High Specific Power Loading of Carbon Nanotube Fiber Devices for Gas Heating This work shows that carbon nanotube fiber (CNTF) Joule heaters are promising candidates to replace metal alloy heating elements and enable industrial electrification. Experiments and thermal modelin...

Here is a link to the corresponding research article: doi.org/10.1002/smll...

Carbon Nanotube Fiber Heaters Could Transform Industrial Heating YouTube video by Smalley-Curl Institute | Rice University

Check out our work on electrification of heating with new high-performance carbon nanotube fiber (CNTF) heaters! This video features Applied Physics PhD candidate Monisha Vijay Kumar, lead author and member of the Wehmeyer lab in Rice Mechanical Engineering. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrXQ...

Great job by Rick Fontenot leading our work on sheet-based polymeric heat exchangers! Check out the paper for really nice visuals - we're also excited about the real-world impact, reducing capital cost by 2-4x compared to the state of the art. doi.org/10.1002/advs...

Scalable Hot-Water-Repellent Superhydrophobicity via Thermal Insulation Superhydrophobic surfaces, which rely on a combination of surface texture and chemistry, often lose their repellent behavior when contacted by hot water (≳40 °C) because the impinging hot water replaces the requisite air layer within the surface texture via evaporation and recondensation. In contrast to previous approaches targeting this condensation-induced failure mode that rely on intricately tailored surface structures or complex chemical treatments, we present a scalable approach based on thermal design: the multilayered insulated superhydrophobic (MISH) coating mitigates condensation-induced failure by preventing heat transfer. Superhydrophobicity is retained at impinging water temperatures up to 90 °C, with durability demonstrated via long-term (>1 million impacts) droplet impingement experiments. We explain the mechanism for this approach with a detailed thermal model; the model reveals that the underlying physical behavior is self-similar across coating parameters and impinging fluid temperatures. The MISH coating accommodates curved geometries and large surfaces, and it is over 4 orders of magnitude less expensive than cleanroom-nanofabricated alternatives, indicating promise for practical use in the energy sector, chemical processing, and the food and medical industries.

Glad this work is now published! We unlock new applications in the energy, food, and medical industries where management and repellency of hot liquids has been a longstanding challenge.

Story and video:
news.rice.edu/news/2026/he...

Research paper:
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Check out our paper published in @aaas.org Science Advances! This work reveals the impact of curing on the strength of silicone elastomer devices, yielding soft robotic actuators with 50% higher curvature and 3D-printed parts with 200% better interlayer adhesion.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@quisebell.bsky.social

Congratulations Dr. Marquise Bell on defending your PhD thesis in @ricegradschool.bsky.social Mechanical Engineering today! Dr. Bell is the fourth PhD graduate from the PI Lab. He will move to the @upenn.edu this fall as a Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow working with Prof. Kevin Turner. Great job!

This is figure 3, which shows applications of wearable haptic devices in various domains.

Haptic devices enable communication via touch, augmenting visual and auditory displays. A Review in Nature Reviews Bioengineering discusses multi-sensory wearable haptics, focusing on body-worn devices that convey multiple types of cutaneous haptic feedback. https://go.nature.com/3DoLRJo 🔒

Check out our article on multi-sensory haptic wearables in Nature Reviews Bioengineering! Led by @marcieomalley.bsky.social with @dlipomi.bsky.social and other collaborators. @riceneuro.bsky.social @ricegradschool.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Thank you!

Excited to share our paper in @cp-cellrepphyssci.bsky.social! Building on a fundamental study of bond strength and bursting in textile-based devices, we programmed local failure in a fuse that enables selection and sequencing of tasks with one pressure input. news.rice.edu/news/2025/ha...

New work from @ricePILab in collaboration with researchers at @EdinburghUni and the Wehmeyer lab here at @RiceEngineering shows mask-enabled topography contrast patterning with implications for phase change heat transfer and thermal rectification: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c03891

