As part of the Soft Matter Group @ChE IITH, our broad research theme is the fundamental aspects of colloids & interfacial Science. Our research interests are understanding the evaporative patterning of colloids, fracture mechanism in the colloidal film, Pickering emulsion, and foams, and designing particle-polymer hybrid material. We aim to design sustainable and functional soft materials for food, pharmaceutical, sensing, and separation applications.

Research Areas

1. Droplet Drying and Assembly of Colloids: Drying particle-laden drop is ubiquitous. We seek to understand the drying kinetics of a particle-laden drop and investigate the various physical factors that affect the assembly of particles.

2. Desiccation cracks in a dried film: Desiccation cracks are quite prevalent in nature, and examples include dried mud, old paintings, colloidal crystals, etc. Using colloids as a model system, we look at the origin of diverse crack morphologies and investigate the possibilities of manipulating the desiccation cracks by employing external fields.

3. Capillary suspension, Pickering emulsions, and foams: Designing capillary suspensions, Pickering emulsions, and foams are of interest. We aim to better understand the significance of particle shape and bridge the gap between microstructural change and properties.

4. Porous Hybrid Materials: The rapid technological growth paved the way for developing novel materials. Porous hybrid materials are appealing, and we aim to use the ice-templating method to design macroporous hybrid materials and seek to understand their structure-property relations.