Aboulfazl Barati
Troy University, AL·Materials Science
Drought, salty soil and repeated drying make it hard to keep water where plants need it. At the same time, post-consumer plastic and other waste pile up with few good uses.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
soft polymers
polymer gels
hydrogels
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2028
What they work on
- Establish quantitative relationships between internal material architecture and water transport, swelling and mechanical stability in scaffold-confined soft polymer systems made from mixed recycled feedstocks.
- Identify the transitions between stable water retention, restricted swelling, structural collapse and transport-limited release under mechanical load, soil salinity and repeated drying, using dimensionless parameter analysis.
- Characterize prepared materials using structural and mechanical testing, water uptake and release measurements, and permeability testing to build a structure-based framework for water-management materials.
More about the research
This project asks whether soft polymer materials, gel-like materials that soak up and release water, can be made from mixed recycled waste and designed to store water and release it slowly. The key question is how the internal architecture of these materials controls how well they work under real-world stress.
Why it matters
Materials that store water and release it slowly under drought and salty soil conditions could help farmers, reforestation efforts and ecosystem restoration projects use water more efficiently. Making these materials from mixed recycled feedstocks could also create new uses for post-consumer waste. The design rules from this work may guide which material architectures stay stable and keep releasing water under stress.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ryan Van Horn
Lafayette College, PA·Materials Science
Determine how drug molecules of differing water-repellence change crystal size and crystallinity of the PEO and PCL blocks in PEO-b-PCL films, using spectroscopic and thermal analysis.
Bradley Olsen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA·Materials Science
Extend the CRIPT polymer data platform into CRIMaC, a broader chemistry and materials data system, by expanding BigSMILES notation to biochemistry, simulation data and hybrid organic–inorganic materials.
Eric Cochran
Iowa State University, IA·Materials Science
Develop the science of recycling and end-of-life treatment for bio-based plastics and composites, especially when mixed with petrochemical plastics, including chemical recycling and upcycling routes.
The school
Troy University: 1 labs on PI Pages, $3M a year on research, 9 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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