Versatile strategies for fabricating polymer nanomaterials with controlled size and morphology

Abstract

The development of reliable synthetic routes to polymer nanomaterials with well-defined size and morphology is a critical research topic in contemporary materials science. The ability to generate nanometer-sized polymer materials can offer unprecedented, interesting insights into the physical and chemical properties of the corresponding materials. In addition, control over shape and geometry of polymer nanoparticles affords versatile polymer nanostructures, encompassing nanospheres, core-shell nanoparticles, hollow nanoparticles, nanorods/ fibers, nanotubes, and nanoporous materials. This review summarizes a diverse range of synthetic methods (broadly, hard template synthesis, soft template synthesis, and template-free synthesis) for fabricating polymer nanomaterials. The basic concepts and significant issues with respect to the synthetic strategies and tools are briefly introduced, and the examples of some of the outstanding research are highlighted. Our aim is to present a comprehensive review of research activities that concentrate on fabrication of various kinds of polymer nanoparticles.

Recent Advances in Nanostructured Conducting Polymers: from Synthesis to Practical Applications

“…Finally, various selected applications have been reported in order to demonstrate the merits of CPs. The key difference between our work and previously published studies [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] is that we provide a brief scheme of the synthesis processes for CP nanomaterials, including the mechanism of polymerization, key rules of synthesis, and environments of reactions (e.g., solid, liquid, gas) instead of focusing on the details of one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures [2,3], electrochemical synthesis [5], or sensor applications [1,4,6,8]. This approach creates a unified view of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, thereby enabling the significant features to be better understood and, hopefully, to anticipate new synthesis routes for CP nanohybrids.…”

Recent advances with anisotropic particles

“…In a recent study, attempts have been made to examine the ability of particles to mimic the biological shapes such as red blood cells [100]. For a detailed description of the core/shell and hollow particles, the interested reader should consult one of the recent review papers on core/shell particles and block-copolymer self-assembly [7,8,101]. Especially, the block-copolymer self-assembly provides a promising technical alternative toward Janus-like [102] and multicompartmental building blocks [103].…”

Conducting‐Polymer Nanomaterials for High‐Performance Sensor Applications: Issues and Challenges

“…[4] However, there has been relatively little research on polymeric nanomaterials, in contrast to the aforementioned cases. [5] Of a wide range of polymer materials, conducting polymers are of particular interest due to the electrical and optical properties that are similar to those of metals or inorganic semiconductors. [6] Conducting polymers have a variety of advantages such as facile synthesis, structural diversity and flexibility, light weight, and cost effectiveness.…”