The Structured Materials group is headed by Prof Geoff Moggridge. He has a long standing interest in chemical product design and this is reflected in many of the projects undertaken by the group.
The overarching link between the diverse range of projects within the group is the production or utilisation of microstructures for particular applications.
Examples of recent projects are:
- Developing an environmentally friendly control strategy for the invasive zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha.
- Making contolled size porous materials from block copolymers.
- Understanding the processing of cake flour.
- Investigation of the rheology of Marmite.
- Freezing cocoa butter in small droplets.
- Formulation of furniture polish.
Current projects include:
- The development of an improved prosthetic heart valve utilising the anisotropic mechanical properties of oriented block coploymers.
- Understanding the relationship between mutual and tracer diffusion coefficients in binary non-ideal liquid mixtures.
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(a) Mould for fabrication of trileaflet heart valves by compression moulding - male part in front, female behind; (b) valve prototype, produced from mould; (c) valve prototype being fabricated by Joanna Stasiak and Jacob Brubert.
The Structured Materials Group falls under the Department's Measurement and Microstructure Engineering research themes. It is part of the Microstructure Engineering Cluster within Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology. There are shared projects with the P4G and Colloid Dispersions groups.