ChEMS Seminar: Interfacial and Hydrodynamic Behavior of Colloidal SWCNTs

Carlos A. Silvera Batista, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Chemical Engineering

University of Michigan

Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are a family of materials with unique and outstanding physical properties that can advance applications in composites, energy conversion, biosensing and bioimaging. Furthermore, SWCNTs constitute excellent model systems of colloidal nanorods. Nonetheless, dispersion in liquid media aided by surfactants and biomolecules, as well as the separation by type, are essential requirements for using SWCNTs in technological applications or as model systems. The key to the dispersion and separation of SWCNTs is the manipulation of their interface. Despite its crucial importance, the behavior and conformation of the interfacial layer is not understood, while structural characterization has been minimal. In this talk, Batista will explore the close relationship between the interfacial arrangement of surfactant molecules and the interaction potential, as well as the corresponding effect on dispersion and separation processes. I will also discuss the power of analytical ultracentrifugation to measure the hydration and surfactant binding density. Finally, I will discuss the use of colloidal SWCNTs and sedimentation velocity experiments to study the fundamental hydrodynamic behavior of nanorods.

Bio: Carlos A. Silvera Batista was born in Cartagena, a tropical city in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. He initiated undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at the Universidad de San Buenaventura (Cartagena) and subsequently obtained a bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York. Batista earned a doctorate from the University of Florida, after working with Professors Kirk Ziegler and Jason Butler on the processing and characterization of the interfacial properties of carbon nanotubes. He later became a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Working with Jeffrey Fagan, he developed bulk methods based on sedimentation for the length and interfacial characterization of SWCNTs. He is currently a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. His work in the lab of Professor Nicholas Kotov focuses on the chiral properties of nanoparticles and their assembly.