Chemical Engineering at the interface: Flow-induced structuring of dispersed soft matter
Professor Stefano Guido (Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering, University of Napoli “Federico II”, 80125 Napoli, Italy and CEINGE Advanced Biotechnologies, Napoli, Italy)
Abstract
The interfacial behavior of soft matter is an active area of multidisciplinary research where an approach based on chemical engineering core disciplines, such as transport phenomena and thermodynamics, can be exploited to tackle industrially relevant problems. Here, the focus is on the interface of deformable particles, i.e., droplets, vesicles and red blood cells (RBCs), which can be considered as the building blocks of more complex, somehow similar dispersed soft matter systems, such as emulsions, surfactant solutions and blood. The morphology of these systems can be significantly affected by flow conditions, such as in processing. In this presentation, the flow behavior of droplets, vesicles and RBCs, based on microscopy imaging of individual particles, will be discussed by giving special emphasis to confined flow geometries in microfluidic devices.
Top panel: red blood cells flowing in a microcapillary in vitro: effect of flow rate and capillary diameter (Tomaiuolo, Simeone, Martinelli, Rotoli, Guido, Soft Matter, 5, 3736, 2009). Bottom panel: confined (left column) and unbounded (right column) droplet deformation at the same capillary number (Sibillo, Pasquariello, Simeone, Cristini, Guido, Phys. Rev. Lett., 97, 2006).
Biography
Stefano Guido received a Laurea in Chemical Engineering in 1989 at the University of Napoli “Federico II”, a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1992 at the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Napoli “Federico II” on biased cell migration in oriented collagen gels. In 1994 he started as Assistant Professor at the same institution, where he is currently Full Professor in the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota in 2003, at the University of California at Irvine in 2004 and at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. He is currently involved He is currently involved in several COST actions (MP1106 “Smart and green interfaces”, CM1101 “Colloidal Aspects of Nanoscience for Innovative Processes and Materials”, and MP1305 “Flowing Matter”), in the FP7 European project Synflow (Innovative Synthesis in Continuous-Flow Processes for Sustainable Chemical Production), and in the European Space Agency Topical Team on biomimetic and cellular systems. His research interests are in interfacial behavior of complex soft materials, such as emulsions, surfactant solutions, biological systems, multiphase reactive systems, and porous media, with a special emphasis on the application of microfluidics techniques. He is author of more than 80 papers in ISI journals and of 4 international patents (more information on ResearchGate http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefano_Guido).