Dr. Padmakumar Nair
Research Professor in Materials Science & Engineering
Academic Director of The Leadership Center in the UT Dallas School of Management
padmakumar.nair@utdallas.edu
Phone: 972-883-4829
Office: JSOM 4.406
800 West Campbell Rd.
Mailstop: SM43
Richardson, TX 75080-3021
We focus our attention on understanding and developing functional nanostructured ceramics and hybrid materials. We bring together disciplines such as physical and solid-state chemistry, ceramic processing and materials science to enrich our understanding of the science of developing functional nanostructured materials.
In this endeavor we closely work with Dr. Yves Chabal’s research group to utilize their expertise in solid-state surface science. The unique aspect of our research is that we use a multitude of characterization techniques such as XRD, DSC-TGA, AFM, FE-SEM, HRTEM, N2 Adsorption, IR, Raman, XPS, UV-Vis, etc. The work in our group has a direct impact on:
- Ceramic Manufacturing, by providing in-depth knowledge in areas such as particle packing, sintering, meta-stable-to-stable phase transformation during sintering and microstructure-precursor property correlation.
- Finding Alternative Energy Sources, by providing background knowledge for continually improving energy efficiency nanostructured titania-based composite-multilayered solar cells.
- Membrane Separation and Catalysis, by helping develop thermally stable systems for separation and catalytic applications.
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation, helping research institutes and policy makers by providing insights on the process of conversion of invention to innovation in nanotech research.
We have ongoing collaborations with the University of Cambridge in the UK, the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the University of Tokyo. Our goal is to channel our research expertise in such a way that it benefits both our students and the materials and chemical industry.