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Lavon Harper, 404-894-9550
Summary Sentence: RBI presents Emily Cranston to discuss preparation, characterization of CN
Full Summary: No summary paragraph submitted.
Cranston, Emily
Cranston, Emily graphicRBI presents Emily Cranston, assistant professor of chemical engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, June 19 with a lecture titled "Nanocellulose: Advanced Functional Materials from Nature," in MoSE, Room 1201A.
By learning from nature and using bio-components, we can engineer high-performance materials with improved functionality. A thorough understanding of interfacial and mechanical properties is necessary to design polymer composites with enhanced compatibility between components and favorable material properties overall.
She will present the preparation and characterization of various cellulosic nanomaterials including cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) which are two different colloidal forms of cellulose that can be thought of as cellulosic “rice” and “spaghetti”, respectively. CNCs and CNFs shows great promise as composite components because of their unique optical and mechanical properties, light weight, low cost, biodegradability and non-toxicity. Potential applications of these materials include pigments, optical coatings, sensors, biomedical devices, gels, foams or more generally as a substitute for non-biodegradable thermoplastic composites. She will review some new water-based routes to functionalize cellulosic nanomaterials, leading to, for example cationic, hydrophobic and fluorescent CNCs. Soft nanocomposites including injectable hydrogels, cross-linked aerogels, polymer coatings and emulsions/foams will be discussed. Finally, a ‘tool-box’ of surface characterization techniques will be presented, highlighting colloidal probe atomic force microscopy (CP-AFM) and buckling-based mechanical measurements for thin film analysis.
Emily Cranston took up the position of Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at McMaster University in January 2011 where her research focuses on sustainable nanocomposites from cellulose. Her academic path began at McGill University where she received her Honours B.Sc. degree in Chemistry, specializing in Bio-Organic Chemistry. She then went on to graduate studies in the group of Professor Derek Gray at McGill University, obtaining a Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry (within the Pulp and Paper Research Centre). Her research at both the undergraduate and graduate level was focused on green chemistry and renewable materials, characterizing natural and synthetic biodegradable polymers and exploring the use of cellulose nanocrystals in model surfaces and novel cellulose composites. The study of value-added products from cellulose took her to Stockholm, Sweden (they also have a lot of trees!) as a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). There she worked in two departments: Surface and Corrosion Science and Fibre and Polymer Technology. At McMaster, Emily teaches undergraduate courses on Technical Communication, Problem Solving and Polymer Science and a graduate course on Surface Characterization Techniques.
