Rob Lammertink, Professor of Soft Matter, Fluidics and Interfaces (MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology) receives a 1.5 million euro ‘Vici’ grant from the The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Thanks to this grant, he will be able to do research on the behavior of liquids at surfaces and improve the performance of catalysts and membranes.
Surface behavior of liquids often determines the speed of chemical processes. A badly mixed and non-moving thin layer, at the surface, can seriously slow down the operation of a catalyst or membrane. Fluids don’t just transport particles or molecules, but also electric charge. This is the case in water desalination, for example. For Rob Lammertink, this gives rise to the scientific question, if patterns can be made at the surface in order to set the still layer in motion. The presence of charge - through salts - helps to do this in an efficient way, leading to a strong flow.
During a stay at Stanford University, Rob Lammertink already did some experiments and modelling in this field of work. Thanks to the Vici grant, he can now initiate a fully new research direction with three new PhD students and a postdoc researcher.
The Vici grant is Lammertink’s third prestigious research grant: in 2006 he was awarded a Vidi grant, in 2012 a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). His Soft Matter, Fluidics and Interfaces group is part of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente.
NWO has three types of personal grants within its Talent Scheme: Veni, Vidi and Vici, for scientists in various stages of their career. In this new round, 32 proposals have been awarded, about 15 percent of the total. Check NWO’s press release for more information about all projects.
