Magnus Nydén, Professor of Surface Chemistry at Chalmers.

Research interests: polymer and colloid chemistry, polymer gels, diffusion and flow in soft heterogeneous supramolecular structures, controlled release and encapsulation techniques, computational modelling and simulation.

Magnus Nydén is professor of Surface Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology and the Director of the SuMo center. He did his PhD at physical chemistry 1, Lund University and moved to Chalmers as assistant professor at the department in applied surface chemistry in 1999.
Magnus is a physical chemist by training with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance as a speciality. Particularly he has been working with so-called dynamic NMR and applied those techniques in different research applications in chemistry.
 

His group currently consists of ca 11 persons with projects ranging from very applied research-the development of new environmentally friendly marine and house paints being two such projects-to basic research projects. The latter is where Magnus spends most of his time and in particular in project of direct or indirect connection to SuMo. Magnus has along standing collaborations with  Niklas Lorén, Mats Rudemo, Jenny Jonasson, Jan-Erik Löfroth, Anne-Marie Hermansson and others where the common aim is to understanding the basic mechanisms for obstructing mass transport in soft heterogeneous materials. This is also at the heart of the SuMO program.

He is the supervisor of one SuMo funded project where the aim is to develop methodology using NMR diffusometry and microscopy to elucidate obstruction mechanisms of solvent and solute in polymer hydrogels (PhD student Diana Bernin).
Magnus also works with theory development in the field of diffusion in heterogeneous porous materials in a project funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) together with Martin Jacobi Nilsson from physical resource theory at Chalmers and Matias Nordin, a PhD student in Magnus group. Together they are developing new algorithms to calculate diffusion in porous materials with a new technique based on eigenfunctions of the Laplace operator to calculate time-dependant diffusion coefficients and other properties related to the structure of porous materials.

Magnus works with both applied and basic research and he thinks that research that can be transferred into products of benefit to the society gives an extra flavour to his work. He is the idea provider for a start-up company called Capeco that works to enhance the lifetime and effectiveness of modern house paints with respect to their resistance towards mold and fungi attacks (www.capeco.se) by using microencapsulation techniques.
He works with several different companies in PhD projects and he is also active as member of steering committees or as a board member. He is involved in several academic committees and boards, one such being the SuMo board.
Another main research area in the group is microencapsulation techniques for controlled release of substances such as biocides and pheromones for marine paints (www.marinepaint.se) and plant protection together with Prof. Fredrik Schlyter and his group at SLU in Alnarp.
Magnus research is funded from VINNOVA (SuMo as well as other projects), FORMAS, VR, MISTRA and industry.

List of Publications

Curriculum Vitae