New nanocrystals put a tiny twist on useful materialsA new kind of tiny particle is a big deal in UO
New nanocrystals put a tiny twist on useful materialsA new kind of tiny particle is a big deal in UO chemist Carl Brozek’s lab.He and his team have made a versatile kind of porous material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF, into nanocrystals—a form that’s easier to use beyond the lab. Nanoparticles such as these have a wide range of potential applications, from surface coatings that can store electric charge, to filters that remove contaminants from air or water.The nanocrystals are the smallest and most stable MOFs made yet, said Brozek. And they have an array of interesting properties—notably, they can conduct electricity, and they behave differently depending on the exact size of the particle. “It really feels like we’ve cracked into something new,” Brozek said. He and his team, led by graduate student Checkers Marshall, reported their advance November 24 in a pre-print posted to the research site ChemRxiv.Read more. -- source link
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