COMMONS seminar by Kevin Roger

COMMONS seminar by Kevin Roger (Chargé de Recherche CNRS, Toulouse)

When: 8 June, 2025, 10:30-12:00
Where: Kemicentrum, Lecturehall KC:C or https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/62693723118

Title: Engineering Non-Equilibrium Pathways in Processes Controlled by the Colloidal Scale:
A Journey into Emulsification, Drying & Nanoprecipitation

Many ubiquitous processes, whether natural or engineered, involve structures spanning length scales from 1 to 100 and evolve far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Understanding and controlling such systems therefore requires a mechanistic approach to inherently complex problems, where multiple length scales, time dynamics, and multicomponent interactions are coupled.

In this seminar, we will explore three classes of processes of major industrial importance—used by humanity since the dawn of civilization, yet still challenging to control:

• Nanoprecipitation: how modifying the solubility of a solute in a solvent leads to phase separation constrained at the colloidal scale.
• Emulsification: how to mix, at the colloidal scale, two fluids that are immiscible at the molecular scale.
• Drying: how solvent removal from a mixture generates gradients that govern both the kinetics and the final structure of the material.