Seth Darling of Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago

Driven by climate change, population growth, development, urbanization, and other factors, water crises represent one of the greatest global risks in the coming decades.  Advances in materials represent a powerful tool to address many of these challenges.  Understanding—and ultimately controlling—interfaces between materials and water are pivotal.  In this presentation, Dr. Darling will lay out the challenges and present several examples of work in his group based on materials engineering strategies for addressing applications in water.  In each instance, manipulation of interfacial properties provides novel functionality, ranging from selective transport to energy transduction to pollution mitigation.

Biography:

Seth B. Darling is the Director of the Center for Molecular Engineering and a Senior Scientist in the Chemical Sciences & Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He also serves as the Director of the Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems (AMEWS) Energy Frontier Research Center. He received his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago. His group’s research centers around molecular engineering with a current emphasis on advanced materials for cleaning water, having made previous contributions in fields ranging from self-assembly to advanced lithography to solar energy. He has published over 130 scientific articles, holds a dozen patents, is a co-author of popular books on water and on debunking climate skeptic myths, and lectures widely on topics related to energy, water, and climate.