Branka Ladanyi of Colorado State University is supported by an award from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program for research on the collective dynamics and solvation of fluids. The research is developing theoretrical and simulation techniques for fluids both in the bulk and confined to small nanoscale volumes. Three separate, but interconnected, areas are being investigated: (1) solvation dynamics and its relation to solute electronic spectra; (2) solvation effects in supercritical fluids; and (3) collective dynamics in nano-confined fluids. The work is being carried out in close collaboration with several experimental groups and is having a broader impact on our understanding of systems with environmental and technological importance, for example the behavior of supercritical fluids which have promise for green chemistry applications.
