(533a) Surface Science - Nexus of Tribology, Glass Science, and Plant Biology

Our group has been pioneering the application of surface science principles and characterization methods to address important questions in these seemingly disparate research frontiers – tribochemistry, corrosion of silicate glasses, and plant cell walls. Being an outsider in each of these research fields, we bring radical views as well as new scientific tools to solve decades-old, highly-elusive fundamental questions that engineers and scientists equipped with traditional tools and methodologies could not solve. This talk will cover the following examples: (i) How can interfacial shear activate chemical reactions that normally do not occur? (ii) Will the subsurface structure of a glass be altered after elastic contact with a foreign object and what would be consequences of such structural changes in chemical durability? (iii) Why do plants deposit cellulose in their cell walls with different nano-to-meso scale structures?