Summary

Particles are everywhere: from the air we inhale, to the bread, salt and pepper on the dinner table, in dental fillings, in every medication pill, in automobile tires and diesel exhaust, in the cement, wall or car paint, in every chocolate, cosmetics, suntan lotions etc.

The mission of our laboratory is to teach the fundamentals of particle science and engineering through basic research. We focus on the smallest particles, nanoparticles, as their properties are quite different than those of bulk materials creating unprecedented opportunities for the development of new products and processes as well as new challenges in handling and processing these particles. We specialize on gas-phase (aerosol) processes for their unique capacity to form high purity products (e.g. optical fibers) with closely controlled size, morphology, purity and composition accompanied by few, if any, liquid byproducts (1). As a generic aerosol process, we study closely flame technology for its potential to make a spectrum of particles for diverse applications and its proven scale-up capacity in manufacture of carbon blacks, fumed silica and titania (2).

A focus of our program is on understanding particle dynamics (3) during materials manufacture at high concentrations (4) and in particular the formation of aggregates and agglomerates (5) that greatly affect their processing and applications. Parallel to this and in close collaboration with top industrial and academic laboratories in ETH, Europe, U.S., Asia and Australia we focus on product discovery and quantitative process understanding for rational exploration and scalable synthesis of novel materials for catalysts (6), ceramics (7), sensors (8), phosphors (9), dental fillings (10) to name a few that may revolutionize technology in ways and that have never been considered before

Extended Overview with pictures (PDF 46KB)