Dr. Nariman Yousefi
Areas of Academic Interest
Graphene and other 2D nanomaterials
Self-assembled 3D macrostructures for energy and the environment
Environmental nanotechnology
Advanced water treatment
Polymer nanocomposites
Advanced multifunctional materials
Bio-inspired self-assembled nanostructures
Bio-nano interfaces
Spotlight
Water makes up 60% of our bodies and 71% of the earth’s surface—but it makes up 100% of Nariman Yousefi’s research.
Yousefi is developing an innovative water filtration technology. Made of graphene, a carbon-based material whose full properties were discovered in 2004, his "sponge" has the potential to revolutionize the kind of water we drink. "I'm trying to make it possible for everyone to have access to safe, clean water," he says. "From northern communities in Canada to developing countries around the world."
When scaled for home-use, his filtration system will be small enough to fit in a jug yet powerful enough to absorb contaminants such as heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, hormones, illicit drugs, bacteria and viruses, as well as nano- and micro-plastics, many of which current technologies cannot remove. Yousefi’s filter will also be eco-friendly. "This needs to be a basic operating principle for engineers,
especially in the water field," he says. "Everything you design and invent needs to be green."
"Seeing an idea of yours turning into a product that can help people? Nothing is more exciting."
- Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, NSERC
- C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society
- Relève étoile Louis-Berlinguet Best Researcher Award, FQRNT
- Eugenie Ulmer-Lamothe Chemical Engineering Award, and Lars and Alberta Firing Graduate Fellowship, McGill University
- N Yousefi, XL Lu, M Elimelech and N Tufenkji, “Environmental performance of graphene-based 3D macrostructures”, Nature Nanotechnology (2019), 14, 107–119.
- N Yousefi, KKW Wong, Z Hosseinidoust, HO Sørensen, S Bruns, Y Zheng and N Tufenkji, “Hierarchically porous, ultra-strong reduced graphene oxide-cellulose nanocrystal sponges for exceptional adsorption of water contaminants”, Nanoscale (2018), 10, 7171–7174.
- N Yousefi, A Wargenau and N Tufenkji, “Toward more free-floating model cell membranes: Method development and application to their interaction with nanoparticles”, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (2016), 8, 14339–14348.
- N Yousefi, N Sun, XY Lin, X Shen, JJ Jia, B Zhang, BZ Tang, MS Chan and JK Kim, “Highly aligned graphene/polymer nanocomposites with excellent dielectric properties for high performance electromagnetic interference shielding”, Advanced Materials (2014), 26, 5480–5487.
- N Yousefi, XY Lin, QB Zheng, X Shen, JR Pothnis, JJ Jia, E Zussman and JK Kim, “Simultaneous in-situ reduction, self-alignment and covalent bonding in graphene oxide/epoxy composites”, Carbon (2013), 59, 406–417.
- The Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering
- Co-organizer, Nano Ontario Conference 2020, Ryerson University