Orlin D. Velev

Innovative microplastics studies. Designing of Self‐Dispersing Soft Dendritic Microcleaners for Microplastics Capture and Recovery in Adv. Funct. Mater. Follows on Colloidal Engineering of Biodegradable Soft Dendritic “Microcleaners” in Langmuir. The AFM paper received nice media coverage such as Phys.org, ScienceDaily and Technology Networks.

New. Revealing a novel mechanism of active particle propulsion called Asymmetric AC Field Electrophoresis (AFEP). It adds to our pioneering discoveries of two other self-propulsion mechanisms: ICEP of Janus particles and Rectified Field Electrophoresis of microdiodes. 

New. Perspective on Sustainable Biopolymer Colloids: Advances in Morphology for Enhanced Functionalities in Langmuir. 

Hierarchically reinforced biopolymer composites as multifunctional plastics substitute: Paper in Cell Reports Physical Science on the new sustainable composite. Press coverage includes: Phys.Org, ScienceDaily, Eurekalert!, WRAL TechWire, NPR, others. 

Confined Assembly and Immobilization of Hierarchical Nanoparticle Architectures inside Soft Magnetic Microbeads, in ACS Nano. The essence of this research is captured nicely by Advances in Engineering. 

Sustainable Soft Electronics with Biodegradable Gel Film Substrates in Adv. Electron. Mater. Covered nicely in Advanced Science News and Celebrating a Decade of Excellence and Innovation at AIM. Biodegradable Chitosan-Based Stretchable Electronics with Recyclable Silver Nanowires in ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces.

Watch: 8 video-tutorial lectures ranging from active systems to Pickering foams and to colloidal interactions in microplastics.

Watch: Velev group video greeting.

12 Polymer morphologies produced by efficient scalable method. Advanced Materials report on the new liquid-liquid method for controlled making of (bio)polymer soft matter. Press releases include: Phys.Org., ScienceDaily, Eurekalert!, Scienmag, others. 

Many thanks to everyone who attended the 97th ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium that Prof. Lilian Hsiao and I hosted.

Homocomposite Colloidal-Molecular Hydrogels. Nature Comm. report on the new class of 3D printable hydrogels with synergistic colloidal-molecular network. Made possible by the soft dendritic colloids - see below. Some press releases: Phys.Org., EurekAlert!, ScienceMag, Nanowerk, others. See also the CBS 17 interview with Austin.

Soft dendritic colloids. Nature Materials report on the discovery and unique properties of this new class of soft matter. Highlighted in numerous press releases, such as: Phys.Org., SciTechDaily, Physicsworld, BBC Interviews, Nanowerk, others. Summarized and discussed very nicely in an independent Nature Materials News & Views highlight. Basis of patent-pending forthcoming nanofabrication technologies.

Principles of long-term fluids handling in paper-based osmotic-capillary wearables: Editor's choice in Biomicrofluidics. Media coverge examples: ScienceDaily, Phys.Org., EurekAlert!, Inverse, others. Detailed report on the method: Wearable Osmotic-Capillary Patch: ACS AMI.

Nature Materials report on the discovery and unique properties of the soft dendritic colloids. Highlighted in numerous press releases, such as: Phys.Org., SciTechDaily, Physicsworld, The Naked Scientist / BBC Interviews, Nanowerk, others. Summarized and discussed very nicely in an independent Nature Materials News & Views highlight. Basis of patent-pending forthcoming nanofabrication technologies.

3D-printed soft robots with magneto-capillary reconfiguration: In special issue of Adv. Mater. Technol. Watch the the videos: Movie 1, Movie 2, Movie 3. Media coverage examples: ScienceDaily, EurekAlert!, Phys.Org., others.

Self-propelling and active particles: Engineered Motile Semiconductor Microparticles - Nature Comm. Externally Powered Self-Propelling and Self-Reconfiguring Systems - AFM feature. Microbots and Microdevices Powered by Magnetic and Electric Fields - Chem. review. Electrically Powered Supercolloidal Spinners - Adv. Funct. Mater..

Sequence-encoded colloidal origami and microbot assemblies reported in Science Advances. A few examples of the wide media coverage: Wired, Yahoo! News, TechCrunch, ScienceDaily, Phys.org, Chemistry World, C&E News, German National Radio, Newsy and ZD Net.

Our 3D printing method with multiphasic capillary silicone gel is reported in Advanced Materials. Highlighted in a NC State Press release and numerous news sources such as Science daily, Phys.org and Adv. Science News.

Watch the WNCN/CBS interview about the invention of denrimeric particles.

The results on nanocapillary assembly of ultraflexible filaments are reported in Nature Materials. Highlighted in a NC State Press release and numerous news sources. Featured on the top banner of NSF.gov. Related JACS paper - nanocapillary assembly of patchy particles.

The work on environmentally-benign nanoparticles is published in Nature Nanotechnology. Here is the NC State Press release. See also the excellent C&E News report.

Congratulations to Alex Richter for winning the highly prestigious Lemelson-MIT 2015 student award! See also the NC State Press release. Alex founded the startup Benanova, which commercializes our patent-pending EbNP technology (above).

Assembly of Reconfigurable Colloidal Structures by Multidirectional Field-Induced Interactions - Langmuir invited feature paper. Selected as an ACS Editor's Choice, highly downloaded.

Our revolutionary shear nanofabrication technique is now described in Adv. Mater.: Scalable Liquid Shear-Driven Fabrication of Polymer Nanofibers Here is the NC State press release about the "Nanofiber Gusher". See also the excellent Materials Today news report. The technology is protected by NCSU patents Overarching patent 2005,   2010,   2012.

Hydrogel Soft Robotics - Nature Comm. paper (in collaboration with M. Dickey). Highlighted in many press releases including: Science Daily, Discovery, PopSci, Gizmodo, Materials Today, Eureka, E! science news, IDG Connect, The Engineer, NC state See also the popular Youtube video.

Multi-stimuli responsive Pickering foams - Chem. Sci. paper. Press highlights: Chemistry World, ChemEurope.com,  INRA Science and Impact Also see the first Magneto-Pickering foams we reported in JACS paper & Langmuir paper.

Recent progress in the merging of electronic, microfluidic, and biomimetic structures - BMF review of an emerging cross-disciplinary research topic.

For more news check out the Velev research group web page