|
|
| What is SoftComp? |
The scientific objective of SoftComp is to obtain a detailed understanding of the physical mechanisms and properties of complex, multi-component soft matter composites. With the increasing complexity of composite materials, the number of variables becomes so large that an incremental trial-and-error approach to discovering new properties becomes increasingly difficult. A knowledge-based approach, on the other hand, allows to fully utilise the potential of these systems to vary, control and switch properties over a wide range.
The socio-economic objective of SoftComp is to provide a fundamental basis for an intelligent engineering of materials and their processing. This is of prime importance for the future of European pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry. More generally all industrial applications of nanophase materials will be implicated. SoftComp specifically aims to develop new knowledge-based materials and to improve existing ones with tailored properties concerning the vital domains of rheological, structural, thermodynamics, elastic and optical behaviour.
European competitiveness: In many cases the properties that are desirable for industrial applications are realized by combining various kinds of the “traditional” soft matter systems such as the inclusions of nano-particles in elastomers to enhance their strength, additives to motor oils, addition of polymer to drilling fluids for more efficient oil recovery from porous rocks, additives in paints to achieve the desired rheological behaviour and grafting or mixing colloidal particles or proteins with polymers in order to affect the stability of these suspensions. Functionalised surfaces consisting of polymers and membranes are of basic importance for the development of biochips.
|
|
