Development of novel polymeric composites containing nanoparticles synthesized by sol-gel technique

Resumen

Nowadays, continue progress in Nanotechnology open the door to the development of advanced multifunctional nanomaterials with tuneable properties controlled from the nanoscale able to cover the novel requirement in this field.This thesis deals with the employment of sol-gel process to design different kind of hybrid inorganic/organic materials based on two different kinds of block copolymers, nanostructured thermosetting systems and bacterial cellulose membranes. Mentioned matrices were used as templates to control the dispersion and confinement of sol-gel synthesized inorganic nanoparticles.The thesis has been divided as follows:Chapter 1: Motivation and objectives.Chapter 2: A literature overview to introduce briefly the topics of this thesis: nanotechnology and nanomaterials, sol-gel synthesized nanoparticles, block copolymers, hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites, nanostructured thermosetting advanced materials and biohybrid nanomaterials. Chapter 3: Synthesis and characterization of hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites based on two different molecular weight poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide) block copolymers modified with different sol-gel synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles content. Chapter 4: Study of conductive properties at nanoscale of previously synthesized hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites employing two advanced techniques, electrostatic and tunneling force microscopy.Chapter 5: Fabrication of electro-devices based on hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites synthesized and characterized in Chapters 3 and 4. In this chapter, conductive properties at nano and macroscale were evaluated using tunneling force microscopy and Keithley semiconductor analyser. Chapter 6: Synthesis and characterization of hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites based on poly(styrene-b-methyl methacrylate) block copolymer and sol-gel synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles. The effect of the employment of two different annealing methods, thermal and solvent vapour, on the self-assembly of designed nanocomposites was discussed. Chapter 7: Synthesis and characterization of hybrid inorganic/organic nanocomposites based on poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide) block copolymer modified with a mixture of both vanadium and titanium nanoparticles synthetized via sol-gel process. Conductive properties were investigated using electrostatic force microscopy.Chapter 8: Preparation and characterization of different hybrid inorganic/organic nanostructured thermosetting composites based on two different poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide) block copolymers as template agents and TiO2 nanoparticles synthesized via sol-gel, playing with the ratio between modifiers.Chapter 9: Fabrication and characterization of biohybrid nanomaterials based on bacterial cellulose nanofibers and membrane as substrate and sol-gel synthesized titanium, vanadium and the mixture of both nanoparticles.Chapter 10: The general conclusions based on investigations carried out in this thesis, future work and list of scientific publication and conferences were also addressed