(6gl) Interfacial Engineering of 2D Nanomaterials for Biomedical and Energy Application

Since the emergence of single-layer graphene in lab in 2004, a vast library of 2D nanomaterials has been produced and much has been learnt about their structure-property relationships. Their unique properties have been investigated for applications in electronics, composites, biomedical and energy storage devices. Yet, we are far from systematic production and processing of these materials with well-controlled structure and function because little is known about their interfaces at solid, liquid, and gas phase. The nanosheet interfaces are governed by their statistical nature as ensemble of nanosheets and their anisotropic morphology, manifested in their size and surface chemistry polydispersity and complicated surface interactions with other compounds and their surroundings.

In my future lab, I will lead research efforts to obtain a comprehensive understanding of 2D nanomaterials interfaces and develop methods to engineer these interfaces for applications in biomedical, energy, and catalysis solutions. I will investigate the chemical interactions of radicals, ions, small molecules, macromolecules, and other nanoparticles at the nanosheet-liquid and –gas interface in moieties such as biological media and electrolytes. Understanding and cataloging these interactions will allow me to tune the composition, size distribution, surface chemistry, and surrounding of nanosheets to exploit these anisotropic interfaces for innovative designs of chemical and biosensors, molecular membranes, and electrodes. Particularly, the physical interactions such as mechanical deformation, aggregation, penetration, uptake, and friction at the nanosheet-cell interfaces will enable me to develop novel drug-delivery and imaging platforms. At the nanosheet-gas interface, I intend to engineer highly efficient compartmental catalytic units targeting the CO2 capture and conversion.

My knowledge of nanosheets production methods, their colloidal interactions and assembly in aqueous media and the characterization platforms I have developed for studying polydispersed and anisotropic materials throughout my PhD and postdoctoral studies at TAMU and MIT will be the cornerstone of my future research as a faculty member. I will apply single-particle characterization tools, spectroscopic methods, and measurements of microscopic stresses to study interfacial energy, areal distribution, and conformation of adsorbed species on the nanosheets surface. Combining my experimental knowledge with the particle-based computational tools such as Brownian dynamics and using techniques from statistical mechanics will allow me to accurately predict and quantify the interfacial interactions of the nanosheets.

Teaching Interests:

As a new faculty, I will use my experiences as graduate teaching fellow and teaching assistant to guide the undergraduate students in gaining a fundamental understanding of the key concepts of chemical engineering. I expect all my students to apply these concepts to a wide variety of physical systems based on problem categorization. I will teach my students to tackle the smaller components of problems through defining the system in terms of proper mathematical models and then using key techniques to achieve a solution. This problem-solving algorithm enables the students to approach any engineering problem in the real-life and industrial applications. In regard to graduate education, my goal is to empower students to become independent academic researchers. I will focus my efforts on not only imparting scientific knowledge, but also teaching the methodology of scientific research and independent thinking. My ultimate goal is to produce researchers who think in a multidisciplinary fashion and can generate creative solutions for challenging and complicated situations. While my teaching experience allows me to feel comfortable with teaching any of the core courses in the chemical engineering undergraduate curriculum, my specific teaching interests include transport, numerical methods in chemical engineering, and reaction engineering. My teaching interests for elective and graduate level courses closely match my research interests, and I would like to teach or develop courses in the areas of Advanced Functional Materials, and Colloids and Interfacial Phenomena. In particular, the latter course will cover an overview of the fundamental topics in colloids including the colloidal interaction at atomic and molecular level, interfacial forces, and self-assembly of the colloidal particles.