Novel synthesis procedures and exploitation of nanostructure concept and assembling of polymers and/or nanoparticles (including also hybrids with several nanoparticles) in complex hierarchical structures have contributed to tremendous diffusion of multifunctional and smart coatings in several applications fields including packaging, cultural heritage, energy and environment, health care and transport. These coatings are currently designed to exhibit simultaneously several competitive properties (ie barrier, antimicrobial, antiscratch, conductive, antistatic, hydrophobic/hydrophilic, sensing and electromagnetic shielding, …). Furthermore they can also be designed to be “smart” coatings, able to adapt to external stimuli (ie anticorrosion coatings with stimuli-responsive release of anticorrosion, self-healing coatings,…) and reversible (ie prompt to be reshaped in the framework of sustainable and circular economy)
The Spray-assisted layer by layer has four replaced spray nozzle (to deposit two-three different coatings, in a LbL structure), may be programmed to spray on substrates up to 15x20cm2, allows deposition of cationic/anionic polymer solutions as well as nanoparticles dispersions (such as clay, halloysite and graphene and its derivatives) able to assemble with the polymeric phases with intermediary washing and drying and coat also complex surface as tubes and fibers
SAXS is a non-destructive and versatile method to study the nanoscale structure of any type of material (solid, liquid, aerosols) ranging from new nanocomposites to biological macromolecules. Averaged particle sizes, shapes and distributions, porosity, degree of crystallinity and electron density maps with nanometer precision can be obtained.
Mass transport properties of low molecular weight compounds in polymeric materials and their diffusion behavior have a major impact in several engineering application fields such as barrier structures for food packaging, drug delivery systems, gas mixture separation, environmental resistance of polymer composites and nanocomposites.
In SEM a beam is scanned over a sample surface while a signal from secondary or back-scattered electrons is recorded. SEM is used to image an area of the sample with nanometric resolution, and also to measure its composition, crystallographic phase distribution and local texture.
In TEM/Scanning TEM (STEM) high energy electrons incident on ultra-thin samples, allow imaging, diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy and chemical analysis of solid materials with a spatial resolution on the order of 1-2 Å. Samples must have a thickness of a few tens of nanometres and are prepared in sample preparation laboratory.