NANOTRANS: a new European Network for research, transfer and training in nanoscale physics

A group of leading European laboratories working on soft matter and nanoscale research joined their efforts to impulse the international network NANOTRANS, coordinated by the University of Cambridge and with the participation of the University of Barcelona, among another five international partners.

NANOTRANS is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network (ETN) funded by the European Commission, and it focuses on the transport of fluids and mobile objects at the nanoscale. NANOTRANS will create a collaborative research platform to train young nanoscientists to advance the frontiers of science in this emerging field and to foster inter-sectorial exchange of individuals and ideas between industry and academia.

Understanding the transport of fluids and small objects at the nanoscale is one of the core problems of technological development, which bets on improving the applications by downscaling and controlling the non-equilibrium dynamics (e.g. design of “smart” nanomaterials, nanofluidics, “lab on a chip” devices, energy production and storage, drug delivery...).

To achieve this goal, multidisciplinary and inter-sectorial approaches that are inherently a part of soft matter research are crucial. NANOTRANS aims to tackle this challenge on the experimental, theoretical, numerical and industrial fronts.

University of Barcelona participation

Specifically, there are two research projects promoted by the University of Barcelona. One of them, led by Ignacio Pagonabarraga from the Faculty of Physics, will analyse the implications of wetting to control flow of driven binary mixtures in confined geometries like porous media, and to destabilize fluid fronts and study their potential to generate drops and emulsions in micro and nanofluidics. The other one, led by Francesc Saguès from the Chemistry Faculty, will be the design of a novel electro-optical technique for the assembly of colloidal inclusions in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC).

With their scientific expertise and world-class facilities of the participating teams, the international partner institutions from Europe, China and USA, will provide a stimulating research environment and cutting-edge education for 15 PhD students who will represent the true strength of NANOTRANS.