Kumar, Sanjay; Harikrishnan, G.
Identifying the Superstability Landscapes of ClayCarbon Nanosheet Suspensions
Using a combination of several experiments, we identify the landscapes of the widely reported superstability of suspensions formed by codispersion of nanosheets of clay and carbon. Primarily, two distinct, abrupt transitions within this superstability are observed. This observation made on a series of model laponitegraphene oxide superstable two-dimensional sheet suspensions…
Nanofiller Dispersion, Morphology, Mechanical Behavior, and Electrical Properties of Nanostructured Styrene-Butadiene-Based Triblock Copolymer/CNT Composites
Staudinger, Ulrike; Satapathy, Bhabani K.; Jehnichen, Dieter
A nanostructured linear triblock copolymer based on styrene and butadiene with lamellar morphology is filled with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) of up to 1 wt% by melt compounding. This study deals with the dispersability of the MWCNTs within the nanostructured matrix and its consequent impact on block copolymer (BCP) morphology,…
Effects of Hairy Nanoparticles on Polymer Crystallization Kinetics
Jimenez, Andrew M.; Krauskopf, Alejandro A.; Pérez-Camargo, Ricardo A.; Zhao, Dan; Pribyl, Julia; Jestin, Jacques; Benicewicz, Brian C.; Müller, Alejandro J.; Kumar, Sanat K.
We previously showed that nanoparticles (NPs) could be ordered into structures by using the growth rate of polymer crystals as the control variable. In particular, for slow enough spherulitic growth fronts, the NPs grafted with amorphous polymer chains are selectively moved into the interlamellar, interfibrillar, and interspherulitic zones of a…
Melt-Spun Nanocomposite Fibers Reinforced with Aligned Tunicate Nanocrystals
Redondo, Alexandre; Chatterjee, Sourav; Brodard, Pierre; Korley, LaShanda T. J.; Weder, Christoph; Gunkel, Ilja; Steiner, Ullrich
The fabrication of nanocomposite films and fibers based on cellulose nanocrystals (P-tCNCs) and a thermoplastic polyurethane (PU) elastomer is reported. High-aspect-ratio P-tCNCs were isolated from tunicates using phosphoric acid hydrolysis, which is a process that affords nanocrystals displaying high thermal stability. Nanocomposites were produced by solvent casting (films) or melt-mixing…
Improvement in mechanical and structural properties of poly(ethylene terephthalate) nanohybrid
Saxena, Dipti; Rana, Dipak; Bhoje Gowd, E.; Maiti, Pralay
The wide range of applicability of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) in various fields such as packaging, automobile parts, sports and textile due to its transparent nature, light weight and mechanical properties creates strong case to enhance its mechanical properties. By embedding nanofillers and thereby improving the mechanical properties, this spectrum can…
Ballistic thermal phonons traversing nanocrystalline domains in oriented polyethylene
Robbins, Andrew B.; Drakopoulos, Stavros X.; Martin-Fabiani, Ignacio; Ronca, Sara; Minnich, Austin J.
Polymer crystals that are good conductors of heat are highly desirable for thermal management applications. Although thermally conductive polymer crystals are well known, the microscopic thermal transport processes that enable these properties have been challenging to probe experimentally. We used an optical method to probe heat conduction at submicrometer length…
TiO2-carbon nanoporous composites prepared via ZnO nanoparticle-templated carbonization of glucose adsorb and photodegrade organic pollutants in water
Barrera, Luis A.; Escobosa, Alma C.; Nevarez, Aileen; Dominguez, Noemi; Bañuelos, Jose L.; Westerhoff, Paul; Noveron, Juan C.
We report the ZnO nanoparticle-templated formation of nanoporous carbon (NTC) embedded with TiO2 nanoparticles for the adsorption and photodegradation of organic pollutants in water. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) studies indicate that NTC and NTC-TiO2 exhibit two types of porosities with average pore diameters of 2.8 and 11.5?nm, while Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET)…
Effects of an ionic liquid and processing conditions on the ?-polymorph crystal formation in poly(vinylidene fluoride)
Pickford, Tom; Gu, Xu; L. Heeley, Ellen; Wan, Chaoying
The piezoelectric properties of poly?vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) are determined by the prevalence and orientation of its polar ?-crystal phase, which can be tuned by processing conditions, additives, mechanical stretching or post-treatment. Here, the effects of three types of processing conditions on the crystalline structure evolution of PVDF were investigated; electrospinning,…
Tunable Fluorophobic Effect Determines Nanoparticle Dispersion in Homopolymers and Block Polymers
Marsh, Zachary M.; Blom, Douglas A.; Stefik, Morgan
The controlled placement of nanoparticles (NPs) within homopolymers and block polymers is of broad interest for functional nanomaterials. This manuscript focuses on small molecule-stabilized NPs that bring a large fraction of functionality. For such NP mixtures with block polymers, the overwhelming focus to date has been the use of attractive…
Dental Resin Monomer Enables Unique NbO2/Carbon Lithium-Ion Battery Negative Electrode with Exceptional Performance
Ji, Qing; Gao, Xiangwen; Zhang, Qiuju; Jin, Liyu; Wang, Da; Xia, Yonggao; Yin, Shanshan; Xia, Senlin; Hohn, Nuri; Zuo, Xiuxia; Wang, Xiaoyan; Xie, Shuang; Xu, Zhuijun; Ma, Liujia; Chen, Liang; Chen, George Z.; Zhu, Jin; Hu, Binjie; Müller?Buschbaum, Peter; Bruce, Peter G.; Cheng, Ya-Jun
Niobium dioxide (NbO2) features a high theoretical capacity and an outstanding electron conductivity, which makes it a promising alternative to the commercial graphite negative electrode. However, studies on NbO2 based lithium-ion battery negative electrodes have been rarely reported. In the present work, NbO2 nanoparticles homogeneously embedded in a carbon matrix…