Samuel’s work is published!
In the DREAM lab’s continual quest to find replacements for PFAS, Samuel’s latest study and first first-authored DREAM Lab publication is the next big step. In his work he shows that we can achieve the performance of C4 to C6 PFAS using single perfluorocarbons attached to liquidlike PDMS. This breaks the decades-old coupling of PFAS… Read more »
Kamran’s TENG ice detection work is published!
After many cold days inside the walk-in freezer, and a few crashed drones, Kamran’s work on utilizing the triboelectric effect for ice sensing has now been published in Advanced Materials. A really great body of work from the large collaborative team, with Dr. Alasvand Zarasvand at the helm. Given how important drones are becoming worldwide,… Read more »
Tao’s silica engineering paper now out
Tao’s work on understanding how the underlying substrate affects the durability of grafted PDMS chains has now been published! Super important work, considering that most substrate materials cannot be readily bonded with omniphobic PDMS like glass or Si can. And a great collaboration with the Neto group from USydney. Check out Substrate Engineering for Durable… Read more »
New corrosion paper
Our latest work has just been published, with a focus of depositing PDMS brushes onto carbon steels and not causing the steel to corrode. Quite a challenge, considering both the silica layer used to smoothen out the rough substrate contains HCl, and our standard recipe for growing PDMS brushes also generates HCl. Luckily, Parnian and… Read more »
Prof. Golovin wins award
Prof. Golovin has been selected for a Sustainable Action Award (Individual Faculty) from the University of Toronto. More details here.
Samuel awarded an endowed fellowship!
A huge congratulations to DREAM Lab member Samuel, who has been awarded the Barbara Ann Ward Endowed Fellowship. I’ve tasked Samuel with the ambitious but much needed task of developing surface chemistries that are more oleophobic than PFAS…but without PFAS. Really important work, and it appears others agree! Keep it up Samuel!!
Fariba wins prestigious fellowship!
A super big congratulations to Fariba for being awarded the Best Wasmund Graduate Fellowship in Sustainable Energy. Fariba’s work is tackling one of the most energy intensive surface-related phenomenon worldwide: corrosion. Keep up the great work Fariba!
Behrooz successfully becomes a doctor!
Congratulations to Behrooz, now Dr. Khatir, who successfully defended his PhD thesis! Behrooz did a great job uncovering the structure of omniphobic PDMS brushes and published many seminal papers on the topic. We wish you all the best in your future career Dr. Khatir!!
Superhydrophobic LIT paper published!
After several years of attempting to identify a superhydrophobic surface that exhibited a low interfacial toughness with ice, we’ve finally found one! Qimeng’s excellent study on a durable coating with high graft density of the low surface energy layer has enabled us to measure a LIT superhydrophobic surface for the very first time. Great work… Read more »
Holiday Party 2024
Another year in the books for the DREAM Lab. 2024 had quite a few milestones. Mohammad and Sadaf both successfully defended their PhDs, Yalda and Amanuel joined the lab, we were visiting by Isaac Gresham, Takuya Matsumoto and (briefly) Glen McHale, and several good studies were published. The annual MIE holiday party is always a… Read more »
