Soft materials are central to a wide range of engineering and biomedical applications. Examples include polymers, biopolymers, composites, soft biogenic materials, liquid crystals and surfactants. Many of the properties and applications of soft materials are strongly based on the weak but long-range interactions among the molecular or supramolecular constituents. However, it is still poorly understood how and why these interactions lead to hierarchical structures of soft materials and, in most cases, time-dependent physical and engineering properties. Improving our fundamental understanding of the intermolecular and surface interactions of soft materials and various systems at the molecular and nano scales is needed to develop new materials and further technologies in materials science, chemical engineering, mineral processing, bioengineering, and nanotechnology. Here I briefly review some recent progress in our group in understanding the fundamental interaction mechanisms in several systems by using various nanoscopic techniques: (1) adhesion and detachment mechanisms of polymer surfaces and thin films, (2) interactions of biological surfaces and fouling mechanism (dry gecko and wet marine mussel adhesive systems), (3) intermolecular and surface interactions of heavy oils and clays in oil sand industry.

(References: Zeng, H., et al. PNAS 2010, Macromolecules 2010, JBC 2010, Soft matter 2010, PNAS 2009)