(14ao) Towards an Understanding of Catalytic Synthesis and Application of Nanomaterials

My research leverages the intersection between in-situ metrology (XPS, XRD, ESEM, ETEM), process engineering and material science to enable new developments in bottom up novel material design and synthesis. The key scientific questions in my field relate to understanding mechanisms that can be used to achieve atomic level control during bottom up synthesis of novel materials, while the engineering challenges center around developing scalable production processes and interfacing the new materials into functional systems for applications.

2D materials serve as ideal model systems that can be leveraged to develop a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms associated with atomic length scale control for material synthesis using scalable processes while simultaneously enabling high impact applications; e.g. atomically thin membranes (ATMs) offer transformative opportunities for desalination, dialysis, fuel cells, solvent separation, DNA sequencing and can enable in-situ metrology for solid-liquid systems. Such in-situ observations could offer unprecedented insights to help further fundamental understanding of heterogeneous catalytic processes, crystal nucleation/growth/dissolution, material performance in batteries, super-capacitors, bioprocesses, living cells and their interfaces.

My long term vision is to make significant contribution towards moving the design, synthesis and device integration of nanomaterials from their current state of trial and error based experimentation to real time, direct evidence based, fundamental understanding driven rational engineering approaches for atomic length scale control in large-scale manufacturing processes.

Teaching Interests:

I am comfortable teaching a wide range of courses, both introductory and advanced at the undergraduate and graduate levels in Process/Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Nanotechnology but have a keen interest towards courses related to material synthesis, catalysis, reaction engineering, metrology and process design & development.