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Yurdanur Turker

Yurdanur

Yurdanur Turker was born in Izmir (Turkey). She studied chemistry in Bilkent University, Ankara (Turkey). She received her M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the Bilkent University under the supervision of Prof. Dag. During her Master and PhD studies, she gained a lot of knowledge on the design and synthesis of mesoporous metal sulfides, metal selenides, metal oxides, titania and silica nanoparticles and thin films using sol-gel chemistry methods based on the self-assembly of polymers which form the liquid crystalline phases.

After her PhD, she had the opportunity to work in European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC JRC), Ispra (Varese), Italy for one year. As a member of the Scientific Support Team of JRC, she conducted a research on the synthesis and characterization of TiO2 (titanium dioxide) NPs (nanoparticles) to be used as a reference material by the JRC in order to develop a method to separate, detect and quantify the TiO2 NPs in the consumer products through using Flow Field Flow (FFF) technique. After that experience, she moved back to Istanbul (Turkey) to work at a spin-off company, Quantag, which was established under the collaboration of Department of Chemistry, Koc University and the second biggest fuel oil company of Turkey (OPET). Over there, she got further specialized in the synthesis of quantum dots to be used as commercial products. After her experience in a spin-off company, she decided to get closer to the industrial world while maintaining a strong link with the academic research groups so that she could enjoy bridging the fundamental science with industrial applications.

In April, 2015, Yurdanur joined the SASSYPOL group as an Experienced Researcher in the R&D department of Elantas Italia.

Research

Thermoset matrix systems have become established in a wide range of applications in composites industry because of their reactive nature and ease of impregnation. The majority of thermoset composite parts are based on epoxy resins and polyurethanes. Having good mechanical, thermal and electrical insulating properties, superior corrosion and chemical resistance, exceptional adhesion to various substrates, these high performance reliable materials have been increasingly used particularly for the electrical and electronics insulation technology.

ELANTAS Italia Srl develops and produces high-performance resins which are designed for high and low voltage applications for the electrical and electronics industry. As an experienced researcher, here in this project, I focus on exploiting possible supramolecular approaches to gain epoxy and polyurethane thermosetting systems self-diagnostic, self-healing, and high thermal conductivity properties. Replacing of covalently bonded crosslinks in the thermoset matrix with various non-covalent bonds at a certain degree has been proven to bring outstanding mechanical, electrical and thermal properties to the thermoset materials on their lab-scale models but hasn`t found its applications on industrial scale yet.

Therefore, I`ll test several different approaches for each objective of the project in order to examine the pros and cons of the materials and as well as to evaluate the feasibility and cost of each method on an industrial scale. The mechanical and thermal properties of the materials will be characterized in the fully equipped laboratories of the company while the synthesis of the required chemicals will be performed in the research laboratories of the academic partners within the SASSYPOL network.

Former Work

Synthesis of mesostructured metal sulfide films using [M(H2O)n](NO3)2:P85 (M = Cd(II) and Zn(II)) liquid crystalline mesophases
Turker, Y., Dag, O., J. Mater. Chem. 2008, 18, 3467-3473.

Synthesis of Stable Mesostructured Coupled Semiconductor Thin Films: meso-CdS-TiO2 and meso-CdSe-TiO2.
Okur, H.I., Turker, Y., Dag, O., Langmuir, 2010, 26 (1), 538–544.

Assembly of Molten Transition Metal Salt_Surfactant in a Confined Space for the Synthesis of Mesoporous Metal Oxide-Rich Metal Oxide_Silica Thin Films.
Karakaya, C., Turker, Y., Albayrak, C., Dag, O., Chem. Mater. 2011, 23, 3062–3071.

Fabrication of Mesoporous Metal Chalcogenide Nanoflake-Silica Thin Films and Spongy Mesoporous CdS and CdSe.
Turker, Y., Karakaya, C., Dag, O., Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18, 3695-3705.

Molten-Salt-Assisted Self-Assembly (MASA)-Synthesis of Mesoporous Metal Titanate-Titania, Metal Sulfide-Titania, and Metal Selenide-Titania Thin Films.
Karakaya, C., Turker, Y., Dag, O., Adv. Func. Mater. 2013, 23, 4002-4010.