Removing black boxes in materials science : two-component droplet tilings and distributed manufacturing of fibrous media
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The interaction of liquids with materials is fundamental to many areas of science, industry, and human health. The first half of this thesis explores how a specific type of liquid (specifically, Marangoni-contracted, two-component liquids) can be used to create a new class of deliberately designed lattice system at the macroscale. The second half builds an experimental context for distributed manufacturing of fibrous materials used in essential products such as face filtering respirators and menstrual pads. Advances in material fabrication have made it possible to produce materials with an increasing range of geometries, including those with no precedent in nature. However, the relationships between geometry and state or the dynamics governing transitions between states in condensed material systems are not well understood and remain difficult to observe. Here, we have developed a system that exploits the properties of two-component, marangoni-contracted droplets to rapidly explore the properties of systems with novel geometries. In particular, the ability to move in response to vapor gradients over long distances enables the observation of the dynamics of many body systems governed by a non-additive potential energy function subject to non-trivial geometric constraints. The resulting systems are highly frustrated and display relaxation dynamics over two-timescales, a characteristic feature of systems with long-ranged interactions. We show further that the system is amenable to control by a global gravitational field, enabling partial reduction in frustration through the implementation of hysteretic annealing. Finally, we show that specific geometric configuration can give rise to non-reciprocal interactions, a property common to many non-equilibrium systems but with few artificial realizations. The availability of many essential products are determined by access to engineered materials. While the production of many materials is highly efficient, this often comes at the cost of robustness, resiliency, and distribution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, production of raw material for personal protective equipment could not quickly respond to surge demand and left many in low and middle income countries without adequate resources. Here, we explored the potential for centrifugal melt spinning for the production of non-woven air filtration media. Meanwhile, access to another essential product, disposable menstrual pads, suffers from many of the same constraints. We develop a mild delignification chemistry for the small scale production of absorbent medium for use in disposable menstrual pads. We show that Agave sisalana, a drought tolerant succulent that can be grown on marginal land, can be treated under mild conditions to yield an absorbent material with an absorption and retention capacity meeting and exceeding performance of absorbents found in commercially available products.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Molina, Anton Rafael |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Heilshorn, Sarah |
| Degree supervisor | Prakash, Manu |
| Thesis advisor | Heilshorn, Sarah |
| Thesis advisor | Prakash, Manu |
| Thesis advisor | Appel, Eric (Eric Andrew) |
| Degree committee member | Appel, Eric (Eric Andrew) |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Engineering |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Anton Molina. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/st956sw5677 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Anton Rafael Molina
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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