Ultra-thin and ultra-strong organic interphase in nanocomposites with supercrystalline particle arrangement: Mechanical behavior identification via multiscale numerical modeling

Estimating the dielectric constant of BaTiO3–polymer nanocomposites by a developed Paletto model

“…The thickness and dielectric properties of the interphase region are determined by the bonding strength between the ceramic nanoparticles and the surrounding polymer substrate, where bonding can involve ionic bonds, covalent bonds, hydrogen bonds, van der Waal force or a combination thereof. 17,50 Strong bonds, such as ionic bonds and covalent bonds, will result in a thicker interphase.…”

Mapping the Mechanical Properties of Hierarchical Supercrystalline Ceramic-Organic Nanocomposites

“…Supercrystalline arrangements enable a variety of emergent functionalities [ 20 , 22 ], but also the production of bricks that are very suitable to build hierarchical structural materials. Even though initially developed in micro-sizes and featuring relatively low mechanical properties [ 23 , 24 ], recent progress has been made towards the production of bulk macro-scale supercrystalline ceramic-organic nanocomposites, with mechanical properties boosted thanks to an annealing-induced crosslinking of the organic phase [ 19 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].…”

Deformation Behavior of Cross-Linked Supercrystalline Nanocomposites: An in Situ SAXS/WAXS Study during Uniaxial Compression

“…An important step forward toward strengthening supercrystalline nanocomposites has been found in inducing the cross-linking of the organic ligands via annealing at moderate temperatures (250–350 °C). − The presence of covalent bonds among neighboring ligand molecules, which are in turn anchored to the NPs, becomes the dominating factor holding the supercrystals together. Nanoindentation has shown that elastic modulus and hardness shift from ∼15 to ∼64 GPa and from ∼0.6 to ∼4.7 GPa, respectively, between non-cross-linked and cross-linked materials .…”

“…It is likely because of this gradual slip accommodating the load that this pillar withstands higher load values (0.90 N, i.e., 264 MPa strength) with respect to the other two (0.78 and 0.76 N, i.e., 233 and 222 MPa). A previous numerical study has shown that cross-linked iron oxide–oleic acid supercrystalline nanocomposites have a Poisson’s ratio ν = 0.34 . Given the average strain to failure of the pillars, 3.8%, this implies a transversal strain of ∼1.3%.…”

“…The elastic modulus for iron oxide is reported to span a relatively broad range of values. , Due to the nanocrystalline nature of the NPs, here we consider the range relative to single crystals (163–175 GPa), keeping in mind that nanocrystals sometimes feature higher elastic moduli than their bulk counterparts . The supercrystalline nanocomposites are of the face-centered cubic (FCC) type , (therefore each NP has 12 nearest neighbors), and typically polysupercrystalline. This arrangement allows considering the overall material mechanically quasi-isotropic, as FEM simulations have confirmed .…”