Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Faculty
NanoTECH Research Area Affiliations
Research Summary
This work involves the development of nanoencapsulation technology for pigmented inks and nanocomposites. The essential idea is that by encapsulating pigment or other chemically or biologically/pharmaceutically active materials in such a way that they can be delivered from an aqueous base. Such advancement will facilitate ink jet printing in areas where the technology has never been applied. In terms of nanocomposites, theory and experiment indicate that the properties of reinforcing materials in polymers and greatly enhanced as the scale of dispersion of the reinforcing materials (silica, clay, etc.) is reduced. By nanoencapsulation we should be able to develop nanocomposites with a very uniform dispersion of reinforcing materials at the nano scale. Initial results look promising for both of these applications of miniemulsion polymerization.
