1/9/2024
Two oral, and two poster presentations from our group at the 38th ECIS conference in Copenhagen. Henrik presents "Bijel-templated hydrogel films for stimuli-responsive separation membranes", Jesse presents "Quantitative analysis of bicontinuous morphologies containing macrovoids", Wei presents "Synthesizing bicontinuous, particle-stabilized emulsions with battery nanoparticles", and Martin presents "Increasing surface area between two fluids with particle-stabilized, bicontinuous emulsions".
20/8/2024
An exciting new publication by Alessio and co.!!! Bijels are versatile nanomaterials with tunable properties, ideal for applications in catalysis, energy storage, and membrane separations. This study presents surfactant-free bijels with sub-micrometer domains, stabilized exclusively by nanoparticles.
18/8/2024
In their recent article, Henrik Siegel and Mariska de Ruiter reveal how nanoparticle assembly at the oil/water interface is shaped by the co-assembly of surfactants. Congratulations on their remarkable achievements!
31/7/2024
Congratulations to a marvelous team of passionate scientists for their just published article!!! In her recent article, Mariska intertwines emulsions into particle-stabilized, bicontinuous networks (called bijels). This work introduces dual pore connections for bijels to two bulk phases, a unique architecture with potentials to overcome diffusion limitations for batteries and separation membranes.
1/7/2024
Two oral presentations from our group at the Particles at Liquid Interfaces Symposium in Leeds. Geert presents "Analyzing phase separation kinetics from arrested structures", and Matthijs presents "Enhanced Lifetimes of Fluid-bicontinuous Emulsion Gels".
8/12/2023
The paper "Roll-to-Roll Fabrication of Bijels via Solvent Transfer Induced Phase Separation (R2R-STrIPS)" by Henrik, Mariska, Georgios, and Cos has been accepted in Advanced Materials Technologies. Congratulations!!!
4/12/2023
The proposal "In-situ study of the formation of bijel fibers" by Matthijs and Andrei was selected for beam time allocation at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble. Congratulations!!!
1/12/2023
Wei-Che Lin joins our group as a new PhD candidate. Welcome! Wei will investigate bijels for electrochemical energy storage.
1/11/2023
Suzan joins our group for her MSc thesis on making bijels electrically conductive. Her research continues the work of Stefan Bouts and is supervised by Matthijs.
10/10/2023
Martin gives an invited presentation at Wetsus, the European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology about using bijels as separation membranes.
20/6/2023
Shankar, now a postdoc at Auburn University, wins the best poster presentation award about his PhD work in our group on centrifugal assembly of helical bijel fibers at the Microflow and Interfacial Phenomena Conference at Northwestern University, USA.
12/6/2023
Henrik shows his poster "Scalable fabrication of membranes via nanoparticle stabilized liquid-liquid phase separation" at the International Colloids conference in Palma de Mallorca. Also, Martin gives an oral presentation on the same conference.
15/4/2023
Anouk and Ffion join the research group as MSc researchers. Anouk is supervised by Alessio, Geert, and Dominique and works on the functionalization of nanoparticles with aluminate ions. Ffion is supervised by Henrik and investigates the functionalization of silica nanoparticles with silane coupling agents. Welcome to both of you!
04/04/2023
Martin gives a plenary presentation entitled Particle Stabilized Bicontinuous Emulsions: Basic Science for Sustainable Materials at the 18th Zsigmondy Colloquium 2023 in Berlin.
22/3/2023
Azeem defends his PhD thesis "Particle-Stabilized Bicontinuous Emulsions with Nanostructured Domains". Congratulations on this great achievement, dr. Mohd Azeem Khan!
20/3/2023
Alessio's and Azeem's paper entitled Fabrication of Bijels with Sub-Micron Domains via a Single-Channel Flow Device has been accepted for publication in Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects. Congratulations!
1/12/2022
Geert Schulpen joins our research group for their PhD studies. Geert wrote their own PhD project proposal within the framework of the Science for Sustainability program at Utrecht University. They won the competition to realize their project of passive cooling materials via high solar relfectivity. Congratulations and a very warm welcome!
1/11/2022
Ariane and Luuk join our research group for their MSc research. Ariane works together with Jesse to investigate bijel film formation on different substrates. Luuk works together with Alessio for the formation of droplet polymers via microfluidics. Welcome!
28/9/2022
Azeem wins the 1st poster price at the 51st General Assembly of the German Colloid Society
for his poster entitled Submicronic Bicontinuous Emulsion Gels.
