Nanostructured, electroactive and bioapplicable materials

Novel nanostructured porous sol-gel materials, nanocomposites, electroactive and bioapplicable materials have been successfully developed for a wide range of perceivable applications. Several versatile nonsurfactant templated sol-gel pathways have been developed to prepare nanostructured porous materials and composites with different morphologies (e.g., monoliths, nanospheres, nanoparticles, and thin films), structures, compositions and properties. The synthetic conditions were systematically studied and optimized. The template effects on pore structure as well as synthetic process, especially template removal steps, have been investigated. The composition and pore structures were thoroughly studied with various spectroscopic and microscopic methods such as IR, TGA, SEM, TEM, BET and XRD. The obtained mesoporous materials usually exhibit high surface area, large pore volume and narrowly distributed pore diameter. The porosity can be fine tuned simply by adjusting the template concentration. The convenient synthesis as well as the distinctive structure and physical-chemical properties render these sol-gel materials great suitability for a wide range of potential applications, such as chemical and biological sensors, catalysts, drug delivery and functional coatings. Biocompatible and electroactive nanocomposites have been prepared through a biological agent (i.e., collagen) templated chemical polymerization of aniline monomers. The resultant polyaniline-collagen complexes exhibit well controlled doping-dedoping electroactivity and much enhanced solubility. Demonstrated with cell growth studies, the polyaniline-collagen complexes show improved biocompatibility in comparison to polyaniline. The new materials can be used to fabricate scaffolds, with which the effect of electrical stimuli on cell growth and differentiation can be evaluated with the hope of ultimately using electrical signal to stimulate controllable cell and tissue regeneration. Aniline derivative substituted quinoline ligand compounds and their complexes have been prepared and investigated as potential electroluminescent materials.