Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series Presents, Jarad Mason from Harvard University

“Manipulating Phase Transitions and Free Volume: From Solid Refrigerants to Microporous Water”

Materials that undergo phase transitions in response to specific stimuli and that contain pores tailored to interact with specific guest molecules offer unique opportunities for addressing many important global challenges. Here, he describes two recent examples of how phase-change materials and microporous materials can be leveraged for a range of energy and biomedical applications, including sustainable heat pumps, electrocatalysis, organ preservation, bioreactors, and in vivo gas delivery. First, how hydrocarbon order–disorder phase transitions in layered organic and metal–organic materials can be manipulated to drive large barocaloric effects—thermal changes induced by hydrostatic pressure—in a new class of solid refrigerants. Second, he will describe a new approach to transporting gas molecules in aqueous solutions that overcomes limitations associated with the low solubility of nearly all gases in water.

Specifically, he will show how aqueous solutions of microporous nanocrystals can be designed with low viscosities, long-term colloidal stability, and micropores that remain permanently dry even when surrounded by liquid water. This allows high densities of gas molecules, including oxygen, to be stored and released within aqueous environments.

Get to Know Jarad

(Click HERE for Jarad’s CV)

Jarad earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.  While at Penn, he worked in the lab of Professor Larry Sneddon on the synthesis of ultra-high-temperature ceramics from polymer precursors and on developing new electrolytes for lithium ion batteries. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015 under the guidance of Jeffrey Long.  At Berkeley, Jarad investigated the storage and separation of gases in metal-organic frameworks.

Following graduate school, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University, where he used DNA to assemble responsive materials composed of inorganic nanoparticle building blocks.  In 2018, Jarad began his independent career in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.  His research group applies the tools of synthetic chemistry and nanoscience to design materials that address basic science challenges in energy and medicine, with a particular emphasis on the development of chemical strategies to manipulate entropic effects, phase transitions, and porosity.