Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This XRD upgrade will provide the tools allowing for in situ diffraction and SAXS studies on a variety of nanostructured metal oxides (nanowires, tubes, spheres, etc.), quantum dots (QDs), and carbonaceous materials (carbon nanotubes, graphenes, carbon aerogels) being grown under supercritical and chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Here, in situ X-ray diffraction will provide tremendous new insight to examine the crystal growth and kinetics of these novel nanostructured materials as they form using our unique reaction chemistries such as sol-gel in supercritical fluids, to provide fundamental information required for scale-up studies. In nanomaterials, a key requirement is to control their size, shape, and crystallinity, which directly controls their end-use properties. When using sol-gel chemistry to form metal oxides in the green environmentally friendly solvent, supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2), the alkoxide starting materials form hexamer crystal structure intermediates that subsequently react and self-assemble into various nanostructured morphologies. Simultaneously monomers can be polymerized to polymers that link to these nanocrystals. Here, the crystal structure of the metal oxide or polymer with inorganic component directly affects the morphology and properties of the final material. These nanostructured materials can also be grown from surfaces using novel techniques such as modified supercritical deposition with resulting thin films of nanotubulalar structure of interest for solar and fuel cells. Metal oxides and their inorganic-organic hybrids are of tremendous industrial and scientific interest being a current multi-billion dollar industry with many new exciting potential applications in alternative energy. As Charpentier and Suns research groups both examine growth mechanisms of nanostructured materials, these XRD tools will provide a powerful new ability required for scale-up and commercialization information when designing next generation nanomaterials. These materials have transformative properties for use in alternative energy (solar materials, solar cells, fuel cells) and biomaterials (radiation dosimeters for cancer treatment using quantum dot nanoclusters).