Polymers & Microfluidics group

Introduction

The Polymers & Microfluidics group was created in 2005 and is centred on experimental soft condensed matter. We study complex fluids, often multicomponent systems, containing polymers, copolymers, (nano)-particles and surfactants. Microfluidics provides unique opportunities to synthesise, formulate, process and analyse fluids and is therefore explored in our work. Additionally, we employ extensively scattering (light, X-rays and neutrons), microscopy, calorimetry and spectroscopy - but we also develop our own measurement tools. Particularly, we resort to novel combinatorial and high-throughput techniques to address problems with large parameter space where conventional experimentation becomes unfeasible.

News

[Feb 2011] PhD positions open with the centre for Plastic electronics (CPE), on applications of soft matter nanowrinkling to optoelectronics: Sub-micron patterning of soft matter by buckling instability of bilayers (details here)

[Feb 2011] Carlos Gonzalez joins the P&M group as a PhD student (Imperial/Unilever): polymer-microfluidic kinetics & phase transitions. Read more about the project here.

[July 2010] Phys Rev Lett 105, 038301 (2010) on "Spinodal Clustering in Thin Films of Nanoparticle-Polymer Mixtures" by HC Wong and JT Cabral [link]

[July 2010] IUPAC MACRO2010 11-16 July 2010 World Polymer Congress, symposium on "Advances in Colloidal and Nanosize Polymer Materials" organised by PPG (Cabral/Keddie) with invited speakers Balazs, Mackay, Creton, Vaia etc.

[April 2010] MRS2010 Spring meeting, SanFranscisco April 5-9 2010, check symposium KK on microfluidics (organised by Martinez/Fernandez-Nieves/Griego/Cabral).

[November 2009] New Malvern DLS is installed (particle size, diffusion coef/mechanism and correlation functions).

[November 2009] Sofica and Fica solution light scattering instruments are upgraded (polymer conformation in solution)

[September 2009] New FTIR microscope Bruker Hyperion and Tensor 27 (MIR and NIR) is installed .

"Complex micropatterning of periodic structures on elastomeric
surfaces" is featured on the cover of Soft Matter, December 2008

A. Chiche, C. M. Stafford and J. T. Cabral*,
SoftMatter Communications 4, 2360 - 2364 (2008)

PhD positions available:

Please contact Dr João Cabral for more information. Check postgraduate funding opportunities at Imperial and partnerships with NUS-Singapore, Hong Kong (HKU), Nanyang NTU, A*STAR, Malaysia and China.

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

Phase behaviour

Microarray containing a polymer mixture library Two-dimensional scattering pattern of a phase separating polymer mixture
Combinatorial polymer mixture (PS/PB) library and sequential 2D scattering pattern during spinodal decomposition.

Microfluidics

Drop formation in microfluidics at low flow rates Thread formation in microfluidics at high flow rates
Fluid thread breakup under microfluidic confinement with applications in oil recovery and biology.

Polymer dynamics
Rotational relaxation of a polymeric methyl group monitored at low temperature (4K) by incoherent neutron scattering.

Current research projects include:

Thermodynamics and dynamics or polymer blends with a combination of real- and reciprocal-space techniques, including microscopy and AFM, and light and neutron scattering.

Local polymer dynamics in homopolymers, blends and nanocomposites, studied by calorimetry, spectroscopy and incoherent inelastic neutron scattering.

Microfluidics: both the fabrication of novel devices and applications in soft condensed matter and biology.

‘Frontal photopolymerisation’ (FPP) theory and applications in rapid 3D microfluidic fabrication, particularly of solvent-resistant structures and microreactors.

Microfluidics applications include microchemical reactors, a fast "interfacial tensiometer", in-situ polymer/surfactant processing and inspection using scattering and microscopy, microfluidic manipulation and interrogation of motor neurons.

Fullerene association in model homopolymer matrices: bulk and thin film confinement, studied using microscopy, small angle scattering and reflectivity techniques.