# James Tour

James Mitchell Tour is an American chemist and nanotechnologist. He is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Materials Science & Nanoengineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

## Education

Tour received degrees from Syracuse University (BS, 1981), Purdue University (PhD, 1986 under Ei-ichi Negishi) and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1986–1987) and Stanford University (1987–1988).

## Career and research

Tour's work is primarily focused on carbon materials chemistry and nanotechnology. Tour's work on carbon materials encompasses fullerene purification, composites, conductive inks for radio frequencies identification tags, carbon nanoreporters for identifying oil downhole, graphene synthesis from cookies and insects, graphitic electronic devices, carbon particle drug delivery for treatment of traumatic brain injury, the merging of 2D graphene with 1D nanotubes to make a conjoined hybrid material, a new graphene-nanotube 2D material called rebar graphene, graphene quantum dots from coal, gas barrier composites, graphene nanoribbon deicing films, supercapacitors and battery device structures, and water splitting to H$_2$ and O$_2$ using metal chalcogenides.
In addition, Tour has conducted research on the synthesis of graphene oxide, its mechanism of formation, and its use in capturing radionuclides from water. Tour has developed oxide-based electronic memories that can also be transparent and built onto flexible substrates. His group has also developed the use of porous metal structures to make renewable energy devices including batteries and supercapacitors, as well as electronic memories.
More recently, the Tour group's discovery of laser-induced graphene (LIG) has spurred innovations including an array of device structures made from LIG foams. His lab's discovery of the flash graphene process in 2019 for the 10-millisecond bulk formation of graphene from carbon sources including coal, petroleum coke, biochar, food waste and mixed plastic waste, has implications in environmental stewardship through materials and waste upcycling.
Tour worked in molecular electronics and molecular switching molecules. He pioneered the development of the Nanocar, single-molecule vehicles with four independently rotating wheels, axles, and light-activated motors. Tour was the first to show that Feringa-based motors can be used to move a molecule on a surface using light as opposed to electric current from an STM tip. His early career focused upon the synthesis of conjugated polymers and precise oligomers.
Tour has also been involved in scientific outreach, such as NanoKids, an interactive learning DVD to teach children fundamentals of chemistry and physics. He also developed SciRave, a Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero package to teach science concepts to middle school and elementary school students. He has testified before the US Congress on two occasions to warn about budget cuts.
In the Scientific American article "Better Killing Through Chemistry", which appeared a few months after the September 11 attacks, Tour highlighted the ease of obtaining chemical weapon precursors in the United States.
Tour is on the board and working with companies including Weebit (silicon oxide electronic memory), Dotz (graphene quantum dots), Zeta Energy (batteries), NeuroCords (spinal cord repair), Xerient (treatment of pancreas cancer), LIGC Application Ltd. (laser-induced graphene), Nanorobotics (molecular nanomachines in medicine), Universal Matter Ltd. (flash graphene synthesis), Roswell Biotechnologies (molecular electronic DNA sequencing), and Rust Patrol (corrosion inhibitors).
Tour's lab's research into graphene scaffolding gel has been shown to repair spinal cords of paralyzed mice.

## Religion and evolution

Tour became a born-again Christian in graduate school, and in 2001 he signed the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism statement that relies on pseudoscientific reasoning to offer various religiously motivated arguments against evolution. In a 2014 profile in The New Yorker Tour was reported to have indicated that this signing "reflected only his personal doubts about how random mutation occurs at the molecular level. Although he ends e-mails with "God bless", he says that, apart from a habit of praying for divine guidance, he feels that religion plays no part in his scientific work." Tour has subsequently become more outspoken about his incredulity regarding origin of life research, going as far as to debate science YouTuber Dave Farina at a May 2023 event at Rice University.

## Publications

Tour has about 650 research publications and over 200 patents, with an H-index > 170 with total citations over 130,000 (Google Scholar, as of November 2023).

## Honors and awards

* ACS Nano Lectureship Award by the American Chemical Society (2012)
* Listed as an ISI highly cited researcher (2016)
* Centenary Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry (2020), "Awarded for innovations in materials chemistry, with applications in medicine and nanotechnology."
* Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2024), "For synthesis, fabrication, properties, applications, and commercialization of novel forms of carbon and their composites and derivatives."
* Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science