We synthesize porous carbon and silica nanoparticles as host nanomaterials; which we impregnate or
functionalize with a second nanoparticle, enzyme or chemical moiety. The resulting nanocomposites
are desirable in catalysis, sensor and separation applications, respectively; primarily because of their
large solid-fluid interfacial area and thermochemically inert, stable host environment. In this project, one
can perform both continuum scale modeling and atomic scale simulations, to investigate nanoparticle
structure, location and related adsorption and diffusion issues in nanopores as a function of pore diameter
and material loading.

These predictions will be validated with our own experimental data on sensing of glucose (by GOD enzyme
impregnated nanoporous silica), SnO2 nanoparticle embedded porous silica or carbon host (for photocatalytic
dye degradation or lithium battery applications, respectively). This will help optimally tune the experimental
synthesis parameters for deriving maximum functionality of these solid nanocomposite systems.Thus, one can
choose to work on any of these applications and do only experiments, or a combination of modeling and
experiments.