Paper by Paul Westerhoff selected as Nature Communications Editors’ Highlight

A recent research paper written by Regents Professor Paul Westerhoff was selected as one of the most interesting energy research works published in the highly regarded peer-review research journal Nature Communications.

Nature Communications Senior Editor Long Chen chose the article — “Evanescent waves modulate energy efficiency of photocatalysis within TiO2 coated optical fibers illuminated using LEDs” — to be featured on the Editors’ Highlights page for energy-related research, which showcases the 50 best papers recently published in a given research area. 

Westerhoff, who is also the deputy director of the National Science Foundation NanoSystems Engineering Research Center for NanoEnabled Water Treatment Technologies, or NEWT Center, worked on this influential research with collaborators Yinghao Song, Li Ling and Chii Shang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

It reports a strategy to maximize photocatalyst-coated optical fiber light usage and quantify interactions between refracted light and evanescent waves and a surface-coated photocatalyst. The method is an effective strategy to improve light usage in photocatalysis, which has shown tremendous potential in the past few decades for solving environmental problems and reducing the energy crisis.