Alessio gives an oral presentation entitled
"Continuous-Flow Liquid–Liquid extraction in Nanostructured, Fluid-Bicontinuous Gels".
Martin presents a keynote entitled "Separating Chemicals in Nanostructured, Fluid-Bicontinuous Gels".
Also posters from Mariska (Bijel-templated membranes for molecular separations) and Henrik (Synthesis of semipermeable hollow fiber membranes via nanoparticle self-assembly during liquid-liquid phase separation) are on display.
21/9/2022
Our group makes several contributions to the 2022 Chains conference: Henrik gives an oral presentation entitled "Membrane synthesis via nanoparticle stabilized liquid-liquid phase separation". Cos, Steffen, Benedikt and Koen show posters about their MSc projects.
5/9/2022
Martin and Matthijs participate in the ECIS conference in Chania, Crete. Matthijs presents his poster entitled "Multifunctional TiO2 Coatings as Reinforcement Agents and Catalytic Phases in Bijels". Martin gives a keynote presentation entitled "Separating Chemicals in Nanostructured, Fluid-Bicontinuous Gels".
7/9/2022
Henrik's paper entitled "Synthesis and polyelectrolyte functionalization of hollow fiber membranes formed by solvent transfer induced phase separation" has been accepted for publication in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. Congratulations!!
15/6/2022
Georgios wins the first price in the poster competition of the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the International Fine Particle Research Institute in Brussels. Congratulations!!
10/6/2022
Shankars paper "Centrifugal assembly of helical bijel fibers for pH responsive composite hydrogels" has been highlighted in the special issue Rising Stars on the webpage of Advanced Materials.
23/5/2022
The mini-symposium "From Colloids to Viruses: Soft Matter Comes Alive" takes place May 23-25, 2022, in Utrecht, The Netherlands, and covers topics from colloids to self-assembly, emulsions, and biophysics.
The symposium is held in honor of Prof. Willem Kegel and in belated celebration of his 60th birthday.
The organizers are Martin Haase (Utrecht University), Daniela Kraft (Leiden University), and Roel Dullens (Radboud University).
14/5/2022
Martin gives an invited colloquium entitled Nanostructured Fluid-Bicontinuous Gels
for Energy Efficient Molecular Separations at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart.
13/4/2022
Press releases about Azeems's and Alessio's paper in the news of Utrecht University,
phys.org,
nanowerk,
nano-magazine,
nanotechnologyworld,
statnano,
dagoldnews, and
ilmiwap.
1/4/2022
Azeems's and Alessio's paper was featured on Advanced Science News.
25/3/2022
Martin gives a virtual seminar at the Centre for Theoretical and Computational Physics (CFTC) of Lisbon University.
14/3/2022
Azeem's and Alessio's paper entitled "Nanostructured, Fluid Bicontinuous Gels for Continuous Flow Liquid-Liquid Extraction" is accepted for publication in Advanced Materials.
3/3/2022
Shankar has been selected by the Chemical Engineering Department at Rowan University as the recipient of the 2022 Elizabeth Slater Award for Excellence in Chemical Engineering Graduate Studies. Congratulations!
22/2/2022
Martin gives a seminar entitled "Flowing liquids through fluid bicontinuous gels" at the Institut Charles Sadron in Strasbourg. Link to tweet
1/2/2022
Tessa and Koen start their MSc research projects in the group. Tessa works on surfactant free bijels together with Alessio and Katherine. Koen works together with Henrik and Katherine on polymer postfunctionalization of bijels. Welcome!
9/1/2022
Steffen joins the group for his MSc research project. Steffen continues Jelle's research on Janus bijels together with Azeem. Welcome!
15/12/2021
Shankar's paper entitled "Centrifugal assembly of helical bijel fibers for pH responsive composite hydrogels" has been accepted for publication in the journal Small. Congratulations!!!
8/12/2021
Shankar successfully defends his PhD thesis entitled "Centrifugal Assembly of Bijel Ropes via helical microfluidics".
The committee consists of dr. Joe Stanzione, dr. Gary Thompson, dr. Vince Beachley, dr. Robert Hesketh, and Martin. They are very impressed by the research results from
Shankar's work and unanimously vote to award a PhD title to Shankar. Congratulations!!!
7/12/2021
Alessio gives a great oral presentation entitled "Liquid transport in bijels via electro-osmosis" at the biggest Dutch Chemistry conference Chains.
1/12/2021
Cos Hesseling joins the group as a new MSc student with Mariska and Henrik, working on bijel films.
