Takaichi Watanabe, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Interface Process Engineering (IPE) Lab.

Okayama University, Japan

Specialty: Particle design, Gels, Emulsions, Microfluidics,
 Chemical Engineering, Interfacial Science


Hobby: Playing with son, Coffee, Reading books, Bowling 


We study to understand the relationship between macromolecular behavior, phase change, material structure, and function when designing soft materials such as emulsions, gels, and colloidal materials to create/control new functions of soft matter. We expect these fundamental findings to be deployed in the design of novel functional materials.

We are interested in

Polymers: Solutions, Thermodynamics, Conformation, Blends, Composites

Poly(ionic liquid)s: Synthesis, Functionalization, Application

Vitrimers: Synthesis, Characterization
Gels: Mechanical Behaviour, Swelling, Transport Phenomena

Particles/Capsules: Desing of structures, Application

Emulsions: Emulsification, Colloids

Particular surfactant: Interfacial Behaviour, Bijels, 3D Printing


Microfluidic Processing: Design of device, Material production, Analysis
Scattering Techniques: DLS, Small-Angle Scattering (X-ray and Neutron)

Rheological Techniques: Rheology, Microrheology, DMA

Research in Particle Design

We study phase behaviours of emulsion systems to design polymer particle structures. We found that phase transition under microfluidic laminar flow conditions induces unique phase separation behavior, leading to unprecedented phase-separated structures.

Key words: Phase separation, Droplet, Emulsion, Microfluidics

Research in Gel Materials

We study the toughening of ion gels by adding various materials. We found that the shapes of nanomaterials realize the high toughness of the ion gels through the formation of partially aggregated nanomaterials in ionic liquid.

Key words: Gels, Ionic liquid, Poly(ionic liquid), Nanoparticle, Assembly

Group Photos@Okayama (IPE), US (Lopez group), and Germany (Richtering group)

 Access

Address
Room 207, Engineering Bulid. 1, Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Environmental, Life Science, Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University,

3-1-1, Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan

Phone: +81-86-251-8072 (Prof. Watanabe)

Interface Process Engineering Lab (PI: Prof. Tsutomu Ono)

E-mail. wata-t[at]okayama-u.ac.jp