Advanced Materials
Chemical engineers play a vital role in the design and development of new materials that enable modern technologies and drive innovation across industries. By applying principles of chemistry, physics, and engineering, they create materials with specific properties tailored to meet the demands of everything from sustainable packaging and biomedical devices to aerospace components and renewable energy systems. A key part of this work involves understanding and designing structure-property relationships—how a material’s molecular or micro-scale structure influences the material’s behavior and performance. Here at Lafayette ChBE, research in this area focuses on the design and development of sustainable and biomimetic soft materials for applications in drug delivery, eco-friendly plastic products, smart materials, and more.
Surface Properties of Atmospheric Aerosol Mimic Solutions
In the atmosphere, organic chemicals that are deposited on the surface of microscopic aerosols and cloud droplets can affect how long droplets persist before they react away or rain out. Because some chemicals are more likely to stay at droplet surfaces rather than mix in, even trace amounts can lead to disproportionately significant effects – which can lead to misrepresentation of their properties and effects in existing climate models!
At Lafayette ChBE, we measure the surface properties of systems that emulate the high surface-volume ratio of aerosols. By better understanding their behavior and chemistry, we can better estimate how aerosols change the overall energy balance in the atmosphere.
Lafayette Polymers Lab
Nature inspires and informs the design of new materials. By looking to nature, we can design materials offering desirable properties such as response to environmental stimuli, improved safety, and sustainability. To develop materials with these desirable attributes, our approach involves designing the polymer at the molecular level by incorporating structural building blocks inspired by or derived from nature. By modifying the chemical makeup of these materials, we can tune their responses and thereby engineer materials for diverse applications, such as in drug delivery, sustainable plastic packaging, and membranes.
Find out more: Polymers Lab