(6dr) Nano-Engineered Functional Materials for Energy Storage and Biomimetic Applications

Nano-Engineered Functional Materials
for Energy Storage and Biomimetic Applications

Samanvaya Srivastava

Institute for Molecular
Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

samsri@uchicago.edu

A multitude of novel building blocks, including
macromolecules and nanoparticles of myriad shapes and sizes, are now available to
researchers owing to recent progress in material synthesis and fabrication
techniques. However, as technology moves towards smarter materials and complex
multifunctional devices, the need for understanding and controlling the
interactions and assembly of these mesoscale units also becomes increasingly
important. Driven by this motivation, my proposed research program will aspire
to employ fundamental approaches from colloid, macromolecular and soft matter sciences
to understand and tailor the physical processes that govern the
structure-property relationships in these material building blocks and their
assemblies. These studies will provide the groundwork for the overarching theme
of my research, which is to design bottom-up approaches for assembly of
mesoscopic building blocks into nano-engineered materials with on-demand properties.

My graduate research with Prof. Lynden Archer at
Cornell University primarily focused on developing strategies for synthesis of inorganic-organic
hybrid materials with tunable properties. Specifically, I developed strategies
for controlling nanoparticle dispersion in polymer hosts, and consequentially synthesizing
nanoparticle-polymer composites with desired mechanical and electrochemical
properties. Further, in a collaborative effort with Lipson group at Cornell
University, I worked on the development of functional inks for unique
direct-write applications, including 3-D printed electronic and energy storage
devices.

My current research as a postdoctoral
researcher with Prof. Matthew Tirrell at The University of Chicago and Argonne
National Laboratory involves designing and synthesizing block
copolyelectrolytes that self-assemble via electrostatic interactions into polyelectrolyte
complex (PEC) based micelles and hydrogels. Our investigations reveal that PEC
based hydrogel morphologies span a wide range of features and are very sensitive
to external stimuli, thus allowing for facile tuning of the hydrogel
properties. I am also investigating the enhancements in the protein activity
upon encapsulation in polyelectrolyte complexes. These studies, in
collaboration with the Gardel group at The University of Chicago, are
particularly important for intelligent design of PEC based micelles and
hydrogels as drug carriers and tissue growth scaffolds.

My goal is to establish an independent research
program that aims at designing novel bottom-up approaches for self-assembled material.
Building on my previous work and harnessing my expertise in soft matter physics,
I plan to pursue three area of research that are set in a similar fundamental
landscape, but will serve entirely different realms of applied research. The research
themes that I intend to pursue are: 1) Developing new material platforms for
redox flow batteries, which employ electroactive complex fluids that are flown
in a parallel flow setup during the charging/discharging process and stored in
reservoir tanks otherwise, 2) Development of smart inks for additive
fabrication (also known as 3-D printing) of responsive materials and integrated
devices, and 3) Synthesizing surface-modified nanoparticle based hydrogels that
will have superior tunability, stimuli responsiveness and tissue supporting functionalities.

Selected
Publications (12 total, 2 in review):

1.    
R. Mangal,
S. Srivastava, and L. A. Archer, Phase stability and dynamics of entangled
polymer-nanoparticle composites, Nature
Communications (2015), in print.

2.    
S.
Srivastava, J. L. Schaefer, Z. Yang, Z. Tu and L. A.
Archer, 25th Anniversary Article: Polymer–Particle Composites: Phase
Stability and Applications in Electrochemical Energy Storage, Advanced Materials 26, 201 (2014).

3.    
S.
Srivastava, S. Narayanan and L. A. Archer, Structure and
Transport Anomalies in Soft Colloids,
Physical Review Letters 110,
148302 (2013).

4.    
S.
Srivastava, P. Agarwal and L. A. Archer, Tethered
Nanoparticle–Polymer Composites: Phase Stability and Curvature, Langmuir 28, 6276 (2012).

5.    
S.
Srivastava, J. H. Shin and L. A. Archer, Structure and
Rheology of Nanoparticle–Polymer Suspensions, Soft Matter 8, 4097
(2012).

6.    
P. Agarwal, S. Srivastava and L. A. Archer, Thermal Jamming of a Colloidal
Glass, Physical Review Letters 107, 268302 (2011)

For more information, please visit: http://tirrell.ime.uchicago.edu/samsri