Dissertation Topic

Polymer nanocomposites are materials consisting of a polymer with nanoparticles dispersed throughout it. They can enhance material properties and exhibit new properties not present in either pure material. We are interested in the effect of nanoparticles on a material’s rheological properties to assist with designing new polymer nanocomposites, with the eventual goal of applying this knowledge to fuel cell membranes. We characterize the material properties and nanoparticle dispersion using x-ray scattering, neutron spin echo, neutron backscattering, and more. We explore systems containing well dispersed nanoparticles with varying shape, size, and loading.

Publications

[1] Rooks, J., Gilbert, P.H., Porcar, L., Liu, Y., Butler, P. Anisotropy factors in small-angle scattering for dilute rigid-rod suspensions. Journal of Applied Crystallography (2023), 56.