New Methods for Making Ceramics that Enable Production of Synthetic Materials

1. NH3 / High Temperature New Methods for Making Ceramics that Enable Production of Synthetic Materials Tewodros Asefa, Rutgers University New Brunswick, DMR 0968937 Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey developed a new self-assembly method for making ceramic materials. These materials have pores with diameters of one-ten thousandth of a human hair. They enable the production of pharmaceuticals and synthetic materials such as plastics more efficiently. Silicon oxynitrides (SONs) are ceramic materials with good mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties. By making them with nanoporous structures, i.e. having pores of one-ten thousandth of a human hair, ceramic materials with better properties result. The resulting materials can be used as filtration membranes for polluted water, new generation of electronic devices and to help the production of pharmaceuticals and synthetic materials. Current manufacturing methods to such ceramic materials involve very harsh conditions of very high temperature treatment and very reactive substances. Furthermore, they often produce poorly structured materials. The method developed by the researchers in New Jersey involving the PI, post-doctoral, undergraduate and graduate students use simpler method involving self-assembling of smaller molecules and their transformation into ceramic materials with well-controlled structures at relatively low temperature.