Frieder Mugele (Twente)
Professor Mugele has made significant contribution to our understanding of the structure of aqueous electrolyte solutions near solid interfaces. This is the result of thorough characterization of colloidal interaction forces on the nanoscale using atomic force microscopy. The method has recently been further improved and combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations by his group. This has enabled deeper understanding into charge generation and charge regulation as well as the hydration structure of aqueous electrolytes at solid surfaces. His study on the hydration of mica in different aqueous solutions at moderate and high salt concentrations provides further insight on the pioneering experimental work on hydration forces several decades ago at ANU in Australia. Professor Mugele could describe the hydration force as a superposition of a monotonically decaying and an oscillatory part. His studies of adsorbing cations demonstrate the impact of the hydration energy of the ions on the hydration forces. He and his team demonstrated the transition from overall repulsive to more attractive forces when reducing the hydration of the cations from Li+ over Na+, Rb+ to Cs+. The main results were also found to be valid for other surfaces such as silica. The studies on hydration forces in systems with faceted colloidal particles, demonstrating that different facets can either attract or repel each other.