Nanoparticle Transport in Confined Matrices: Insights & Applications.
Transport of nanoscale particles through crowded, confined matrices is essential for drug delivery, diagnostic assays, and processing of nanocomposite materials. Because nanoparticles are comparable in size to heterogeneities within these matrices, their transport properties may be altered by local fluid properties and nearby confining surfaces.
I will discuss our recent experiments and simulations of nanoparticle transport in three settings:
Understanding the coupling of nanoparticle dynamics to liquid relaxations and geometric confinement will lead to better control over the spreading of nanoparticles through complex, heterogeneous materials.
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Frank M. Tiller Professor of Chemical Engineering
Jacinta Conrad is a physical scientist studying transport and dynamics within soft, complex materials and matrices. Using a broad range of microscopy, rheology, scattering, and computational methods, her group seeks to understand how microscale particles, including colloids, nanoparticles, bacteria, viruses, and proteins, explore and/or transport through confined and crowded environments containing polymers, macromolecules, or other dispersed species. Insights gained from fundamental studies of these non-equilibrium processes inform the design of new materials for preventing fouling and corrosion, for remediating environmental damage, and for sensitively diagnosing disease. She earned an SB in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and MA and PhD degrees in Physics from Harvard. She worked as a postdoctoral associate in MatSe at Illinois before starting her faculty position at the University of Houston (UH). Currently, she is Frank M. Tiller Professor of Chemical Engineering at UH, the Chair-Elect of the American Physical Society Division of Soft Matter (DSOFT), and an Associate Editor for ACS Applied Nano Materials, and was named a Fellow of the Society of Rheology in 2021.
