Soft Materials Engineering

This course considers the relation between soft material composition and structure and how they can be used or modified to take part in various applications. The course provides core competence for students aiming at either a RenD-industry career or an academic one. In this course you will learn the foundations underlying the behavior of soft matter, (i.e. polymers, self-assembly structures). Fundamental knowledge is then related to advanced applications in various fields ranging from sensing, coatings, to bio-medical and health care materials as well as materials for energy such as fuel cell membranes.

An introduction on the theories describing the structure and dynamics of soft materials will be given as well as how those properties can be determined experimentally. The topics covered in the course provide an introduction to structures, energies and timescales typical of soft condensed matter. Supra-molecular structures and material properties arising from those interactions will then be considered. Those relations are in turn, illustrated with high-end applications and you will be thought how the control of various kinds of molecular interactions can lead to desired advanced material properties and structures.

Some specific topics:

• Molecular forces and binding energies in Soft Materials

• Mechanical properties of soft materials (viscoelasticity)

• Polymer dynamics

• Gels and rubbers

• Rheology techniques for studying soft materials

• Glass transition

• Polymer mixtures: phase diagram and phase separation

• Self-assembling in solution

• Self-assembled nano materials

• High Tech Topics on Soft Materials Engineering (considered in guest lectures or in group assignments - examples: gels for tissue engineering, responsive coatings, ...)