Porous Materials: Design and Modeling Challenges

Porous materials are characterized as having a “sponge-like” structure and encapsulate a range of materials including catalysts, membranes, and skin. In particular these materials have the potential to be incredibly useful for drug delivery and energy-related applications as they have large surface areas and can be used to store compounds. My current work focuses on the controlling the transport in these materials using surface modification techniques as well developing an understanding of the phenomenological behavior using numerical approaches. In particular, my research aims to create smart porous materials that have altered transport characteristics in response to external stimuli. In addition, my current work focuses on the digital design of porous materials using modeling techniques in an effort to create novel materials with intriguing properties.