Chemical Engineering at the Interface

The research activity is addressed to the interfacial behavior of complex fluids under flow. The systems include both passive particles, which are convected by the action of flow (such as droplets, vesicles and red blood cells) and active soft matter, such as living cells moving in 2D and 3D substrata. A special emphasis is placed on the interactions between active and passive systems, which are relevant in a range of industrial applications.

Our approach is based on direct visualization of phase behavior and transport phenomena in home-made microfluidic devices by advanced microscopy techniques coupled with image processing and analysis.

Research topics:

  • interfacial and rheological measurements
  • single and collective behavior of the dispersed phase of emulsions, surfactant solutions, biological fluids and cell populations, including cancer proliferation and invasion
  • drug delivery in microcirculation
  • flow microreactors
  • transport in porous media
  • electrospinning
  • oil upstream

Partecipants