The Paper of Prof. Atsushi Takahara (Principal Investigator, Hydrogen Production Research Division, I²CNER) and his collaborators was published in “Nature Communications” on April 7, 2014.

■ Summary

The large-scale assembly of asymmetric colloidal particles is used in creating high-performance fibres. A similar concept is extended to the manufacturing of thin films of self-assembled two-dimensional crystal-type materials with enhanced and tunable properties. Here we present a spray-coating method to manufacture thin, flexible and transparent epoxy films containing zirconium phosphate nanoplatelets self-assembled into a lamellar arrangement aligned parallel to the substrate. The self-assembled mesophase of zirconium phosphate nanoplatelets is stabilized by epoxy pre-polymer and exhibits rheology favourable towards large-scale manufacturing. The thermally cured film forms a mechanically robust coating and shows excellent gas barrier properties at both low- and high humidity levels as a result of the highly aligned and overlapping arrangement of nanoplatelets. This work shows that the large-scale ordering of high aspect ratio nanoplatelets is easier to achieve than previously thought and may have implications in the technological applications for similar materials.

■ Paper

Title:

Large-scale self-assembled zirconium phosphate smectic layers via a simple spray-coating process

DOI:　10.1038/ncomms4589

Publication Date(online):　April 7, 2014