Colin D. Bain

Biography

Colin D. Bain is Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Member of the Biophysical Sciences Institute, Member of the Durham Centre for Soft Matter (DCSM), Dean and Deputy to PVC (Research) in the Vice-Chancellor's Office, Dean and Deputy to PVC.

Research Interest

The research in my group can be loosely characterised as 'wet' surface chemistry. We are motivated by two general questions: What is the relationship between the microscopic structure of a thin film and the molecular structure of its constituent molecules? How do the microscopic properties of an interface determine the macroscopic behaviour of a system? Increasingly we are interested in kinetic processes on timescales from microseconds to seconds and in multi-component systems where interactions between different species lead to unexpected behaviour. Our focus is on fundamental physical chemistry, but the systems we study have potential applications in areas such as lubrication, detergency, printing, manufacturing engineering and oil recovery. Systems are chosen to be sufficiently complex to capture the essential behaviour of real applications, yet simple enough to permit a determination of structure and dynamics at an interface.