Soft Materials with Bio-Inspired Properties
We seek to engineer soft materials, both complex emulsions and polymers, to incorporate bio-inspired properties and to mimic biological functions. These properties include, for examples, tunable and dynamic shapes, skin-like mechanical robustness, and selective recognitions of stimuli. The desired sets of properties, however, are often in competition with each other. Thus, by quantifying these chemical and physical interactions at complex interfaces, we can identify materials and design devices that extract the “best of many worlds” properties. These insights are important for applications in biomedical technology and environmental sustainability.
Selected Publications:
T. J. Durkin, B. Barua, S. Savagatrup*. “Modification of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers for Responsive and Biologically Active Surfactants in Complex Droplets” Giant, 2023, 13, 100134.
T. J. Durkin, B. Barua, J. J. Holmstrom, V. Karanikola, S. Savagatrup*. “Functionalized Amphiphilic Block Copolymers and Complex Emulsions for Selective Sensing of Dissolved Metals at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces” Langmuir, 2023, 39, 12845.
Portable, Multiplexed Chemical and Bio-Sensors
Distributed real-time sensors are increasingly essential for medical diagnostics, food safety, and life science discovery to better understand and protect human health. We are particularly interested in engineering practical sensors for health and environmental monitoring. Our approaches focus on leveraging selective interactions found in nature and fabricating on-site, low-cost, and reliable chemical and bio-sensors. The challenges often arise from the undefined and complex interactions at the interface of soft materials. Understanding the underpinning mechanisms could lead to sets of design rules to produce reliable and practical sensors.
Selected Publications:
V. Trinh†, C. S. Malloy†, T. J. Durkin, A. Gadh, S. Savagatrup*. “Detection of PFAS and Fluorinated Surfactants using Differential Behaviors at Interfaces of Complex Droplets” ACS Sensors, 2022, 7, 1514. († equal contribution)
B. Barua, T. J. Durkin, I. M. Beeley, A. Gadh, S. Savagatrup*. “Multiplexed and Continuous Microfluidic Sensors using Dynamic Complex Droplets” Soft Matter, 2023, 19, 1930.
S. Savagatrup,†,* D. Ma,† H. Zhong, K. S. Harvey, L. C. Kimerling, A. M. Agarwal,* T. M. Swager. “Dynamic Complex Emulsions as Amplifiers for On-Chip Photonic Cavity Enhanced Resonators” ACS Sensors, 2020, 5, 1996. († equal contribution, * co-corresponding)
