Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry (PAFIC): Janet A. W. Elliott

Published as part of the Langmuir virtual special issue “2023 Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry: Janet A. W. Elliott” In its 40th anniversary, Langmuir has established the annual recognition of Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry to honor influential scientists who have made significant fundamental contributions in these fields of research. Professor Janet A. W. Elliott has been selected as one of the inaugural Pioneers in Applied and Fundamental Interfacial Chemistry, in light of her outstanding contributions to the areas of thermodynamics, colloids and surfaces, and cryobiology. Professor Janet A. W. Elliott is a University of Alberta Distinguished Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Thermodynamics in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta. She received her M.Sc. (1992) and Ph.D. (1997) degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto, having been the first female graduate of the Engineering Physics Option of Engineering Science at the University of Toronto in 1990. Professor Elliott currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Cryobiology, on the Editorial Advisory Boards of The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, B, & C and Langmuir, and on the Editorial Board of Advances in Colloid and Interface Science. She has previously served as a member of the Physical Sciences Advisory Committee of the Canadian Space Agency, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, and the Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry. Professor Elliott is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2023), Engineers Canada (2023), the Royal Society of Canada (2022), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2019), the Society for Cryobiology (2018), and the Chemical Institute of Canada (2015). Her research has been recognized by numerous awards, with the most recent being the American Chemical Society Langmuir Lectureship Award (2022). As one of her students put it: “She could convince rocks to study thermodynamics.” Professor Elliott is a distinguished scholar in the fields of thermodynamics (equilibrium and non-equilibrium), colloids and surfaces, and cryobiology. Her outstanding research has resulted in over 160 peer-reviewed journal articles and 2 U.S. patents. She has supervised more than 130 trainees and staff, including research associates, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. students, M.Sc. students, undergraduate research students, research engineers, and technicians. The contributions described below were made in collaboration with her trainees and collaborators, as indicated by authorship of the cited references. Professor Elliott has developed semiempirical equations of state that combine foundational equations with minimal data fitting to provide accurate predictive capability. The Shardt–Elliott equation (1) predicts the surface tension of multicomponent solutions as a function of composition and temperature, requiring only a small amount of input experimental data, as demonstrated for aqueous solutions, organic solutions, metals, (2) cryogenic gases, and supercritical gases dissolved in alkanes. Professor Elliott’s group proposed mixing/combining rules for the osmotic virial equation, (3,4) resulting in an equation that does not require fitting of multisolute data to make accurate predictions (5,6) of chemical potential (and therefore freezing point, osmotic driving forces, etc.) for a wide variety of multicomponent aqueous solutions, including aqueous cryoprotectant (solvents, sugars, starches, alcohols), electrolyte, and/or protein solutions. Professor Elliott’s first semiempirical equation of state described adsorbed diatomic molecules. (7) In the field of equilibrium Gibbsian composite-system thermodynamics, Professor Elliott’s work provides theoretical frameworks and mathematical equations for predicting and controlling scientifically or industrially important phenomena. Her recent invited Feature Article (8) lays out the relationships between important equilibrium equations and summarizes the work of her group in this area, including new forms of the Young–Laplace equation, the Young equation, the Cassie–Baxter equation, the Wenzel equation, (9) the Kelvin equation, the Gibbs–Thompson equation, and the Ostwald–Freundlich equation, and gives new equations for such things as the curvature-induced depression of the eutectic temperature (10) or the removal of azeotropes by nanoscale fluid interface curvature. (11) Most recently this approach has been used to quantify the effects of dissolved gases on drying pressure of hydrophobic nanopores. (12) Professor Elliott’s recent invited Perspective article lays out the evidence for the applicability of Gibbsian composite-system thermodynamics to systems with fluid interfaces with nanoscale curvature. (13) In non-equilibrium thermodynamics and transport, Professor Elliott’s group introduced a framework to relate measurable non-equilibrium advancing/receding contact angles to unmeasurable ideal equilibrium contact angles predicted by the Young, Cassie, or Wenzel equations for smooth surfaces, rough surfaces trapping air (superhydrophobic and superoleophobic), and rough wetting surfaces, respectively, thereby explaining seemingly disparate experimental results. (14,15) Professor Elliott’s group developed a sophisticated numerical simulation of evaporation at low pressure (multiphase heat transfer, multiphase fluid mechanics, and interfacial transport), (16,17) showing excellent agreement with experiments across geometries and arriving at a new understanding of evaporation. (16−18) Other contributions to combining surface phenomena and fluid mechanics include descriptions of macromolecular filtration and the solidification of suspensions (19,20) and the trapping of Brownian particles by an advancing solidification