Postdoctoral Researcher in Sustainable Liquid Crystal Elastomer Chemistry

The ERC Synergy project ALCEMIST (lcsoftmatter.com/alcemist ) challenges the conventional engineering mindset of using motors to drive passive structural components by developing innovative materials that combine the structural features and mobility in a single component. These are liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), unique responsive materials that reversibly change shape, colour, adhesive or damping properties, in response to stimuli like heat, light, humidity or strain. We follow a radically new approach to make powerful yet low-cost, biocompatible and biodegradable LCEs using polysaccharides as raw materials. Thanks to bond-exchange chemistry our LCEs will be re-processable and re-usable. To dramatically scale up LCEs in size as well as in number, we are developing a ground-breaking new processing approach based on flow patterning to make meter scale LCEs of complex shapes and actuation modes. ALCEMIST builds on a tight synergistic collaboration between the Experimental Soft Matter Physics group at University of Luxembourg, led by Prof. Jan Lagerwall (project coordinator), the Soft and Biofunctional Materials group at NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal, led by Prof. Maria Helena Godinho, and the Biological and Soft Systems group of Prof. Eugene Terentjev at University of Cambridge, UK. In addition to carrying out fundamental soft matter physics and chemistry innovation, we will demonstrate unconventional applications of LCEs, ranging from adhesives that can be reversibly debonded on demand and sun-powered adaptive building elements that save energy and improve indoor atmosphere, to microhearts and peristaltic vasculature that can remove the growth limits of lab-grown organs, or smart threads that give doctors critical feedback on suture tension when conducting robotic surgery.

The post-doctoral researcher will be preparing liquid crystalline suspensions of cellulose nanocrystals, modifying these chemically for using click chemistry to connect with flexible polymers and crosslinking, thereby generating cellulose nanoparticle-based liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). You will also be exploring novel cellulose and chitin-based LCE precursors and LCEs that are reprogrammable thanks to bond exchange crosslinks prepared by our international collaborators. You will be studying all new materials with respect to liquid crystalline ordering and responses to varying stimuli, working in close collaboration with a Ph.D. candidate whom you will be co-supervising and another postdoc with expertise in experimental set-up design and construction as well as fluid dynamics, as well as with other post-docs and senior researchers in Luxembourg and from our international network of collaborators. You will be spending time also in Cambridge and Lisbon.

For further information please see the website of the ESMP group, www.lcsoftmatter.com , or contact Prof. Jan Lagerwall, jan.lagerwall@uni.lu