Abstract: Active materials and reactive fluids consists of those materials that consume or convert energy to generate motion and deformations. They are involved in many biological activities and in most time, the principle characteristics of living organisms. In this talk, we will present a derivation and generalization of the mass action kinetics of chemical reactions using an energetic variational approach.  The method enables us to capture the coupling and competition of various mechanisms,  including mechanical effects such as diffusion, viscoelasticity in polymerical fluids and muscle contraction, as well as the thermal effects.  We will also discuss several applications under this approach, in particular, the modeling of wormlike micellar solutions.  This is a joint work with Bob Eisenberg, Pei Liu, Yiwei Wang and Tengfei Zhang.

Biosketch: Chun Liu is the Chair and Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics in Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. 

Before coming to Illinois Tech, Liu was in the Department of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, where he had served since 1998. He also served a term as associate director for the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications (IMA) at the University of Minnesota, and has held positions at many institutions, such as the University of Wuerzburg, the University of Tokyo, the University of Georgia, and Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

Liu’s research is in nonlinear partial differential equations and applications in complex fluids, such as liquid crystal growth, polymers, ion channels in cell membranes, and active materials involving chemical reactions. He developed a general framework of energetic variational approaches (EnVarA) to study various problems arising from physical and biological applications. Liu’s research has been supported by various federal and international funding agencies.