People
Faculty
Nicolas J. Alvarez earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2006 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2011. After three years of postdoctoral work at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, he joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Drexel as an Assistant Professor in 2014.
His lab develops experimental tools to characterize the behavior of polymers and surfactants in nonlinear flows, at interfaces, and in bulk. These tools are used to understand how certain processing windows lead to advantageous material properties. One such tool, used for the characterization of extensional rheology, has been commercialized by Alvarez and colleagues.
To support research goals, Alvarez is developing a consortium of companies to develop analytical tools to better understand the relationship between chemical structure, processing, and material performance. To prepare Drexel students for real-world engineering problems, Alvarez teaches an elective course on non-Newtonian fluid mechanics to introduce students to materials encountered in modern-day chemical plants.
Staff
A mechanism for improved talc pleurodesis via foam delivery
Determining the Printing Condition by Investigating the Spreading of the filament
The Effect of Pyrolysis on the Chemical, Thermal and Rheological Properties of Pitch
Students
Performance of Additive Manufactured Glass Fiber Laminates
The effect of resin-rich layers on mechanical properties of 3D printed woven fiber-reinforced composites
Correlations Between Chemorheology, Printing Parameters, and Print Quality in 3D Direct Ink Writing
Additive Manufacturing of Composite Materials
Fundamental Characterization of Elongation Behavior of Viscoelastic and Viscoplastic Materials
Investigation of Peptide-based Models for Drug Delivery
Fundamental Studies and Engineering of Supersaturation Gradients for Solution-Phase Crystallization of Perovskite Photovoltaics
Modeling the Transport and Equilibrium of Surfactants at the Cylindrical Fluid-fluid Interface
Investigation of Dynamic Colloidal Thin Film Microstructure Using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)
Crosslinked Thermosetting Polymers Used as Binder to Replace the PVDF in NMC Cathode Electrode
Correlating the particle connectivity of different thickness electrodes on its electrode performance using 1-dimension pair distribution function
Analysis of Shaving Foam Physicochemical Properties
Alumni
Nonlinear Shear and Uniaxial Extensional Rheology of Polyether-ester-sulfonate Copolymer Ionomer Melts
Brittle Fracture in Associative Polymers: The Case of Ionomer Melts
Linear Viscoelastic and Dielectric Relaxation Response of Unentangled UPy-Based Supramolecular Networks
Effect of Hydrogen Bonding on Linear and Nonlinear Rheology of Entangled Polymer Melts
Co-advised by Dr. Maureen Tang
Dissertation: Processing-Structure-Performance Relationships in Li-Ion Batteries: A Rheological Perspective
Correlating Processing Conditions to Short- and Long-Range Order in Coating and Drying Lithium-Ion Batteries
Characterizing Long-chain Branching in Commercial HDPE Samples via Linear Viscoelasticity and Extensional Rheology
Effect of Finite Extensibility on Nonlinear Extensional Rheology of Polymer Melts
Three-Dimensional Visualization of Conductive Domains in Battery Electrodes with Contrast-Enhancing Nanoparticles
Short-range Contacts Govern the Performance of Industry-relevant Battery Cathodes
Grafting-through ROMP for Gels with Tailorable Moduli and Crosslink Densities
The Impotence of Non-Brownian Particles on the Gel Transition of Colloidal Suspensions
Direct Observation of Active Material Interactions in Flowable Electrodes Using X-ray Tomography
Correlation Between Processing and Material Strength: Case of UHMWPE
Direct Measure of Crystalline Domain Size, Distribution, and Orientation in Polyethylene Fibers
The Evolution of Crystalline Structures During Gel Spinning of Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Fibers
Novel Processing Apparatus to Control Multiscale Morphology in Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene Fibers
The impact of thermal history on the structure of glycylalanylglycine ethanol/water gels
Exploring the gel phase of cationic glycylalanylglycine in ethanol/water. II. Spectroscopic, kinetic and thermodynamic studies
Exploring the gel phase of cationic glycylalanylglycine in ethanol/water. I. Rheology and microscopy studies
Exploring the Tunability of the Aggregation and Gelation Process of the Tripeptide Gag
Short Peptides as Tunable, Switchable, and Strong Gelators
Concentration Dependence of a Hydrogel Phase Formed by the Deprotonation of the Imidazole Side Chain of Glycylhistidylglycine
The impact of thermal history on the structure of glycylalanylglycine ethanol/water gels
Dissertation: The Role of Chemistry and Pressure on Surfactant Interfacial Thermodynamics
Publications: Google Scholar for Zachary Hinton
The trade-off between processability and performance in commercial ionomers
Dynamics of Supramolecular Self-Healing Recovery in Extension
Multiscale Approaches to Formation of Thermoplastic Prepreg Short Carbon Fiber
High Throughput Carbon Fiber Surface Modification
Accounting for Optical Errors in Microtensiometry
A Molecular Parameter to Scale the Gibbs Free Energies of Adsorption and Micellization for Nonionic Surfactants
Surface Tensions at Elevated Pressure Depend Strongly on Bulk Phase Saturation
Co-advised by Dr. Giuseppe Palmese
Dissertation: Investigation of In-situ Sequential Interpenetrating Polymer Network of High-Performance Materials for Vat-Photopolymerization