Mask-Enabled Topography Contrast on Aluminum Surfaces Patterned solid surfaces with wettability contrast can enhance liquid transport for applications such as electronics thermal management, self-cleaning, and anti-icing. However, prior work has not explored easy and scalable blade-cut masking to impart topography patterned wettability contrast on aluminum (Al), even though Al surfaces are widely used for thermal applications. Here, we demonstrate mask-enabled topography contrast patterning and quantify the resulting accuracy of the topographic pattern resolution, spatial variations in surface roughness, wettability, drop size distribution during dropwise condensation, and thermal emissivity of patterned Al surfaces. The method uses blade-cut vinyl mask templates and a commercially available lacquer resin that serves as a polymer resist against etching. Programmable mask templates enable complex patterning of wettability and emissivity contrast with feature sizes down to ∼1.5 mm. As-fabricated patterned samples show a water contact angle (θ) contrast from <5° to 80° between etched and smooth zones, while patterned samples that are further coated with a hydrophobic promoter show θ contrast between 150° and 120° on etched and smooth zones, respectively. In addition to measuring this wettability contrast via contact angle goniometry, we use condensation visualization experiments to study the spatially controlled condensate morphologies and drop size distributions. These condensation studies demonstrate enhanced droplet shedding on the superhydrophobic regions of striped patterned surfaces compared to homogeneous superhydrophobic surfaces. Motivated by the role of thermal radiation in many phase change processes, we use infrared thermography to map topography-mediated thermal emissivity (ε) contrast between etched (ε ≈ 0.65) and smooth (ε ≈ 0.26) regions. Thus, our study provides a route for researchers to readily create complex and scalable topography-patterned Al surfaces for potential applications in vapor chamber thermal rectification, radiative cooling condensation heat transfer, and high-temperature Leidenfrost or film boiling processes.

New work led by Trevor Shimokusu in collaboration with researchers at the The University of Edinburgh and the Wehmeyer lab here at Rice shows mask-enabled topography contrast patterning with implications for phase change heat transfer and thermal rectification: doi.org/10.1021/acs....

Great new perspective in Science Robotics out this week! Take a look at this article by @quisebell.bsky.social to learn more, and work toward making positive changes with intentionality.

In new work from @ricePILab in @ACS_Langmuir, we go beyond the Washburn relationship: inverse design &amp; additive manufacturing produce wicking materials with atypical fluid propagation for low-cost diagnostics, thermal management, and more. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c

Two covers from @RiceMECH in the same issue of @Advintellsyst! Our work from @ricePILab on sheet-based fluidic diodes and collaborative work on multiscale haptics led by @MarcieOMalley's MAHI lab were both selected for covers in the July issue.

https://engineering.rice.edu/news/rice-labs-introd

Great job by @Fayeyap25 defending her PhD thesis in @RiceMECH! Her work applied reaction kinetics to understand virus inactivation, elastomer curing, and manufacturing of soft robots, and she will start her own lab as a faculty member at @uhmanoa in January.

Congrats to our @ricePILab members starting tenure-track faculty positions this year! @ranoop93 at @Tulane, @Zhen_Skyii at @UT_Dallas, and @Fayeyap25 at @uhmanoa - we took a photo in our uni t-shirts before our summer lab social. Looking forward to following their careers!

Congratulations @Zhen_Skyii on successfully defending your PhD thesis in @RiceMECH today! One of the first three members of @ricePILab, Zhen's work has given us a new understanding of the impact of surface contamination, and also how to avoid it.

Nice coverage from @RiceUNews today on our recent work deploying soft foams for fluidic sensing and computation! The paper, led by @ranoop93 with @Zhen_Skyii, @Fayeyap25, and @rasheed_rawand, is out now in Advanced Functional Materials @AdvSciNews.

https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/foam-fluidics-s

Happy to share our work led by @ranoop93 on fluidic resistors made from soft porous foams for embedded sensing and control in #softrobots and #wearables, out today in @WileyVCH Advanced Functional Materials: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202403379

Is it time to take another look at the osmotic heat pipe? Rick @thefontknows thinks so. Check out his review paper co-authored with our @AFResearchLab collaborators: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2024.123097

We show fluidic diodes made from lightweight flexible sheets, including #textiles, in a paper in @Advintellsyst published last week. Beyond simply enforcing one-way flow, they enable #logic, encoding, and rectification. https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202300785

Nice job by @Fayeyap25 winning Best Poster at the MRS Spring Meeting #S24MRS in the Advances in Polymer-based Soft Matter for Additive Manufacturing symposium! She covered new unpublished work as well as our recent @CellRepPhysSci paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.101849

Congrats @Zhen_Skyii on winning the @RiceMECH Research Excellence Award! Pictured here giving a special seminar to the department in recognition of the award.

Congrats @irf_zob on your successful MS defense in @RiceMECH - the third from @ricePILab this spring!

Another successful MS defense in @RiceMECH from a @ricePILab member this spring - congratulations, Evan!

Nice job today by @ricePILab's Adam Broshkevitch defending his MS thesis in @RiceMECH today!

Our work in @CellRepPhysSci, led by @Fayeyap25, shows that elastomer curing speed doubles with each 10 °C increase in temperature while retaining mechanical properties. Story by @RiceUNews: news.rice.edu/news/2024/rice-research-...

Elastomer curing speed doubles with each 10 °C increase in temperature while retaining mechanical properties! To quantitatively understand how to speed up soft device/robot manufacturing, check out our work led by @Fayeyap25 in @CellRepPhysSci: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.101849