Dr. Sumit Sharma
By Kate Nichols
NQPI Editorial Intern
Ohio University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Assistant Professor Sumit Sharma presented “Molecular Simulations of Adsorption and Self-Assembly of Surfactants on Metal Surfaces” on Sept. 5 as part of the Nanoscale & Quantum Phenomena Institute seminar series.
Sharma and his research group in OHIO’s Russ College of Engineering employ molecular simulations, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics theory to understand the behavior of soft matter (surfactants, polymers and proteins) near interfaces.
“Some behavior of molecules may not be desirable for efficient corrosion inhibition, such as their tendency to form micelles (molecular aggregates, such as those formed by detergents), and to accumulate at oil-water interface,” said Sharma. “We will be designing new molecules based on our findings from computer simulations which will not display such behaviors.”
He aims to develop molecules that are better corrosion inhibitors that will be useful in the oil and gas industry. He notes however, that their models are still incomplete. “We do not have theoretical models for predicting adsorption configurations of corrosion inhibitor molecules of different shapes. We are trying to develop such a theory.”
Sharma earned Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Princeton University. Prior to joining Ohio University, he worked as a Yield and Integration Engineer at Intel Corporation.
“Every physical process in our world appears to have so much complexity”, said Sharma. “The basic theme of our research is to use simple models or representations of these physical processes to untangle the complexity.”
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