Sustainable Advanced Materials Research Group

Principle Investigator

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Burcu Saner Okan

Dr. Burcu Saner Okan received her BS degree in Chemistry at Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey in 2005. Dr. Saner Okan received MS degree in 2007 and PhD degree in 2011 in the Materials Science and Engineering programme at Sabanci University. She worked as a researcher at Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center for five years. Now she works as a senior researcher at Sabanci University Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application Center. Dr. Saner Okan is also co-founder of NANOGRAFEN Nano Technological Products Chemistry, R&D, Consulting, Industry and Trade Limited Company. Nanografen produces graphene from waste tires by recycling technology and conducts R&D projects with several companies in the field of automotive, defense and construction. She conducted several national and international projects for the development of nanoparticles and nanocomposites. She has 23 articles published in international journals, 2 book chapters and more than 50 conference papers on these fields and 2 patents.

Team Members

Dr. Havva Başkan Bayrak

Dr. Havva Başkan Bayrak received her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in the Textile Engineering at Istanbul Technıcal University in 2012, 2015 and 2021, respectively. She worked as a research assistant in ITU between February 2013-June 2021. Between June 2016-September 2016, she worked as a visiting researcher at Manchester University. Between January 2019 and January 2020, she conducted her Ph.D. studies at Ghent University, in the department of Centre for Textile Science and Engineering. Currently, she is working as a post-doc researcher at SU-IMC. Her research interests are electrospun nanofibers, medical textiles, sustainability, and upcycling, and graphene. She has 12 articles published in international journals, 4 book chapters, 15 conference papers, 1 registered US patent. She also win the 2nd Prize in the field of Medical Textiles given by UTIB in 2016.

Dr. Semih Doğan

Dr. Semih Doğan is a project leader and post doctoral research fellow in the Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application Center & Composite Technologies Center of Excellence at Sabancı University (SU-IMC). He completed his undergraduate education with the first rank in Chemistry department at Kocaeli University in 2013. He also received his M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Inorganic Chemistry at Gebze Technical University between September-2015 and July-2020. He worked in chemistry company as R&D engineer and R&D responsible between 2017-2020. His research interests are synthesis and surface functionalization of 1D materials (Carbon Nanotubes) and 2D materials (Graphene and hexagonal boron nitride), materials characterization techniques (XRD and Raman spectroscopy), scaling up production of graphene oxide, coating technologies and solution based coating techniques of nanomaterials, design and fabrication of CNT and graphene coated fabrics in the area of nanomaterial chemistry. He has collaborated actively with researchers in projects. He has 9 articles published in international journals, 1 book chapter, 9 conference papers and 1 registered Turkish patent.

Dr. M. Sajad Sorayani Bafqi

Dr. M. Sajad Sorayani Bafqi earned his B.Sc. in Textile Engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology in 2014. He continued his education at the same institution, completing an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Textile Engineering. During his studies, he works on nanofibrous structure fabrication and characterization by focusing on piezoelectric materials and flexible energy harvesters. He undertook research as a visiting scholar at the University of Pisa, concentrating on biofunctional nanofibrous materials, and collaborated on various projects with MIT and CNR-Italy in the fields of tissue engineering and piezoelectric nanofibrous scaffolds. His research interests include high-performance fibrous materials, nanostructure fabrication and characterization, biofunctional nanofibrous materials, piezoelectrics, water treatment, and sustainability. He has 12 articles in international journals, 4 book chapters, 7 conference papers, and 4 patents. In 2017, his invention "Flexible Integrated Piezo-Triboelectric Panel Mounted on Breakwaters for Electrical Energy Generation" earned him the gold prize in Canada.

Kuray Dericiler, Ph.D. Candidate

Kuray Dericiler received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Yildiz Technical University in 2016 and 2019, respectively. In 2020, he enrolled in Sabanci University Materials Science and Nano-Engineering program with the TUBITAK Industrial Ph.D. scholarship. He is doing his thesis research at Sabanci University Composite Technologies Center of Excellence and Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application Center with the guidance of industrial partner FARPLAS to fabricate lightweight and cost-effective automotive nanocomposites. He has 6 articles published in international journals, 2 book chapters and three conference papers on these fields.

Saher Gul, Ph.D. Candidate

Saher Gul is PhD Manufacturing Engineering candidate working in the research group of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Burcu Saner Okan at Sabanci University Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research And Application Center. Her current work is focused on material optimization and process development for thermally conductive aerospace-grade thermoplastic materials. Her other research interests include additive manufacturing of high-temperature thermoplastics, structural health monitoring of FRPCs, and failure analysis of load-bearing composites. She received a fully funded MS leading to PhD scholarship (UESTP-HRDI) from the government of Pakistan. She received her MS degree (2017-2019) in Manufacturing Engineering from Sabanci University, Turkey. Her masters was focused on the structural health monitoring of hybrid fiber reinforced polymeric composites. She received her BSc degree in Textile Engineering from the National Textile University, Pakistan.

Nargiz Aliyeva, Ph.D. Candidate

Nargiz Aliyeva received her B.Sc. degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in 2017 and completed her M.Sc. in Polymer Science and Technology in 2020 from Istanbul Technical University (ITU). She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Material Science and Nanoengineering at Sabanci University. Her thesis subject is the fabrication of lightweight and cost- effective Natural Fiber Reinforced Composite (NFRC) parts in the field of the automotive industry supported by TUBITAK 2244 – Industrial Ph.D. Fellowship Program. Her research interest focused on overmolding process, graphene-like materials synthesis, surface modification techniques, polymeric materials, and nanocomposites.

Ramisa Yahyapour, M.Sc. Student

Ramisa Yahyapour received her B.Sc. degree in Textile Engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology-Tehran (AUT), Iran in 2018. She has worked on flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators and produced a fibrous piezoelectric structure utilizing polyvinylidene fluoride electrospun nanofibers. The outcome of the project was an ISI paper “Hybrid Multilayered Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters with Non-piezoelectric Layers” and a conference paper titled “Hybrid Multilayered Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters with Non-Piezoelectric Layers”. She is a Master student in the Materials Science and Nano Engineering programme at Sabanci University working on the effect of waste plastic driven talc/graphene reinforcement on the performance of PP based automotive composites. Her research interests include compounding, composite materials, lightweight materials for automotive applications, energy harvesters and green source of energies, smart textiles and e-textiles.