A team of reasearchers, led by Prof. Kyoung Taek Kim (School of Natural Science) has announced that they have successfully engineered self-supporting three-dimensional (3D) skeletal structure polymers, using saturated humidity and water vapour in the atmosphere.
In this study, Prof. Kim’s research team used a method, called ‘Sovent Diffusion-Evaporation-Mediated Self-assembly’ (SDEMS) to create highly regular bicontinous porous polymers without any aid of post processes to generate internal pore networks and surface fuctional groups.
(a) Chemical structures of dendritic-linear BCPs used in this study. (b) Schematic illustration of SDEMS process and the monolith, consisting of the IBC structure of the BCP bilayers.
According to Prof. Kim’s research team, “this newly-developed unique material can be used for synthesizing thermoelectric elements and for the development of a new type of phtocatalysis system, as well as dialysis.
The research findings were appeared online in Nature Communications on March 5, 2015.
Journal Reference: Chiyoung Park, Yunju La, Tae Hyun An, Hu Young Jeong, SebYung Kang, Sang Hoon Joo, Hyungju Ahn, Tae Joo Shin, Kyoung Taek Kim, “Mesoporous monoliths of inverse bicontinous cubic phases of block copolymer biayers.” Nature Communications (6), Article Number: 6392.
