Towards biomimetic composite materials. Organic-inorganic composite materials possessing rigid chain, helical polyisocyanate templates

Conference · Fri Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:141608

Novak, B M; Hoff, S M; He, Yongxiang ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Through highly integrated structural materials, nature provides a diverse set of examples upon which to model new inorganic-organic composite materials. The authors have been interested in applying the sol-gel process to the synthesis of hybrid inorganic composites materials by using tetraalkoxysilanes possessing polymerizable alkoxides. Through the simultaneous hydrolysis-condensation and free radical polymerization of these precursors, non-shrinking sol-gel composites are produced consisting of mutually interpenetrating networks of the inorganic and organic phases. The properties of these resulting composites can range from a transparent flexible material and to a transparent hard material simply by changing the organic polymer in the composite. In these existing systems, the organic polymers exist as random coils. Recently, the authors have been interested in forming composites possessing structurally well-defined organic polymers. To this end, the authors have been interested in homogenously impregnating inorganic networks with liquid crystalline polyisocyanates which are known to adopt regular helical structures. Further work involves synthesizing copolymers possessing regular spaced-Si(OR){sub 3} groups to act as spatial modulators during the growth of the inorganic phases.

• OSTI ID: 141608
• Report Number(s): CONF-930304--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
40 CHEMISTRY
ALKOXIDES
BIOMIMETIC PROCESSES
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
COPOLYMERIZATION
HELICAL CONFIGURATION
ISOCYANATES
SILANES
SOL-GEL PROCESS