Researchers grow inorganic materials inside polymers and thus create nanomaterials and nanostructures with improved properties
"Ant strives to produce controlled and improved nanomaterials and nanostructures," says Dr. Tamar Segal-Peretz from the Technion. "To do this, we combine organic materials, mainly polymers, which are easy to work with and can be used to produce fibers and surfaces, but which also have mechanical and optical properties that make it difficult to wear them, and inorganic materials, mainly metal oxides such as zinc oxide. Thus, the inorganic materials give the organic materials additional and improved properties - increasing their mechanical strength or improving their resistance to external environmental conditions."
What is the question? How are nanofibers produced that can be used to assemble a variety of devices, for example those that conduct electricity and insulate at the same time?
Dr. Segal-Peretz and the members of her group grow the inorganic materials inside the polymers to control the nanometric internal structure of the new, integrated material they create. Thus, this material receives its properties from both worlds - organic and inorganic - including optical properties, mechanical strength, and a molecular composition that increases resistance to environmental conditions such as sunlight and various solvents. "We turn the polymers into inorganic or hybrid nanostructures with simple technologies. In a variety of devices, such as electrodes for batteries and membranes for water. The critical process takes place within these nanostructures. Therefore, if you control them from the chemical aspect, you control the function of these devices," explains Dr. Segal-Peretz. research team.
In a previous study, the researchers sought to produce 3D nanostructures to be used as components in devices such as computer chips. For this, they used a polymer with a nanostructure that serves as a template for growing inorganic materials. They grew two such substances in it at the same time - one substance above and the other below. The growth of the two materials at the same time was made possible by controlling the diffusion (pulsation) of their precursors (a compound that participates in a chemical reaction to create another compound) into the polymer. After that, they removed the polymer - which would function only as a template - and thus obtained three-dimensional nanostructures.
In their latest study, which won a grant from the National Science Foundation, and which continued the previous study, the researchers used polymers, produced nanofibers from them (using electrospinning technology - a fiber production method that uses electrical power), and grew inorganic materials inside them - one material on the outside of the fibers and a second substance in their interior. Here, too, the growth of the two materials at the same time was made possible by controlling the diffusion (pulsation) of their precursors into the polymers. In this way they were able to control the location of the inorganic substances in the fibers and their quantity.
The researchers continue to test other inorganic materials that can be grown using similar methods, so that they will be used for electrically conductive and insulating, magnetic and optical components.
According to Dr. Segal-Peretz, "In this way we have produced complex and unique nanofibers that can be used for a variety of applications, for example devices that on the one hand (inside) are electrically conductive and on the other hand (outside) are insulators; Or optical components with two light reflections - one inside them (internal) and one outside them (external). It is actually a new nanotechnological method for the production of special hollow fibers/structures, with changing properties and an inner and outer part, which can be used for the passage of molecules and ions and thus for a variety of devices."
The researchers continue to test other inorganic materials that can be grown using similar methods, so that they will be used for electrically conductive and insulating, magnetic and optical components. These components could be integrated into improved devices, such as water membranes that are more resistant to environmental conditions than those that exist, or electrodes that are immune to electrical charging and discharging processes.
Life itself:
Dr. Tamar Segal-Peretz, 43, married + three children (15,15, 11, XNUMX), lives in Kiryat Tivon. In her spare time she likes to travel, play the piano and read.
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