front. (21) Beginning in her Ph.D., Professor Elliott made key contributions to the development of the Statistical Rate Theory (SRT) of interfacial transport that allowed SRT to be applied to non-isolated systems and therefore tested. (22) Professor Elliott continues to expand the applicability of SRT in a variety of research fields. Finally, Professor Elliott is recognized for her work in cryobiology and cryopreservation. Cryobiology is the study of the effects of low temperature (and resulting ice formation or vitrification) on biological systems, with a major application being the preservation of cells and tissues in liquid nitrogen (−196 °C). Professor Elliott’s group has provided both thermodynamic descriptions of the growth of ice from cell to cell through gap junctions (23,24) and a sophisticated biomechanical model of water and cryoprotectant transport in articular cartilage (a complex porous media), which treats highly concentrated vitrification solutions as thermodynamically non-dilute. (25) Applied contributions include developing new cryopreservation protocols for a variety of cells and tissues, including cryopreserving endothelial monolayers with post-thaw viabilities above 90% (26,27) and cryopreserving intact human articular cartilage on bone and particulated human articular cartilage (28) with high cell viability, metabolic activity, and function. To celebrate the achievement of Professor Elliott as one of the inaugural PAFIC, Langmuir is pleased to present this Special Issue that includes a collection of 42 invited papers (6 reviews and 36 research articles), contributed by leading, as well as early- to mid-career, authors in the areas of applied and fundamental interfacial science. The wide breadth of topics and methodological approaches of the invited articles reflect the wide scope of work undertaken by Professor Elliott. The submissions include topics to which Elliott has contributed substantially, as well as areas that are closely related. The fact that the submitted works encompass theoretical, simulation, and experimental studies also reflects that ability by Elliott to contribute across these fields, using a shared language that is engaging and understandable. The largest block of studies in this special issue involves the development of advanced techniques and approaches that contribute to a more in-depth understanding of interfacial phenomena, from surface-enhanced Raman (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03340) to electrophoresis (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02121), catalysis (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03316, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03411, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03903, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03904), and diagnostics (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03890, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02934, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03244), enhanced by specific surface-adsorbed species. The effects of surface wettability on spreading (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03153, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03343, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03292), condensation (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02788 and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03342), and evaporation of droplets (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00893) and the applications of these studies (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03339) occupy the second largest block of contributions, neatly combining theory and experiments. The influence of surface effects on cryopreservation and crystallization are represented (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03710, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03798, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03498, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03329). The effects of surface composition and structure are explored in nanofluidic flow (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c01826, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03030, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c01927, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c04011) and flow and separation in porous media (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03534, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00118, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02757, 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02730, and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02540). Self-assembly is described in a number of systems, including liquid–liquid equilibria (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03344), surfactants in solution (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c01855 and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00953), surface patterns (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00509), graphene (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02805), and nanotubes (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00393). The effects of nanoconfinement and surface adsorption are described on adsorption kinetics (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03235 and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02531), surface tension (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03831), solubility (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03333), heat transfer (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03289), and the development of disease (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02429). One paper addresses the thermodynamics of the role of atmospheric water vapor in climate change (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c00390). This article references 28 other publications. This article has not yet been cited by other publications.