Advanced Materials Science & Nano Technology

Biography

Khalid Askar is a faculty member in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) Department at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology – A part of Khalifa University. Khalid began his studies at Purdue University, where he did research on molecular simulations of chemical reactions under both equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions. He graduated shortly thereafter with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and became a graduate student in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Florida with the prestigious MASDAR Fellowship. During his graduate studies, he worked on developing new colloidal self-assembly techniques, shape memory polymers and polymer composites with excellent antireflection and self-cleaning properties. He graduated with honors with his Masters and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida in August 2014. Following that he spent 2 years at MIT collaborating with Prof. Robert E. Cohen and Prof. Michael F. Rubner, who also served as his mentors, on research with focus on the development of a multifunctional polymer composite coating for desert based-solar cells. He is now one of the few UAE national faculty member in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) Department at Khalifa University - Masdar Campus.

Research Interest

His group focusses on developing new coating methods to control orientation of specific nano-filler materials within different polymer matrices. Recent projects include the fabrication of a cost-efficient, multifunctional and durable coating that can easily be scaled up and applied onto different surfaces (ex: buildings, car windshield, glass cover of solar panels. Etc.). The optimized coating has many properties including: 1) Anti-Reflection, 2) Self-Cleaning, 3) Abrasion Resistance, 4) Self-Healing and 5) Anti-Static.