Wound Care
Modern wound dressings usually include an absorbent layer, a gentle adhesive, and a protective backing. To make them easy to apply and remove, many manufacturers use pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) that stick with light pressure and peel off cleanly. But in practice, many dressings do not stick well enough or too much, leading to discomfort or even skin damage when removed. These issues often stem from differences in people’s skin types or poorly designed adhesive formulas. At Coloplast in Denmark, I worked on improving PSA-based dressings by fine-tuning their formulations to make them more comfortable, reliable, and user-friendly.
Pressure Sensitive Adhesive
During my postdoc at ESPCI Paris Tech, I studied how soft, nanostructured materials behave as pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs)—the kind that stick with just a bit of pressure and do not need heat or chemicals to work. These adhesives are popular because they are simple to use and more eco-friendly. I focused on how they come off surfaces, looking closely at both their bulk and interfacial properties and how much energy is released when they detach. To better understand this, I developed a new 2D visualization technique that let me track how cracks form and grow in acrylic PSAs. This method helped measure the speed of the crack tip and the energy involved when the adhesive separates from a surface.
Nanoindentation
During my postdoctoral research at the Australian National University, I studied how silicon behaves when it is mechanically deformed. I used techniques like nanoindentation, atomic force microscopy (AFM), micro-Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to explore this. I found that when pressure is applied, silicon changes from its usual diamond-cubic structure (Si-I) to a metallic phase known as β-Sn (Si-II). When the pressure is released, it often transforms into less conductive or even amorphous forms. Interestingly, if the unloading happens quickly, the silicon tends to become amorphous because of high kinetic barriers. Under certain conditions, this amorphous silicon can even revert back to the metallic Si-II phase when indented again. These findings showed how we might tune silicon’s electrical properties at the nanoscale by carefully controlling how we apply force and temperature.
Tribology
During my PhD at Iowa State University in the USA, I explored how biobased polymers and composites made from natural oils, like soybean and tung oil, hold up under friction and wear. The goal was to find more sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based materials. I used tools like a ball-on-flat tribometer, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and contact profilometry to see how different processing conditions affected their wear resistance. I also compared them to traditional epoxy resins and found a clear link between wear volume and crosslink density, helping build a case for using these greener materials in real-world engineering applications.
