סמינר מחלקה של טלי דותן - רתימת הזרמים של הטבע: חקר מכשירים ביו-אלקטרוכימיים לקראת חדשנות סביבתית

School of Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Wednesday, April 17, 2023 at 15:00
Wolfson Building of Mechanical Engineering, Room 206

Harnessing Nature's Currents: Exploring Bioelectrochemical Devices Towards Environmental Innovation

Tali Dotan, Ph.D.

United States University

MIT

Abstract: Bioelectrochemical devices represent a cutting-edge approach in environmental sensing and remediation, harnessing the interface between biological systems and electronics to address pressing environmental challenges. These devices employ living organisms, such as bacteria or plant cells, to catalyze electrochemical reactions, enabling the detection and remediation of various environmental contaminants or stressors with significantly improved selectivity and sensitivity. In my talk, I will present redox cycling-based biosensors with electrochemical internal amplification providing more than a 10X signal enhancement. I will discuss computational and analytical models describing the dependence of redox cycling in transport effect (convection flow), leading to the understanding of two dominant amplification regimes depending on the flow velocities, which provide rules-of-thumb for the design of microfluidic-based biosensors. I will then present my postdoctoral research on electroactive microbes (EAMs), combining electrochemistry with synthetic biology. EAMs are utilized for (a) detecting biologically active small-molecule environmental pollutants at sub-ppb levels and (b) creating living materials for electrochemical CO₂ reduction (ECR), such as bacterial-synthesized metal NPs and bacterial film-based electrodes. These devices offer innovative solutions for environmental monitoring, remediation, and sustainable energy generation, making them indispensable tools in the field of environmental engineering.

Biography: Tali Dotan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT and a fellow at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITei). She received a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Technion (Summa Cum Laude). She then pursued an industrial path and joined Intel as a defect reduction engineer, later advancing to a technical leadership role, where she worked on cutting-edge nanofabrication techniques. She completed her M.Sc. in Material Science and Engineering at the lab of Prof. Yosi Shacham at Tel Aviv University, focusing on the development of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) for CMOS. She achieved her Ph.D. in Physical Electronics at Prof. Shacham’s lab, where her research focused on developing sensors for plant-based electrochemical monitoring. Currently, her work at the Furst lab combines electrochemistry with synthetic biology and living materials to address challenges in environmental sustainability.