Porous Media and Materials Characterization
Applicability
Porous materials have long captivated scientists from early concerns of fresh water flowing through geologic formations through modern interests in catalysis, separations and insulating materials.
Fundamental Knowledge
The Allgeier Group pursues synthesis, characterization and applications of porous materials. We explore fundamental questions such as the influence of material structure upon adsorption enthalpy and selectivity, as well as, diffusivity of fluids imbibed in the pore system.
Meta-Stable Porous Materials
Soft-matter materials undergo structural change upon drying and to address the characterization challenge of these meta-stable porous media, we deploy nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry. In a collaboration with Dr. Stevin Gehrke's group, we study materials relevant to tissue engineering and stem cell or drug delivery.
A Closer Look
To address the challenging characterization of unconventional reservoirs of natural gas and oil, our group aims to understand surface-solvent interactions at the molecular level. NMR relaxometry results are correlated with structural information of organic matter from shale formations.Collaborations
We collaborate with the group of Dr. Mark B. Shiflett at KU to identify innovative and selective adsorbents for gas and liquid phase separation processes, taking advantage of the Advanced Materials library donated to KU by DuPont. Students gain hands-on experience with a variety of techniques, such as gas adsorption, X-ray diffraction, microscopy, and vibrational spectroscopy. We also seek to collaborate with colleagues studying catalytic reactions in porous media by constructing high-pressure NMR cells enabling an innovative characterization of phase behavior within confined pores.
The Materials Characterization Team in the Allgeier Research Group - Spring 2019