​Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://kaust.zoom.us/j/97562456663

Abstract: Study of dynamic and reversible supramolecular polymers, formed by monomer self-assembly, has entered an era that demands assemblies with more structural and dynamic control. Living supramolecular polymerization has emerged as a synthetic strategy to construct supramolecular assemblies with well-defined structure and dispersity. On the other hand, temporal control over dynamic materials is now being extended to non-equilibrium regime. While both of these controls are desirable, strategies to achieve them have been mostly chemically distinct. The synergy between structural and temporal control is important for the advent of supramolecular polymers to be employed as functional adaptive materials. To gain this symbiosis it is imperative that a common strategy is sought. Looking into the biological realm can provide a necessary inspiration for the conundrum.

We, in our laboratory, are driven by this philosophy and are currently trying to understand both thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of self-assembly. This talk describes our efforts in understanding a very key concept of biological self-assembly which is temporal control over aggregates via a chemical fuel as we think this approach can singlehandedly cater to various existing challenges of supramolecular chemistry such as a living supramolecular polymerization, control over nucleation rate, transient materials, and formation of supramolecular hetero-structures.

I will be discussing our results by taking supramolecular systems, which we have been working on during the last few years.

Biography: Subi George is currently leading a supramolecular chemistry group at the New Chemistry Unit of JNCASR, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India. He is currently the Chair of the Chemistry department. He has obtained his Ph.D. degree at the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, India in 2004 in the group of Prof A. Ajayaghosh. During 2005-2008, he has been a post-doctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands with Prof. Dr. E. W. (Bert) Meijer.). His current research interests focus on Functional Supramolecular Polymers, Living and Non-equilibrium supramolecular polymerization, Supramolecular Chirality, and Organic optoelectronic materials. He is the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize for Science and Technology in Chemical Sciences Category, which is the most prestigious science award in India, for the year 2020. He is also the recipient of the Swaranjayanti Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology of Government of India (2017), Asian Photochemistry Association (APA) Young Scientist award (2015), NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist Award in Chemistry (2015), Chemical Research Society of India Bronze Medal (2015) and Materials Research Society of India Medal (2013). In 2019, he has been elected as a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences as one of the youngest members of the Academy. He was also the Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2011). Since November 2020, he is the Associate Editor of Chemical Science (RSC flagship journal). He is a member of Editorial Advisory Boards of Chemistry of Materials (ACS), Material Horizons (RSC), Chem (Cell), and Organic Materials (Thieme). He is also on the Editorial Board of ChemNanoMat (Wiley).

MORE INFORMATION

• CONTACTAliyah Fakim
• EMAILaliyah.fakim@kaust.edu.sa

​You are invited to attend the KAUST Workshop for Women in Science and Engineering being held on campus March 8-9, 2021.

The workshop will include talks by renowned scientists and engineers about their personal journey, struggles and life-changing approaches. It will also include informative sessions on preparing your CV, guidelines to successful interviews, leadership and time management techniques.

If you reside in KAUST and would like to attend the meeting on campus please indicate so in the note box during your registration (limited attendance per Health and Safety regulations due to COVID will be possible). 

Register here

The deadline to register for this workshop is March 1, 2021.

Have a look at the agenda and full program here.

Choose to Challenge

In celebration of International Women Day on March 8 themed #choosetochallenge, The KAUST workshop for Women in Science and Engineering is launching a campus-wide competition to choose extraordinary females who made the decision to CHALLENGE certain circumstances to prevail and succeed. 

​Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://kaust.zoom.us/j/99144851628

Abstract: Spray fluidized bed agglomeration is a key process for the industrial production of foods, pharmaceuticals and chemicals with superior instant and dosing properties. In the classical view, it is describedmathematically by aggregation population balance equations (PBE). Significant research is still going on to improve the accuracy and speed of numerical solutions of such equations as well as to advance our ability of solving the inverse problem, i.e. of identifying the aggregation kernel or rate on the basis of experimental results. Despite of recent progresses with advanced identifications methods, this inverse problem remains difficult. Conventionally, a size-dependent part of the kernel is set by trial-and-error to one out of several proposed forms, whereas the pre-factor is fitted to typically time-dependent expressions (instead of constant factors). Since this is not satisfactory, completely different approaches have also been developed in the last decade. One of them uses (instead of the continuous PBE model) stochastic micro-scale models, often denoted by Monte-Carlo models. In this way experimental data can be described with minimal need for fitting. Moreover, the discrete models have been used to develop new population dynamics approaches, which turned out to be of superior predictive capacity because of their multivariate nature (the internal coordinate of particle size is fully resolved, whereas many other internal coordinates that refer to, among others, wetting and drying are captured by average values). Additionally, agglomerate morphology has been studied by 3D-imaging and descriptor analysis, and interrelations of morphology to operating conditions (especially to drying conditions) have been revealed. Further progresses that will be reviewed refer to the implementation of morphology into the process model, the implementation of agglomerate breakage, and the investigation of both, agglomeration with and without binder.

Bibliography:  Evangelos Tsotsas holds the Chair of Thermal Process Engineering at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany) since 1994. He has a PhD (1985) and a habilitation (1990) from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and he was a Senior Process Specialist at the Dow Chemical Company from 1991 to 1994.

MORE INFORMATION

• CONTACTFawwaz Elahi
• EMAILfawwaz.elahi@kaust.edu.sa