Porous, structurally well-defined anionic nanocapsules with varying charge density: interactions with their environment and with each other

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Achim Müller (†)
• Subject Area: Solid State and Surface Chemistry, Material Synthesis
• Term: from 2007 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 49681349

The German and US PIs plan to set up intense collaborations to explore novel, structurally welldefined, porous anionic molybdenum-oxide based nanocapsules (with varying charge densities and surfaces) regarding interactions in solution with their environment and among themselves. This new area is at the cross-section of inorganic chemistry and solution physical chemistry with broad impacts on other fields. It can only be successfully accomplished with the collaboration between the two groups. The PIs plan to develop rational synthetic methods to modify giant spherical molybdenum-oxide based nanocapsules so that some of their important properties, such as charge densities and internal/external functionalities, can be accurately adjusted for the planned solution/assembly experiments. Importantly, the modifications of the nanocapsules lead to changes of their charge densities, which will affect the interaction with cations and especially the nature of interactions among the nanocapsules. We plan to use these systems including those which are newly synthesized to perform “optimal” experiments to understand more about the nature of the strong attractive forces between the nanocapsules in context with the related unique self-assembly processes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Tianbo Liu