"Colloids and Surfaces, one particle or two particles at a time".
Overview: SPSE is an interdisciplinary research center concerned with experimental and theoretical research within the broad field of colloid and surface chemistry. Centered around a technique called micropipet manipulation it can form, study, and characterize materials as microparticles in both the inanimate realm of metals, ceramics, plastics and composites (traditonal materials) and the biological realm of lipids, sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, salts and water. With three states of matter (gas, liquid and solid) and therefore five interfaces (G-L, G-S, L-L, L-S, S-S), there are many combinations and compositonal variations. What the center generates though is a fundamental understanding of the way in which these materials and their interfaces behave, including, forming microparticles of gas and liquid in a second liquid solvent, and measuring, for example, the rate of dissolution of the gas or liquid as a dissolving microsphere. If the liquid contains a solute (such as a salt in water or a polymer in organic solvent) and the initial solvent dissolves, then we can observe crystallization or the formation of amorphous (glassy) materials as solids. Interfacial interactions and adsorption of surfactants are seen as changes in response of a curved interface to pressure applied in the micropipet, and also from the formation of a skin of solidified material. Interactions between particles are characterized by briging two microdroplets or particles together to observe spreading, coalescence or stable adhesion as shown at the top of the page for a so called Droplet Interface Bilayer (DIB) made from gyceryl mono-oleate between two water microdroplets in a squalene-decane mixture. Basically it is surface and colloid science one particle or two particles at a time.
The mission now is to bring all of these experimental techniques, understanding and characterized phenomena to specific applications for a range of specific materials, and material compositions. Applications include physics and chemistry of soft materials; nucelation and growth of precipitates, crystals and amorphius materials; development and behavior of pharmaceutics as advanced drug delivery systems; mixtures of materials in complex multiphase-multicompoent emulsions in, for example, the food industry or pharmacy; and the manipulation of individual and pairs of cells, their interactions with each other and other surfaces as well as their mechanical and physical properties.
More details of specific projects underway can be found at the Student Area