Contact Information

Professor Robert Tilton
Director, Center for Complex Fluids Engineering
tilton@andrew.cmu.edu

Dr. Annette Jacobson
Director, Colloids, Polymers and Surfaces (CPS) Educational Program
jacobson@andrew.cmu.edu

Laura Shaheen
CPS and CFE Administrative Assistant
(412) 268-6344
E-mail:lr23 [at] andrew.cmu.edu

RESEARCH

Research

Industrial Interactions - Resources - Collaborations

Research in the Center is both discovery- and application-oriented.  Particular foci include colloidal forces, rheology, adsorption, electrokinetics, surface functionalization, wetting, self-assembly and crystallization phenomena, their inter-relationships, and their application to processes as diverse as biopharmaceutical separations, coating technologies and environmental remediation.  Numerous research projects are underway to develop novel nanomaterials and nanoparticle-based technologies.

A highly collaborative spirit is behind the Center’s well-known ability to assemble multidisciplinary teams to take on complex industrial, medical and environmental problems.   Conduct of fundamental and applied research in parallel provides an outstanding opportunity for graduate education.  Ph.D. students working in the Center gain deep fundamental knowledge while maintaining a strong awareness of how those fundamentals are used to develop new technologies. Our Ph.D. students benefit from the educational resources of the Colloids, Polymers and Surfaces Program. Broad-based lecture and laboratory courses complement their in-depth research expertise as they prepare to enter a wide variety of industries.  Our graduates have thriving careers in pharmaceuticals, advanced and electronic materials, biotechnology, textiles, specialty chemicals, petroleum, paper and paint manufacture.

Industrial
The practical importance of complex fluids engineering has nucleated strong interactions between the Center and a variety of industries. These interactions take several forms ranging from formal workshops, the formation of an industrial advisory board through individual faculty consulting.

CFE Facilities and Resources
Researchers in the CCFE have extensive experimental facilities available.

The Center houses impressive experimental facilities. The CPS Educational program maintains two laboratories for basic colloid and polymer characterization. Individual faculty have both off the shelf and custom built equipment and facilities for the measurement of interfacial properties, interaction energies and macroscopic properties. The Center often performs experimental studies for exploratory or consulting purposes, the relevant contact information is provided below along with a list of equipment currently housed in the CPS Educational Program Laboratories.

PPG Industries CPS Laboratory Facilities (Doherty Hall, CMU campus)

Colloid and Surface Characterization Equipment

• Quantasorb Surface Area Analyzer (Gas Adsorption)
• Cenco-Du Nouy Tensiometer
• Rame-Hart Contact Angle Goniometer
• Adsorptive Bubble Fractionation Apparatus
• Coulter Electronic Partical Counter, Model Z1
• Laser Zee Meter (Electrophoretic Mobility)
• Conductivity Meter
• Krüss Bubble Pressure Tensiometer UV-VIS Spectrophotometers
• Micromeritics Sedigraph 5000 ET
• Burleigh Instructional Scanning Tunneling Microscope
• Brookhaven Zeta PALS
• Malvern Zeta Sizer
• Malvern Nanosizer

• Instron Tensile and Compression Tester
• Brice-Phoenix Light Scattering Photometer
• Brookhaven Dynamic and Static Light Scattering Apparatus
• Waters Gel Permeation Chromatography
• Kinematic Viscosity Apparatus
• Brookfield Cone and Plate Viscometer
• Perkin-Elmer Differential Scanning Calorimeter
• Perkin-Elmer Thermogravimetric Analyzer
• Wescan Recording Membrane Osmometer

Plus complete sample preparation facilities with some limited synthesis apparatus.

For information about access to the CPS laboraties and equipment, please contact the Director of the CPS Labs, Prof. Annette Jacobson (jacobson [at] andrew.cmu.edu)

CFE Faculty Collaborations
A manifestation of the interdisciplinary nature of the Center is the existence of jointly advised students and industrially-funded projects. A partial list of these is provided.

• Characterizing reactively grafted PEG films with scanning-angle reflectometry and streaming potential measurements (J.W. Schneider, R.D. Tilton, Ph.D. project)

• Morphology of polymerized surfactant microstructures adsorbed onto silica using non-contact electrostatic imaging (J.W. Schneider, L.M. Walker, Post-doc project)

• Reversible aggregation of bioactive liposomes using dynamic light scattering (J.W. Schneider, A. Morfesis, Senior Honors project)

• Colloidal Forces in Polymer/Surfactant Mixtures. Two joint PhD students have systematically studied and exploited polymer and surfactant co-adsorption and complexation to manipulate the qualitative and quantitative features of colloidal interaction energies. (R.D. Tilton and D.C. Prieve.)

• Dynamic Wetting in Surfactant Solutions. The two groups have worked together to relate adsorption kinetics and isotherms at the solid/liquid, vapor/liquid and solid/vapor interfaces to deduce dynamic wetting mechanisms. (S. Garoff and R. D. Tilton.)

• Complex Fluids Engineering for Pharmaceutical Processing. PhD and undergraduate students working within these groups have collaborated to map the macroscopic rheological behavior of suspensions in complex solutions containing associating polymers and surfactants. Quantitative and qualitative changes in rheology have been interpreted through direct measurements of polymer/surfactant complexation, phase stability and co-adsorption to solid/liquid interfaces. (R.D. Tilton, L.M. Walker, S. Garoff and T.M. Przybycien.)

• Elasticity Effects in Moving Contact Lines. Collaborating on a project of one of Steve Garoff's PhD students investigating moving contact lines. We are quantifing the effects of viscoelasticity (bulk) on the problem. (S. Garoff and L. M. Walker, Ph. D project.)