Novel Dental Adhesives & Dental Materials

Photo-polymerized dental materials (e.g., fillings) are standard practice in clinical dentistry. Unfortunately, these materials fail at a high rate and have a short lifetime (roughly 8-10 years). Our team studies the factors that contribute to adhesive failure (see a recent publication here here) and designs new chemistries for the next generation of dental adhesives.

Manipulating Heterogeneous Structure in Polymer Networks

Modern polymer network design typically targets a profile of various physical, chemical and mechanical properties. We study phase-separation based approaches to designing heterogeneous networks in situ and identify approaches to efficiently manipulate the balance between the thermodynamic driving force for phase separation and the physical limitations imposed by the formation of a three-dimensional network. Furthermore, we are interested in identifying applications where phase-separated network systems can provide enhanced utility to currently employed polymeric materials (see a recent publication here).

Biosourced additives for composites and adhesives

Motivated by the need to identify benign and biocompatible compounds for polymer and plastics engineering, we also investigate how biosourced nanomaterials enhance composite materials. Thus far, we have focused our investigations on the use of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). Our studies highlight how these nanomaterials can be used to enhance moisture sensitivity and barrier performance of composites, and improve the performance of pressure sensitive adhesives (see example publication here).

Designing Biomimetic Interfaces via Polymerization Techniques

The control of surface chemistry and morphology is very important as it influences how a material interacts with an external environment. Natural surfaces (lotus leaf, rose petals, etc.) have unique performance and properties that are attributed to hierarchical structures (e.g., micro and nano-scale features). Taking inspiration from nature, our team designs surfaces and coatings with regular features mimic natural designs (see images below and a recent publication here). We also investigate how transient surface instabilities arise in soft materials (e.g. wrinkling, creasing, and folding) as a means to dynamically tailor surface topographies.

Dynamic behavior of a non-treated marble dropped into water.

The smooth surface and intrinsic hydrophilicity of the marble allows for a smooth entry into the water.