Research

Highlights

• Introducing Our Visiting Researcher: Felix Ellwanger

  2 July 2024 | Felix Ellwanger from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany is exploring the flow behavior of protein-water mixtures in meat substitutes during his research stay at Chalmers.
  

• Introducing Our Visiting Researcher: Matheus Mendes

  2 July 2024 | Matheus Mendes from Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil is advancing the development of conductive plastics for lightning strike protection in airplanes during his year-long research stay at Chalmers.
  

• Exciting News: Our Lab Expansion is Complete!

  1 July 2024 | Our lab has grown bigger to help us enhance our research capabilities.
  
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  New processing equipment in our group courtesy of Wellspect Healthcare

  1 February 2024 | Investiment in research and education by Wellspect Healthcare
  

For more Highlights click Here

Research overview

Rheology is unique among analytical techniques in materials science because it can probe material structure in ‘out-of-equilibrium’ states, i.e. flow induced. This takes rheology as analytical technique towards processing through flow and morphological control therewith. The processing of soft matter into products typically involves rheologically complex fluids in complex flow configurations. Thus, understanding field-matter interactions in relation to fundamental rheological properties is essential for obtaining products with favorable performance through processing.

Four pillars

Our research is based around four closely-relate main pillars: (i) Field-matter interaction / method development, (ii) Multiscale analysis and control (meaning structuring), (iii) Soft and Biomatter and (iv) Multifunctinoal properties.

(i) Field–matter interaction and method development, with emphasis on tailoring and characterization of soft and biological matter. This includes the development of rheological methods coupled to synchrotron X-ray techniques, optical and polarized-light methods, and dielectric spectroscopy, together with the study of flow- and magnetic-field interactions with matter as tools for both characterization and control.

(ii-iii) Multiscale analysis and control of soft and biological matter, aimed at understanding how material structure, dynamics, and function emerge and propagate across length scales. Beyond establishing links between molecular, nanoscale, mesoscopic, and macroscopic levels, the focus is on learning from these couplings in order to actively control multiscale structure formation, combining experimental, theoretical, and data-driven approaches.

(iv) Multifunctional soft materials, where controlled structuring is used to achieve biological, thermoelectric, sensing, optical, and magnetic functionality. Targeted applications include antibacterial and bio-interactive materials, biomedical and tissue-engineering systems, as well as soft materials for aerospace and space applications. Importantly, these application areas are not fixed; they evolve continuously in response to both advances in (i) and (ii), and to emerging challenges and opportunities arising in other scientific fields.