Prof.dr. Qun Xu: Supercritical CO2 - assisted Polymer crystallization or Assembly on Hetero-matrix

ABSTRACT

Considering the bulk-materials have already reached the intrinsic limit and failed to meet the increasing demand, advanced nanomaterials have attracted great interest . Recently, great effort has been focused on developing hybrid nanostructured materials that can surmount the limitation of single-phase materials and combine the various properties of different components. During the process of exploring advanced nanohybrid materials, supercritical fluid technology is a choice. Depending on this approach, interesting opportunities for the control over fine tuning desirable functionalities can be achieved. Due to their unique structural and physical properties, carbon nanotubes, nanofibers and graphenes are of great interest in scientific research and technological innovation. We chose to integrate organic polymer and inorganic building block into novel nanohybrid structures with the assistance of supercritical CO₂.

This lecture will introduce supercritical fluid induced polymer epitaxy on hetero-matrix and explore the assembly of polymers, which is depending on the following factors, 1) conformation of molecular chains, 2) the tendency of macromolecular self-assemble to supermolecules, 3) the molecular interaction between polymer chains and hetero-matrix as CNTs, and the 4) the thermodynamic behaviour of mixture solution. A wide range of polymers have been studied, and as well as the assembling trend of functional polymer on graphene are studied. Finally, the functional properties of obtained nanohybrid materials such as electrochemical or fluorescent properties have been investigated.