1/11/2021
3 new group members: Jesse Steenhoff begins his PhD project about transport phenomena in bijel membranes. Jointly supervised with dr. Lisa Tran,
Mengwei Li starts her PhD project on liquid crystals. Stefan Bouts begins his MSc project with Matthijs on conductive bijels.
Welcome!
6/9/2021
3 oral presentations and 1 poster from our group at the ECIS conference in Athens, Greece!
Azeem gives an oral presentation entitled "Stabilizing liquid drops in nonequilibrium shapes by the interfacial crosslinking of nanoparticles".
Alessio also presents orally "Liquid transport in bijels via electro-osmosis".
Mariska shows a beautiful poster entitled "In situ surface modification of SiO2 nanoparticles for fabrication of bijels".
Martin gives a keynote presentation with the title "High-tensile strength, composite bijels through microfluidic twisting".
27/5/2021
PhD candidate Henrik Siegel is featured in a documentary on the German TV station NDR (minute 7:40 - 15:00) talking about his MSc research project analysing micro plastic contamination in waste water.
25/5/2021
Mariska and Alessio give soundbite presentations about their research projects at the 29th Dutch Soft Matter meeting.
24/5/2021
Oral presentation by Shankar at the "95th ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium (Virtual)" in the session Emulsions, Bubbles and Foams
at 10 am on Monday 14th of June entitled "Bijel derived hydrogel ropes via microfluidic twisting"
21/5/2021
Two oral presentations from our group on the online symposium "Designed Assembly of Colloids at Interfaces: Fundamentals to Applications".
Azeem gives a presentation entitled "Stabilizing liquid drops in nonequilibrium shapes by the interfacial crosslinking of nanoparticles" on June 15th at 11:15.
Martin gives a presentation on the same day at 16:15, entitled "High Tensile Strength, Composite Bijels through Microfluidic Twisting".
1/5/2021
Matthijs joins the lab as a new PhD candidate. Before joining us, Matthijs has worked on Copper based catalysis in the group of Petra de Jongh at Utrecht University and on photocatalytic nanoparticles in the group of Erik Garnett at AMOLF. Welcome!
4/3/2021
Azeem gets a front cover illustration in Soft Matter for his paper "Stabilizing liquid drops in nonequilibrium shapes by the interfacial crosslinking of nanoparticles".
2/3/2021
Henrik joins the lab as a new PhD candidate. Welcome! Henrik will work on nanostructured membranes for water treatment.
26/2/2021
Press release about Martin's NWO Vidi grant from the Faculty of Science at Utrecht University in English, and in Nederlands.
10/2/2021
Azeem's gives the "Debye lunch lecture" about his recent paper in Soft Matter. Link to the recorded lecture.
1/2/2021
Marijn and Benedikt join the lab as MSc researchers. Welcome! Marijn works with Alessio on droplet polymers and Benedikt works with Katherine on Ultrasound contrast materials.
7/1/2021
Azeem's paper entitled "Stabilizing liquid drops in nonequilibrium shapes by the interfacial crosslinking of nanoparticles" just got accepted for publication in Soft Matter. Congrats! This article was invited for the 2021 Emerging Investigator issue of Soft Matter.
4/1/2021
Katherine joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome!
15/12/2020
Anjana successfully defends her MSc thesis. Congratulations and success for your PhD studies with Dr. Iman Noshadi!!
1/12/2020
Another newcomer, Jelle Prinsen joins the group for his MSc thesis. He works together with Azeem on generating porous Janus materials. Welcome!
1/12/2020
Georgios Athanasiou joins the group as a MSc student. He works together with Mariska on developing a bijel film coating machine. Welcome!
17/11/2020
Shankar's gives an oral presentation entitled "Composite Bijels through Microfluidic Twisting" during the 2020 Virtual AIChE Annual Meeting in the Area 1J session, Particulate and Multiphase Flows: Emulsions and Droplets on Tuesday, Nov 17 8:00 AM.
1/11/2020
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) awards the Vidi grant to Martin. Utrecht University features this on Twitter
and in press releases
(1),
(2),
(3).
10/7/2020
Shankar's paper was featured on Advanced Science News.
12/5/2020
Stephen's paper entitled "Controlling Surfactant Adsorption on Highly Charged Nanoparticles to Stabilize Bijels" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
11/5/2020
Shankar's paper entitled "High-tensile strength, composite bijels through microfluidic twisting" has been accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials.
30/4/2020
Stephen successfully defended his PhD thesis! Congratulations!
21/3/2020
Our book chapter entitled Bijels Formed by Solvent Transfer-induced Phase Separation
has been published in the book Bijels: Bicontinuous Particle-stabilized Emulsions.
