Materials Design, Processing and Characterisation

Our research focuses on designing, processing and characterising materials; understanding the underlying material science and taking into account sustainability and socio-economic aspects.

Research Overview

Materials science and engineering research for applications such as renewable energy, structural engineering, separation technology and biomedical devices.

Specific material areas covered:

  • Porous materials
  • Materials synthesis
  • Snow and ice
  • Soft matter
  • Materials at extreme conditions
  • Materials manufacture
  • Composite materials
  • Polymers
  • Inorganic materials
  • Nanomaterials
  • Membranes
  • Phototcatalysts
FastBlade Regenerative Fatigue Test Facility

Research Facilities

Academics

  • Dr Jane Blackford: Metals, ice and snow, polymers, tribology, surfaces & interfaces 
  • Dr Cher Hon Lau: Scale-up production of porous nanomaterials/polymers, gas separation membranes, nanofiltration membranes 
  • Professor Xianfeng Fan: Photocatalysts, wetting, enhanced oil/gas recovery, microwave enhanced reactors, particle technology, CO2 technology 
  • Dr Yi (Harvey) Huang: Porous materials, ultrathin membranes, Zeolite/MOF Nanostructures for drug delivery, ultra-stable catalysts 
  • Professor Konstantin Kamenev: Instrumentation design including finite-element methods for high-pressure research, materials at the extreme conditions 
  • Professor Vasileios Koutsos: Soft matter, polymers, surfaces, interfaces, coatings, films, composites, nanocomposites, friction, adhesion, wetting, surface metrology & characterisation, AFM 
  • Dr Edward McCarthy: FRP composites, impact damage reductions, self-sensing systems, fatigue and fibre fragmentation, thermoplastic and biphasic polymers 
  • Professor Frank Mill: Managing and modelling entire product lifecycle, ECM process modelling and experimental validation 
  • Dr Norbert Radacsi: Nanostructured materials, (3D) electrospinning, fuel cells, batteries, supercapacitors, tissue engineering, biosensors, pharmaceuticals 
  • Dr Dipa Roy: Polymers and composite materials, CF/PEEK composites, thermoplastic fibre-metal laminates, in-situ polymerisation, biocomposites 
  • Dr George Serghiou: Engineering of chemicals, extreme conditions, new bulk and nanomaterial landscape 
  • Dr Wei Li: Photocatalysis for environmental applications, materials in biology and healthcare 
  • Dr Samuel Tammas-Williams: Additive manufacture of metal components, X-ray computed tomography, materials integrity, functionally graded materials 
  • Dr Parvas Allam: Biomimetic design, mechanical metamaterials, biocomposites engineering 
  • Dr Santiago Romero-Vargas Castrillon: transport process in environmental systems, membrane systems, water quality control
  • Dr Dongmin Yang: Manufacturing and structure of composite materials, computational modelling 
  • Dr Nan Yu: Digitally supported processes, large-scale metrology, advanced plasma technologies, ultra-precision manufacturing 
  • Dr Ignacio Tudela-Montes: Electrochemical reactors, electrode materials, sonochemical reactors, tribology 
  • Dr Tayebeh Ameri: Printed semiconductors, organic photovoltaics, perovskite photovoltaics, and hybrid detectors for energy, electronic and medical applications 
  • Dr Colin Robert: Advanced manufacturing of polymer composites