There has been a long standing belief between environmentalists and proponents of industry that environmental health and technological advancement are mutually exclusive principles. Dr. Sheila Baker of the University of Missouri is proving the flaw in this logic by bridging the gap through technological progress. Technological advancement is improving quality of life and the efficiency and functionality of the world, but we cannot afford it to come with a high price tag, such as environmental devastation. Alternatively, we do not want to miss out on the extraordinary benefits that technology provides to our society because of an inability to mitigate any negative effects. Dr. Baker's research is promising to find a necessary median between technological advancement and environmental health to ensure sustainable and healthy growth.

Dr. Sheila Baker, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri, is using science and technology to find solutions to the missing links so that technology can and will equal progress. Technological advancement is no longer forward progress if the effects of that advancement are more environmentally detrimental than the benefits received. Carbon dioxide and a number of water-concentrated contaminants are threatening environmental health, but simply reducing output is not a viable long-term solution because to do so we must reduce industry output as well. Dr. Baker is developing new materials and methods that reduce or eliminate pollution and correct the negative effects of technological advancement. Beyond atmospheric pollution, she is investigating ways to recycle rare earth metals in electronic devices and is developing sensors for identifying and cleaning up environmental toxins.

Dr. Baker's current research projects deal with various ways to mitigate conflict between environmentalist and proponents of industry and technological advancement. In other words, rectifying differences between technology and progress. 

• Carbon dioxide is a concerning byproduct of fossil fuel burning in industrial-sized power plants. Dr. Baker is designing absorbent solid-state compounds, nanomaterials surrounded by a polymer coat, that absorb CO2 from the flue gas output of coal burning power plants by chemically specific methods. Current methods capture CO2 using compounds dissolved within water, but require immense heating costs during the regeneration step. Dr. Baker's materials avoid this cost by being easily reusable; they are inexpensive to fabricate and re-generate, and unlike competing new materials are available in large quantities and can be implemented sooner rather than later. Dr. Baker is currently working on developing efficient logistics, trying different configurations for implementing these materials into power plant facilities.

• Dr. Baker is creating nanomaterials used in sensors that are placed in contaminated water to identify and/or degrade contaminants. These sensors are made through an energy-efficient microwave technique and provide feedback to computer systems, or work through online analysis, to degrade contaminants, effectively detoxifying the water sample. One example is gold nanoparticles used to detect mercury contamination in water, though other metal-based sensors are also being researched. Whereas current degradation agents use a photo-degradation process, Dr. Baker's materials can work in the absence of light, greatly increasing their practical applications.

• In a collaborative process with Dr. Gary A. Baker, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Missouri and also Dr. Sheila Baker's husband, the duo has found ways to easily transform waste material into components for solar cell systems. After the waste material is transformed, it can absorb light energy and then inject an electron into solar cell systems.