Colloids

Three-dimensional (3D) graphene is known to have numerous applications as adsorbent, catalysts, sensors, energy storage such as batteries and super-capacitors. Further, 3D graphene is easy to handle and convenient to load as adsorbent in a packed bed.

Preventing or inhibiting the growth of micro-organisms on surfaces is of prime importance in the healthcare and textile industries. A promising strategy to overcome microbial growth involves coating the surfaces with materials that can provide resistance to microbial colonization. Inorganic nano materials and organic materials with inorganic inclusions are being widely used as anti-microbial coatings.

Polymer membranes are popular in separation and fuel cell applications.  Moreover, nanoparticle-filled polymer membranes can simultaneously improve properties such as permeability and selectivity.  The challenge lies in stabilizing these membranes against phase separation.  Recent progress in grafting polymer onto the surface of nanoparticles may mitigate some of these challenges.  This project uses statistical mechanics to study the efficacy of grafted nanoparticles as effective membrane materials.

Basic programming ability is needed. 

A surprising new development in materials science and chemical engineering is the finding that mixtures of hard (colloidal), and soft (polymeric, or micellar) particles can self organize on length scales much larger than the diameter of either species.  In this project we explore the behavior of connected hard- and soft particles.  An elementary knowledge of coding is sufficient.

Traditionally, self-assembled structures are formed using chemical differences within a species.  Examples of this are the formation of micelles by detergents, and the formation of the phospholipid bilayer of the cell membrane.  In these systems it is the tendency to the hydrophobic and hydrophilic part to avoid each other that result in the self-assembled state.  However, a recent study (http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2017/sm/c7sm00230k) has pointed out that it is possible to form self-assembled states