Prof. Rossana Pasquino

Description

The group of Soft Matter in Naples deals with very different subjects, from polymer melts to bio-based systems, with an approach that is experimentalist, simulative and theoretical. Different groups of people are involved in these subjects. In the following lines, there is a resume of the various themes, approaches, equipments, people and competences which are available in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Materials and Production Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II. Rheology Lab Subjects: polymer melts of different architectures, micellar solutions, suspensions of spheres, liquid crystals, additives for cement pastes, polymer blends, flow-induced crystallization Equipments: three stress controlled rheometers (Anton Paar MCR 702 Twin Drive, SR200 Rheometrics, DHR 200 TA Instruments), an optical device (Linkam scientific instruments combined with a microscope Zeiss), an home made light scattering system, various instruments for the chemical-physical characterization (tensiometer, calorimeter etc.) People: Profs Nino Grizzuti and Rossana Pasquino, Dr. Salvatore Costanzo, two Phd Student and several Master students Modelling of Polymer Rheology Lab Subjects: the main aim of this research activity is that of developing constitutive equations for the rheology of macromolecular fluids. In particular, we are interested in entangled macromolecular fluids. In spite of the complex rheological behavior of these fluids, the constitutive equations should be simple enough to be used in algorithms for complex flow simulations. In order to better describe the nonlinear rheological behaviour of these materials analytical models are sometimes replaced by simulation models explicitly accounting for the many-chain nature of the entangled polymer dynamics. More specifically we resort to Brownian dynamics methods as well as to non-equilibrium molecular dynamics. Equipments: access to the GRID computing facilities of the University of Naples People: Prof. Pino Marrucci, Prof. Giovanni Ianniruberto, Dr. Antonio Brasiello, one Phd student La Bottega della Materia Soffice Simulative Lab Subjects: modelling and simulation of soft matter, ranging from liquid crystals, to emulsions, and complex suspensions. The rheology and the fluid dynamics of complex materials such as solid or deformable particles in Newtonian or viscoelastic fluids, emulsions, granular materials, liquid crystals is studied. The study is mainly performed by direct numerical simulations whereby the macroscopic governing equations, with a proper choice for the constitutive model, are solved. Equipments: blade-based cluster Dell PowerEdge M600 with two quad core Intel Xeon E5410@2.33 Ghz Processors (16 nodes), 16 Gb RAM People: Prof. Pier Luca Maffettone, Dr. Gaetano D’avino e Dr. Francesco Greco, seven Phd Students, some of them in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT, Naples) Rheo-optic lab Subjects: Flow visualization; Flow induced morphology of microstructured systems; Drop deformation, break-up and coalescence; Emulsification, mixing and blending; Flow stability; Phase inversion; Surfactants; Multiphase fluid flow; Upstream and drilling fluids; Flow Assurance; Rheology of biological fluids, such as blood or mucus; Red Blood Cells deformation and clustering; Microfluidic; Reactive flows; Drug delivery; Transport Phenomena in biological systems; Dynamic evolution of Bio Soft Matter: from single cell motility to collective cell migration and growth, chemotaxis, wound healing and invasion. Equipments: Inverted and Upright Microscopes for Bright Field, Polarized, DIC, Epifluorescence and Confocal Imaging; Microenvironmental Chambers for Time Lapse Live Cell Imaging; High Sensistivity and High Speed Cameras; Flow Chambers for direct Flow Visualization: simple shear, poiseuille, complex flow geometries such as convengent/divergent; Micropumping systems; Cell Culture Lab. People: Prof. Stefano Guido, Dr. Sergio Caserta, Dr. Giovanna Tomaiuolo, 5 Phd students, several Master students.