11/3/2020
Martin presents the Debye Lunch Lecture entitled
Templating Interfacial Nanoparticle Assemblies via in Situ Techniques on the 11th of March at 13:15 in Utrecht University Library, Booth Hall.
2/3/2020
Martin visits the Chemical Engineering department at TU-Delft and gives a presentation entitled
"Tailoring bicontinuous fluidic networks by phase separation and interfacial assembly".
2/3/2020
Our group is happy to welcome Mariska as a new PhD candidate.
3/2/2020
One more newcomer: Marieke joins the lab as postdoc. Welcome!
6/1/2020
Alessio joins the lab as a new PhD candidate. Welcome!
14/11/2019
Martin will deliver an invited keynote presentation on December 3rd entitled "Advective Flow in Nanostructured Bijels via Electroosmosis" at the 2019 MRS meeting in Boston, USA (8:30 - 9:00 AM, Hynes, Level 3, Room 306 ).
10/11/2019
Stephen received a round of applause after his presentation entitled "Advective Flow in Bicontinuous Interfacially Jammed Emulsion Gels (bijels) for Continuously Operated Liquid-Liquid Extraction
" at the 2019 annual AIChE meeting in a talk in Orlando, Florida.
5/11/2019
This fall Martin introduced our work in multiple presentations to the Dutch research community:
1. On the Debye Institute 30th anniversary on October 17th,
2. at the 27th Dutch Soft Matter meeting on November 5th,
3. during the Utrecht Chemistry day on November 11th, and
4. during a visit at the University of Twente on November 21st.
1. On the Debye Institute 30th anniversary on October 17th,
2. at the 27th Dutch Soft Matter meeting on November 5th,
3. during the Utrecht Chemistry day on November 11th, and
4. during a visit at the University of Twente on November 21st.
8/8/2019
On Thursday, Sep. 12th, Martin will give a keynote presentation entitled "Advective flow in nanostructured bijels via electroosmosis" at the ECIS conference in Leuven in the session EMUL3:
Emulsions, Pickering Emulsions and Foams, Auditorium AV 91.12 - Faculty of Social Sciences. On Monday, Sep. 9th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm, Martin will also present a poster entitled
"Multifunctional Bijel Micro-Ropes by Hydrodynamic In-Situ Twisting" (ID: 622) in Jubilee Hall - University Hall, Naamsestraat 22.
10/5/2019
3 oral presentations from our lab on the ACS colloids conference in Atlanta. Azeem presents a talk entitled
"Inverted Solvent Transfer Induced Phase Separation for the Fabrication of Mechanically Robust Bijels" at 1:30 pm and Matthew presents
"Making bijels mechanically better membranes by manipulating bicontinuous morphologies" at 1:50 pm, both on Wednesday, June 19th in track G: Emulsions, Bubbles & Foams .
Shankar presents "Multifunctional Bijel Micro-Ropes by Hydrodynamic In-Situ Twisting" at 9:30 on Tuesday, June 18th in track J: Formulation, Processing & Manufacturing on the Colloidal Length Scale and Beyond. Come see their talks!!
Shankar presents "Multifunctional Bijel Micro-Ropes by Hydrodynamic In-Situ Twisting" at 9:30 on Tuesday, June 18th in track J: Formulation, Processing & Manufacturing on the Colloidal Length Scale and Beyond. Come see their talks!!
1/5/2019
Martin accepted a position as assistant professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, within the Department of Chemistry.
Starting in June, he will work in the Van 't Hoff Laboratory for Physical and Colloid Chemistry, which is part of the Debye Institute of Nanomaterials Science.
18/4/2019
Stephen wins the outstanding graduate student award from AIChE-DVS. Congratulations!!!
10/4/2019
Martin presents an invited joint seminar entitled "3D Flow Analysis in Bijels Reconfigured for Interfacial Catalysis"
in the departments of Chemistry and Engineering at Brown University.
24/3/2019
Stephen's paper entitled "Designing Bijels formed by Solvent Transfer Induced Phase Separation with Functional Nanoparticles" has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter. Congratulations!!!
26/2/2019
Our review article in honor of the late Prof. Helmuth Moehwald "Templating interfacial nanoparticle assemblies via in-situ techniques" is accepted for publication in Langmuir.
20/2/2019
Noah, an undergraduate researcher in the lab, landed a job at Johnson Matthey. Congratulations!!!
We will certainly miss Noah, but we are also very proud, and especially delighted that Noah's hard work and contribution to our paper about hollow fiber membranes
was well perceived during his candidacy for the position at Johnson Matthey.
