on the integration of antibodies or aptamers as biorecognition elements in sensing platforms. However, aptamers have gained more attention in affinity-based assays because of their high affinity, specificity, stability, and their easy chemical synthesis. In this brief review, we present an overview of aptamer-based assays and their applications in OTA purification and detection, appeared in the literature in the last five years.

Initial size distributions and hygroscopicity of indoor combustion aerosol particles

Abstract: Cigarette smoke, incense smoke, natural gas flames, propane fuel flames, and candle flames are contributors of indoor aerosol particles. To provide a quantitative basis for the modeling of inhaled aerosol deposition pattern, the hygroscopic growth of particles from these five sources as well as the source size distributions were measured. Because the experiments were performed on the bases of particles of single size, it provided not only the averaged particle's hygroscopic growth of each source, but also the detailed size change for particles of different sizes within the whole size spectrum. The source particle size distribution measurements found that cigarette smoke and incense smoke contained particles in the size range of 100–700 nm, while the natural gas, propane, and candle flames generated particles between 10 and 100 nm. The hygroscopic growth experiments showed that these combustion aerosol particles could grow 10% to 120%, depending on the particle sizes and origins