Options
Hierarchical supercrystalline nanocomposites through the self-assembly of organically-modified ceramic nanoparticles
Citation Link: https://doi.org/10.15480/882.2161
Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Publikationsdatum
2019-03-05
Sprache
English
TORE-URI
Enthalten in
Volume
9
Issue
1
Start Page
Art.-Nr. 3435
Citation
Scientific reports 1 (9): 3435 (2019)
Publisher DOI
Scopus ID
Biomaterials often display outstanding combinations of mechanical properties thanks to their hierarchical structuring, which occurs through a dynamically and biologically controlled growth and self-assembly of their main constituents, typically mineral and protein. However, it is still challenging to obtain this ordered multiscale structural organization in synthetic 3D-nanocomposite materials. Herein, we report a new bottom-up approach for the synthesis of macroscale hierarchical nanocomposite materials in a single step. By controlling the content of organic phase during the self-assembly of monodisperse organically-modified nanoparticles (iron oxide with oleyl phosphate), either purely supercrystalline or hierarchically structured supercrystalline nanocomposite materials are obtained. Beyond a critical concentration of organic phase, a hierarchical material is consistently formed. In such a hierarchical material, individual organically-modified ceramic nanoparticles (Level 0) self-assemble into supercrystals in face-centered cubic superlattices (Level 1), which in turn form granules of up to hundreds of micrometers (Level 2). These micrometric granules are the constituents of the final mm-sized material. This approach demonstrates that the local concentration of organic phase and nano-building blocks during self-assembly controls the final material's microstructure, and thus enables the fine-tuning of inorganic-organic nanocomposites' mechanical behavior, paving the way towards the design of novel high-performance structural materials.
DDC Class
600: Technik
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften
More Funding Information
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the SFB 986-M3, projects A1, A6, Z2, and Z3. We thank Dr. F. Beckmann (Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany) for scanning the sample with the technique SRµCT and for reconstructing the slices, and Dr. I. Greving (Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany) for her inputs on SRµCT. Dr. F. Brun (National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Trieste, Italy) is acknowledged for the discussion regarding quantitative analysis using Pore3d.
Publication version
publishedVersion
Loading...
Name
s41598-019-39934-4.pdf
Size
2.65 MB
Format
Adobe PDF