CHED 785 |
| Nanocomposites offer significant improvement of polymer matrix properties in terms of mechanical properties. This is a unique characteristic of nano-filler technology and represents the essence of the potential for applying nano-fillers to polymeric materials. A major challenge facing nanocomposite technology is the efficient fabrication of nanoparticles or nanospheres, especially ones with a controlled morphology and chemical composition. Our long term goal is to develop an efficient method for the fabrication of functionalized nanoparticles with controlled morphology and chemical composition. At this point, microemulsion synthesis techniques have been used as a thermodynamically favored and efficient approach for fabricating silica seed nanoparticles with controlled morphologies that are being used as a template for organically modified nanoparticles. Adjusting the type of silica forming chemistry and the microemulsion formulation has lead to both spherical nanoparticles and nanoparticles with unique morphologies. Current efforts are focused on the coupling agent chemistry used in situ with the microemulsion to generate organically modified surfaces of these nanoparticles. The nanoparticles have been characterized by SEM. |
|
Undergraduate Research Poster Session: Polymer Chemistry
11:00 AM-1:00 PM, Monday, March 26, 2007 Hyatt Regency Chicago -- Riverside Center, Poster
Division of Chemical Education |