2-1 Liquid Crystals as Templates
The shape of nanostructured materials strongly affects their material properties. Among them, this research group focuses on nanosheets. Because nanosheets are very thin (a few nm), they are highly dispersive and exhibit nanosize effects. Meanwhile, thanks to their width, which is more than 100 times larger than their thickness, they are relatively easy to obtain from dispersion and to use by coating. Traditionally, nanosheets have been synthesized by exfoliation of layered compounds, but this technique does not allow for the synthesis of nanosheets of non-exfoliated materials.
Therefore, bottom-up methods based on anisotropic growth using various interfaces as templates have been investigated. There is a need for a synthesis method that can scale up for practical use and control the size of nanosheets at low cost. Our research group is developing a nanosheet synthesis method using liquid crystals as templates (Two-dimensional Reactor in Amphiphilic Phases; TRAP method).
Mr. Takuma Nishizawa, a graduate of Nishiyama group, discovered that polymerization of styrene in a hyperswollen lamellar phase can result in nanosheets. This is the most important paper of this research. This paper received the Best Paper Award from the Liquid Crystal Society of Japan.
The Japanese Liquid Crystal Society Paper Award
Subsequently, we found that not only hydrophobic polymers, but also metals such as gold and silver, and oxides such as zeolites can be converted to nanosheets. Our paper on zeolite nanosheets received the Best Paper Award from the Liquid Crystal Society of Japan.
The Japanese Liquid Crystal Society Paper Award
In 2023, a review article on nanosheet synthesis methods was published. In particular, the article focuses on methods using various interfaces and templates to synthesize nanosheets of materials that cannot be exfoliated.
