Morozova Lab
Polymers have a lot of entropy, In my lab we are learning to generate work from it
Email: sveta@case.edu | Phone: (508)8159802 | Office: Room 538, 2100 Adelbert Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106
Research Interests
Polymers impact many flows we experience in life, from the highly specialized and directed transport inside a cell, to the flows of complex liquids like soaps and paints. The Morozova group at Case Western Reserve University is interested in understanding chain flexibility effects on the bulk flow behavior and complex polymer transport in extreme confined conditions by combing both experiments and theory. Using differential dynamic microscopy (DDM), we study polymer diffusion on anisotropic substrates, full of asymmetric entropic barriers. The dynamics of this process and any bulk flow of polymer solutions is dependent on the polymer backbone flexibility, and the longest relaxation time scales. We investigate these effects by systematically increasing the polymer persistence length, and observe any changes to bulk solution properties such as viscosity and modulus. These new fundamental insights will lead to better commercial formulations, new separation techniques, and a better understanding of transport in complex anisotropic environments like the cell during mitosis.
News
09/28/2023 Congratulations to all authors, recent paper, “Properties of Crosslinked Poly-L-Lysine Hydrogels Across the Random Coil-Helix Transition.” now published open access in Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics: Link
04/11/2023 Congratulations to ex-lab member Nathan Maslowski for joining UChicago as a graduate student!
04/11/2023 Congratulations to ex-lab member Daniel Estrin for joining CU Boulder Chemical and Biological Engineering as a graduate student!
04/11/2023 Congratulations to ex-lab member Alexandra Grinevich for joining UMass Amherst PSE as a graduate student!
02/02/2023 Congratulations Brittany Roopnarine and Sneha Suresh on winning first place in the “Nestle Innovation Challenge” Competition!! The project will be a 3 month discovery project related to upcycling food waste for better rheological modifiers.
01/24/2023 Welcome Adediwura (Deborah) Adedeji to the team! Deborah will be working on synthesizing soft surfaces.
07/21/2022 We’ve organized a symposium at the Fall ACS, in Chicago: “Dynamic Covalent & Supramolecular Polymer”. Thank you for all the speakers for participating.
04/01/2022 Congratulations to Dillon Gagnon for winning the NSF GRFP!
12/01/2022 Paper Published! “Diffusive dynamics of charged nanoparticles in convex lens-induced confinement.” Find it in Soft Matter: 10.1039/D1SM01554K
11/05/2021 Paper Accepted! “Fundamentals and Mechanics of Polyelectrolyte Gels: thermodynamics, swelling, scattering and elasticity” will be published in a new AIP Journal: Chemical Physics Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0048152
11/01/2021 Group received the NSF CAREER Award!
09/01/2021 Welcome Dillon Gagnon to the group!
02/24/2021 Collaborative work “Fluid separation and network deformation in wetting of soft and swollen surfaces.” is published! ttps://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-021-00125-2
02/16/2021 Collaborative work “Salt-Dependent Structure in Methylcellulose Fibrillar Gels.” is published! https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.0c02429
02/16/2021 Tutorial on “Scattering methods for determining structure and dynamics of polymer gels” is published! https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0033414
08/27/2020 Welcome Brittany Roopnarine to the group!
06/01/2020 Welcome Sujata Dhakal to the group!
06/01/2020 Congratulations Kathryn Wilcox for getting the NSF GRF!
02/18/2020 Welcome Adam Linscott to the group!
11/05/2019 The DLS/SLS is up and running!
08/19/2019 Welcome Kathryn Wilcox into the group!
08/11/2019 Presented a poster in the Soft Condensed Matter Physics GRC!
07/01/2019 Joined the Case Western Macromolecular Science and Engineering Faculty!