The group, in its own labs or through our partners, has access to all the main necessary preparation, characterization, simulation and testing techniques to develop both fundamental and applied projects as well as to support testing, up-scaling and implementation projects from industries. It has also expertise on device design and development. Some of our main areas of expertise and/or experimental capabilities are listed below.
•Material Processing •Material Characterization
•Biological applications and tissue engineering
- Production of smart polymers and polymer composites in the films form, porous membranes and three dimensional scaffolds (solvent casting, melt casting, spin coating ...) and in the form of fibers and spheres (electrospining, electrospraying...).
-Synthesis of zeolites and zeolite-type materials.
- Synthesis of magnetic and metal nanoparticles and nanorods.
-Synthesis of nanoparticles for (bio)chemical detection.
-Synthesis of novel sensing and functional inks for printing technologies.
-Development of polymer based magnetoelectric materials in nanocomposite films, layered and low dimensional structures.
-Development of polymer based scintillator composites.
-Development of piezoresistive, piezoelectric and other smart and functional polymers and polymer composites
- Morphological characterization of materials by different techniques such as SEM, AFM and TEM.
- Crystallization kinetics analysis of polymer by Polarized optical microscopy (POM).
- Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Electrical characterization of materials including DC electrical (volume and surface) measurements of materials; four point prove resistivity measurements; dielectric relaxation spectroscopy.
-Optical characterization of the materials by UV-vis spectroscopy.
-Thermal analyses of materials by Thermogravimetric analyzes (TGA), Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).
- Mechanical measurements
(stress-strain, three and four point bending) of materials. Also with simultaneous electrical measurements and microscopy
-Contact angle measurements.
-Magnetic and magnetoelectric characterization of materials and devices
-Determination of the size distribution profileof particles trough Dynamic light scattering (DLS)
-Zeta-potential measurements.
-Membranes porosity and permeability
-Impedance electrochemical spectroscopy
-Cycle voltammetry.
-Theoretical simulation of materials and devices.
-Actuator bending response.
-Half and full cell cycling performance for battery applications.
-Ink-jet-printing, screen-printing and spray printing for flexible electronic and devices the fabrication in small and large devices formats.
-Manufacturing of microstructures in acrylic, PDMS, SU-8.
-Poling of porous and non-porous piezoelectric (co)polymer films by corona and parallel plate poling techniques.
-Development of sensor network systems for static and dynamic measurements.
-Production of Ion Selective Electrodes for biomolecule quantification
-Electrical, thermal and mechanical characterization of sensors, actuators and equipments.
-Micro and nano fabrication technology for biomedical micro devices developments and the like.
-Construction and simulation of dedicated hardware for signal acquisition and control.
-Integrated methods of wireless data communication systems.
-Firmware development for signal acquisition and control devices.
-Dedicated hardware and firmware for various applications, with special focus on the acquisition and data communication.
-Design and development of cell culture system after specification for biological and pharmaceutical engineering.
-Development of novel magnetic based processes for biomedical and industrial use devices.
Biological applications and tissue engineering
- Cell culture under static and dynamic conditions for tissue engineering applications (such as bone, cartilage, muscle and nervous).
- Cell adhesion, viability, proliferation and differentiation quantification
- Cell morphology evaluation by fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscope and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
- Dynamic cultures are performed in bioreactors with electrical, mechanical or magnetic stimulations.
- Surface modification/treatments of biomaterials by plasma treatment, chemical treatment and protein adsorption
- Quantification of adsorbed protein in material surface by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
- Protein distribution and conformation analysis by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).