NWO XS grant for Andrea Giuntoli

Andrea Giuntoli, assistant professor in Multiscale modelling of multifunctional supramolecular materials, receives an NWO XS grant. The grant will support his work on self-healing materials. Even the simplest self-healing materials require high mobility at the molecular scale to repair damage over time. It is easy to design self-healing liquid-like materials (like gels), but much harder for solids (like glasses) where molecules barely move. The mechanical deformation of a hard material is traditionally associated with the propagation of damage, but our preliminary nanoscale simulations show that for certain frequencies and intensity, deformations promote mobility at the molecular scale, thus facilitating the healing process. We aim to prove that this mechanism can be scaled up to the macroscale, enabling the design of new self-healing hard materials.

More info? Contact Andrea Giuntoli.

https://www.nwo.nl/en/news/twenty-six-groundbreaking-research-projects-awarded-open-competition-domain-science-xs