[ChBE-Grad] ChBE Faculty Candidate Seminar this Tuesday

[Solano, Nicolette]

Student groups of Rimer, Conrad, Palmer, Vekilov, Robertson, Krishnamoorti please attend.

UH ChBE Dept. Seminar
9:00am-10:00am, Tuesday , March 1, 2016
Cemo Hall room 105
Engineering Soft Matter Through Particle Shape and Surface Features
Lilian Hsiao, Ph.D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology



ABSTRACT: A central challenge in soft matter and materials science is the microscopic engineering of functional materials. Incorporating anisotropy here is of general interest, for example in actin networks, clay platelets, and polymer nanocomposites where geometry, ordering, and kinetics all play important roles in determining their properties. Nevertheless, forming a general connection between microstructure and macroscale properties is not trivial. Here, I focus on the self-assembly and mechanics of colloidal materials with an emphasis on how shape anisotropy and interaction potential can be used to guide their design. I will first discuss the relevance of the physical interactions that give rise to a general class of colloidal gels. Then, I will introduce structural rigidity in the context of gels undergoing large deformations, and how shape anisotropy can introduce unusual states through kinetic trapping. Lastly, I will show that the slowed rotational dynamics caused by surface roughness can lead to enhanced shear thickening that is not seen with smooth colloids. These results collectively show that particle-level interactions provide a powerful means to design soft materials at multiple length scales.


BIO: Lilian Hsiao is currently a Postdoctoral Associate in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously, she earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan (2014), and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2007). She is the recipient of the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship for outstanding doctoral dissertations. She is particularly interested in linking the flow and mechanical properties of soft colloidal materials to their microscale dynamics and structure.
















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