Inorganic hydrophobically capped NPs such as quantum dots, superparamagnetic iron oxide, or gold nanoparticles can be modified to make them water-soluble by their embedding in an amphiphilic polymer shell. This polymer shell can be prefunctionalized by the integration of organic fluorophores, which allows the observation of the nanoparticles with fluorescence based techniques. The fluorophore c...

INTRODUCTION Clays, and more specifically 2 :1 phyllosilicates consisting of aluminoor magnesiosilicate negatively charged staked layers separated by van der Walls spacings where inorganic countercations (sodium, calcium,... cations) are located, can be associated with polymers to give interesting new materials called polymer/clay nanocomposites. Polymer/clay nanocomposites have been intensivel...

Conventional techniques to form selective surface energy regions on rigid inorganic substrates are not suitable for polymer interfaces due to sensitive and soft limitation of intrinsic polymer properties. Therefore, there is a strong demand for finding a novel and compatible method for polymeric surface energy modification. Here, by employing the confined photo-catalytic oxidation method, we su...

Many attempts have been made to fabricate various types of inorganic nanoparticle-filled polymers (filler/polymer nanocomposites) by a mechanical or chemical approach. However, these approaches require modification of the nanofiller surfaces and/or complicated polymerization reactions, making them unsuitable for industrial-scale production of the nanocomposites. The author and coworkers have pr...

Magnesium phosphate cement (MPC) has been proven to be a very good repair material for deteriorated concrete structures. It has excellent adhesion performance, leading to high bonding strength with old concrete substrates. This paper presents an experimental study into the properties of MPC binder as the matrix of carbon fiber sheets to form fiber-reinforced inorganic polymer (FRIP) composites....

Introduction CdSe-P3HT (poly(3-hexylthiophene))) nanocomposites are studied for their application in hybrid solar cells. Semiconductor inorganic/organic hybrid solar cells offer many advantages relative to their non-hybrid counterparts. They have the advantages of conjugated polymers such as light weight, flexibility, abundance of resources, the potential for roll-to-roll and non-vacuum process...

During cellulose dissolution in non-derivatizing solvents, the interand intramolecular hydrogen bonds of the polymer are deconstructed. This occurs either by hydrogen bond formation between one or more components of the solvent systems and the hydroxyl groups of the cellulose or by coordination bond formation between the metal ion present in the medium and the hydroxyl group of cellulose molecu...

A novel transparent Co0.2Fe2.8O4@SiO2-polyetheretherketone hybrid material is prepared for electromagnetic interference shielding via in situ sol-gel process. 20% amino-functionalized polyetheretherketone (AFPEEK), containing trifluoromethyl units with excellent solubility is designed and synthesized to improve the stability and mechanical properties of Co0.2Fe2.8O4@SiO2 nanoparticles. The hydr...

The conversion of sunlight into electricity using solar cells has attracted very much attention during the last decades. Solar energy is clean, abundant and renewable. Solar cells found applications in many different fields such as in calculators, solar lamps and even on spacecraft and satellites. Historically, conventional solar cells were built from inorganic materials. The efficiency of such...