Pahlavan, assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Yale (USA), will use the subsidy of $ 610,000 over five years to develop a means of predicting and controlling the transport of colloids in porous circles. This research could have many applications, including the administration of tumors, filtration, wastewater treatment and depollution.
His project will combine experiences, digital simulations and theoretical modeling in order to determine the effects of chemical gradients (i.e. variations in concentration of a substance) on the movement of colloids in porous environments, which can include any type of material, from soil to organic tissue, including artificial materials.
« The chemical gradients are abundant in nature, whether it be the salinity gradients in coastal areas, the application of pesticides and irrigation in agriculture, or even metabolic activities in the biological tissues “Indicates Mr. Pahlavan. “” However, the way in which these gradients can influence the transport of colloidal particles remains largely overlooked. Colloids are omnipresent, clay and microplastic particles in underground environments with synthetic nanoparticles used in the administration of drugs and environmental depollution. »
One of the methods used by Mr. Pahlavan to study these forces under controlled conditions consists in carrying out microfluidic experiments in which he uses polymer materials to create his own porous material. An extremely small set of pillars is placed on a chip. Each pillar measures approximately 100 microns in diameter, the average size of a human hair.
« You now have a set of tortuous routes by which the flow can circulate “He said. Pillars are first arranged according to a very ordered pattern that researchers can randomize in order to simulate real environments. “” The study of these processes under controlled conditions allows us to better understand how colloids move through complex porous networks. By understanding these dynamics, we can predict better where colloids will migrate and develop strategies to direct them towards targeted destinations. »
Pahlavan was interested in this area of research when he was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, after noticing that despite the abundance of these chemical gradients in various porous environments, they had hardly caught attention.
The ability to better direct particles could lead to advances in a whole series of disciplines, from environmental cleaning to the administration of drugs. Colloids could be guided towards hidden targets using chemical gradients. These targets could be plumes of contaminants, whose spread can have devastating effects on water resources and the environment, or tumor cells, which are often difficult to reach to administer drugs.
This Career price allows Pahlavan to study the interaction between physics, chemistry and hydrodynamics of these processes, the first step towards a revision of the traditional paradigms of the transport of colloids in porous environments.
Source : U. Yale