12/12/2018
Giuseppe's paper entitled Robust Bijels for Reactive Separation via Silica-Reinforced Nanoparticle Layers has been published online in ACS-Nano. Congratulations!
14/11/2018
Martin will give an invited lecture entitled 3D-Flow Analysis in Bijels Reconfigured for Interfacial Catalysis (3D-FABRIC) at the Debye Institute of Nanomaterials Science at Utrecht University.
29/10/2018
Undergraduate student Noah Hough wins third place for his poster "Nanocomposite Membrane Fabrication by Solvent Transfer Induced Phase Separation" at the 2018 AIChE meeting. Congratulations!
16/10/2018
Our lab at the AIChE meeting:
Oral presentations by Stephen "Towards Continuously Operated Chemical Reactions in Bicontinuous Systems: Making Robust Strips-Bijels for Microfluidic Applications" on November 1st, 1:30-1:45pm
and Martin "Shaping Nanoparticle Fingerprints at the Interface of Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Droplets" on November 1st, 9:45-10:00am both in Omni William Penn Hotel, Conference Center A.
Poster presentations by Troy "Molecular Transport of Hydrophobic Substances across Polyelectrolyte Multilayers" and Noah "Nanocomposite Membrane Fabrication by Solvent Transfer Induced Phase Separation".
16/10/2018
American Chemical Society awards Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) grant.
12/10/2018
Rowan News highlights our paper about shaping nanoparticle fingerprints in a press release.
1/9/2018
Azeem joins the lab as a new PhD student coming all the way from India. Welcome!
18/8/2018
Lisa's paper is accepted for publication in Science Advances!!! This is also Martin's first last author paper. Congratulations!
20/7/2018
Martin's project "3D Flow Analysis in Bijels Reconfigured for Interfacial Catalysis" is awarded the ERC Starting grant.
13/7/2018
Stephen's talk entitled "Towards Continuously Operated Chemical Reactions in Bicontinuous Systems: Making Robust Strips-Bijels for Microfluidic Applications." (November 1st, 1:30-1:45pm, Omni William Penn Hotel - Conference Center A) is accepted for oral presentation at the AIChE meeting. Congratulations!
Also Martin will present a talk with the title "Shaping Nanoparticle Fingerprints at the Interface of Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Droplets" (November 1st, 9:45-10:00am, Omni William Penn Hotel - Conference Center A) at the same meeting. Tag team!
Also Martin will present a talk with the title "Shaping Nanoparticle Fingerprints at the Interface of Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Droplets" (November 1st, 9:45-10:00am, Omni William Penn Hotel - Conference Center A) at the same meeting. Tag team!
12/6/2018
Stephen gives his first conference talk at the ACS colloids at Penn State. Exciting!
1/6/2018
Rowan University seed fund was awarded to the lab. The award of $10,000 will be used for purchasing a Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) instrumentation for coating characterization. Hurrah!
24/5/2018
Martin gives an invited talk at the IACIS conference in Rotterdam in honour of his PhD supervisor Helmuth Moehwald.
7/5/2018
Matthew and Shankar join the NIE-lab for PhD studies. Also Anjana, Sarina, and Troy will do summer research in the lab. Welcome!
20/4/2018
Photographers came to our lab as well as the science fair and made us pose!
13/4/2018
Rowan Today features a press release about the NSF-CAREER award.
20/3/2018
The National Science Foundation is now supporting our research through the NSF-CAREER award. This will provide us with financial support for 5 years, totalling $500,000.
1/11/2017
Several Press releases highlight our paper about bijel derived separation membranes:
Penn News,
Penn Engineering,
phys.org,
EurekAlert,
nano werk,
Azo Nano,
Science Daily.
And when we thought it could not be better, we found out that also Lisa's paper about liquid crystal pattern formation was highlighted in Penn News, EurekAlert, phys.org, nano werk, Science Daily!!
And when we thought it could not be better, we found out that also Lisa's paper about liquid crystal pattern formation was highlighted in Penn News, EurekAlert, phys.org, nano werk, Science Daily!!
21/9/2017
Lisa video about cholesteric liquid crystal shells wins the 5th place in the Nikon Small World Video Competition. Congratulations!
1/1/2017
The Nanoscale Interfacial Engineering Laboratory was founded today with Stephen Boakye-Ansah as the first PhD student. Welcome!
14/7/2016
My youtube video about the cheerio effect was featured in a New York Times article.
1/5/2016
I am excited to teach and research starting in January 2017 as an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Rowan University.
25/1/2016
During my visit at the University of Hong Kong I presented our recent work on bijels
