ame.RESEARCH
Rising From the Ashes
AME Professor’s Flame Method is a Game Changer for Nano Materials Research Nanomaterials are necessities of modern life. They can be strong, firm and ductile at high temperatures. They are wear-, erosion-, and corrosion-resistant, and are chemically active. They make planes simultaneously lighter and stronger, roofs more weather resistant, and they have applications in fields as diverse as medicine and clean energy. Transition metal oxides are particularly in-demand nanomaterials. Engineers design these microscopic materials to contain specific electronic and mechanical properties. TMOs designed with cavities and platelets can be filled with liquid or nanomaterials. TMOs with microscopic rods and wires provide increased stability. TMOs have the potential to become the building blocks of our modern world. Increased demand has highlighted a flaw in the creation of TMOs. The current growth process, Chemical Vapor Deposition, is a tedious, multi-step batch process that can take from a few hours to a few days to complete. Time, expense and the subsequent low supply have made TMOs impractical on a large scale. But a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering has discovered how to create TMOs faster.
Turning Up the Heat
AME associate professor of mechanical engineering Wilson Merchán-Merchán did not set out to discover a new process for synthesizing TMOs. After previous success using an oxygen-enriched flame to synthesize common nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes, he and his team decided to try using the same method to create a new form of carbon structure. Instead of synthesizing the nanomaterials they sought to grow, they stumbled upon a new method of creating unique 1-D and 3-D TMOs. The development of the high-rate synthesis method of TMOs is a game changer in nanomaterials research. It will fuel new applications and create a demand for large volumes of these nanomaterials. Funded by generous multi-year grants from the National Science Foundation, Merchán-Merchán and his research affiliates at OU, as well as Alexei Saveliev, Ph.D., at North Carolina State University, expose bulk transition metals to the hottest parts of an oxygen-enriched flame. From that reaction, they instantaneously synthesize high-demand transition metal-oxides. In this single-step process, Merchán-Merchán is doing in seconds what had taken days.
New Method Means More Applications
Inexpensive and quick growth of TMOs means a better chance for large-scale synthesis and eventual common use in the marketplace. The potential for increased supply led to increased experimentation on the capacity of TMOs. The results are staggering in both their effectiveness and their diverse range of applications. “Recently, one-dimensional TMO naonostructures have attracted tremendous attention due to their applications in optics, medicine and electrons,” MerchánMerchán explained. “For instance, channel structures contain slender, prismatic and
Miscroscopic views of TMOs show the nanomaterial’s unique properties. AME Research • 4