Thiol-ene/clay nanocomposite thin film as novel transparent barrier

Polymer Nanocomposites via Click Chemistry Reactions

The emerging areas of polymer nanocomposites, as some are already in use in industrial applications and daily commodities, have the potential of offering new technologies with all manner of prominent capabilities. The incorporation of nanomaterials into polymeric matrix provides significant improvements, such as higher mechanical, thermal or electrical properties. In these materials, interface/interphase of components play a crucial role bringing additional features on the resulting nanocomposites. Among the various preparation strategies of such materials, an appealing strategy relies on the use of click chemistry concept as a multi-purpose toolbox for both fabrication and modulation of the material characteristics. This review aims to deliver new insights to the researchers of the field by noticing effective click chemistry-based methodologies on the preparation of polymer nanocomposites and their key applications such as optic, biomedical, coatings and sensor.

Ion-channel aligned gas-blocking membrane for lithium-air batteries

Lithium-metal-based batteries, owing to the extremely high specific energy, have been attracting intense interests as post-Li-ion batteries. However, their main drawback is that consumption/de-activation of lithium metal can be accelerated when O₂ or S used in the cathode crosses over to the metal, reducing the lifetime of the batteries. In use of ceramic solid state electrolyte (SSE) separator, despite the capability of gas blocking, thick and heavy plates (~0.3 mm) are necessitated to compensate its mechanical fragility, which ruin the high specific energy of the batteries. Here, we demonstrate fabrication of a new membrane made of micron-sized SSE particles as Li-ion channels embedded in polymer matrix, which enable both high Li-ion conduction and gas-impermeability. Bimodal surface-modification was used to control the energy of the particle/polymer interface, which consequently allowed channel formation via a simple one-step solution process. The practical cell with the new membrane provides a cell-specific energy of over 500 Wh kg⁻¹, which is the highest values ever reported.

Thiol–ene “click” reactions and recent applications in polymer and materials synthesis: a first update

This contribution serves as an update to a previous review (Polym. Chem.2010,1, 17–36) and highlights recent applications of thiol–ene ‘click’ chemistry as an efficient tool for both polymer/materials synthesis as well as modification.