CMET Faculty

Research Interests:

Research in the Furst Group focuses on the physics and chemistry underlying the behavior of colloidal, polymeric, biomolecular, and other "soft" materials. Our efforts concentrate on investigations of structure, interactions and material response through the development of novel experimental techniques. These include optical tweezers, confocal microscopy, and passive and active microrheology. Applications of interest include nanomaterials for energy conversion, complex fluids engineering, and biotechnology. Many of the interesting problems we currently work on stem from close partnerships with industry and national laboratories.

Research Interests:

Exploration of new chemical reactions for rational modification of semiconductor surfaces, electronic conductance of molecular adlayers on semiconductors, effects of dopants and nanoscale structure on photocatalytic properties of TiO₂ nanoparticles, mechanisms of selective oxidation and polymerization reactions catalyzed by paramagnetic organometallic complexes, nucleation and growth of aqeuous aerosols, and first-principles calculations of Solvation energies at high temperature and pressure. We use theoretical and computational methods to solve problems in Chemistry, with emphasis on applications to materials science, surface science and catalysis.

Research Interests:

Experimental and theoretical studies of the thermodynamics, structure, and phase behavior of complex fluids; surfactants and colloid science.

Research Interests:

Separations processes, biophysics and bioengineering, colloid and interface science, biomineralization, transport phenomena. The main goal of our research is to analyze, control and exploit molecular interactions involving proteins and colloidal particles. The motivation is initially to obtain improved quantitative insights into existing processes, leading to more effective methods for designing and using them, but an auxiliary objective is to develop new products and operations. These themes bring together a diverse collection of research activities, discussed below, involving theoretical and experimental work dealing with both the fundamentals - transport, kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena - and their interaction in the process environment. The path from molecular structure through continuum properties to process design represents the central paradigm in modern chemical engineering, but it has been applied much less extensively to species such as proteins than to small molecules; such processes as protein separations still depend very heavily on empirical methods for design and optimization.

Research Interests:

The major expense in the chemical pharmaceutical industries is the separations and purifications processes that are largely designed on the basis of phase equilibrium. Thermophysical properties and phase equilibria also play important roles in biochemical processing, environmental engineering and risk and safety analysis. Our research program encompasses each of these areas and includes basic theory, experimental measurements, and supercomputer simulation.

Research Interests:

Theory of intermolecular forces, simulations of condensed phases, spectroscopy of van der Waals molecules, explicitly-correlated methods of molecular structure calculations, theory of exotic molecules (containing muons, antiprotons, etc.).

Research Interests:

Colloid and polymer science, rheology and electrorheology, complex fluids, molecular thermodynamics, transport phenomena, molecular simulation. The interesting and technologically useful properties of modern, high performance materials are a direct result of nanoscale and/or molecular control of their underlying microstructure. Intelligent materials processing strategies control this microstructure to achieve a desired molecular and often, supramolecular structure to meet specific product performance criteria. Thus, our research is focused on developing a fundamental understanding of the dynamical behavior of materials during processing, which can be used to predict the effects of processing on material microstructure and hence, final product performance. This research has broad application and is supported by numerous international industrial concerns as well as by the National Science Foundation. Much of the research is collaborative with investigators and institutions from around the world.