Monday, 1 August 4:00pm – 5:00pm

This seminar will be delivered in Chemistry Lecture Theatre 4 and Online Zoom Please email chemistry.researchsupport@sydney.edu.au for zoom link and password.

Speaker: Miss Alicia Yen Theng Cheng ; The University of Sydney

Supervisor: A/Prof. Markus Muellner

Title: Functional Polymer Templates for Metal Oxide Nanostructures

Abstract: Functional nanostructured metal oxides are an exciting class of materials that exhibit superior semiconducting, catalytic, and electronic properties over their bulk counterparts owing to higher surface-to-volume ratios and shorter ion or electron diffusion paths. The motivation of this PhD was to rationally design functional polymeric templates via reversible deactivation radical polymerisations (RDRP) to prepare various metal oxides nanostructures. By exploiting the interplay between the functional groups of polymeric templates and the inorganic precursor, it enabled control over the dimension, morphology, and composition of the metal oxide nanostructures, especially those that deviate from traditional spherical morphologies.

Our first approach demonstrated polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA) as a scalable and modular synthesis approach to yield mesoporous carbon-coated anatase TiO₂ in worm-like and vesicular morphologies. Secondly, cellulose nanocrystal polymer bottlebrushes were synthesised and utilised to construct mesoporous carbon-coated anatase TiO₂ nanorods. All the worm-like, vesicular and rod-like carbon-coated TiO₂ have been shown viable as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. In the last research chapter, we extended the templating approach using sustainable nanocellulose to form niobium-based oxides (Nb₂O₅ polymorphs and titanium niobium oxides).