73369 - Materials Chemistry

Learning outcomes

Materials Chemistry course addresses inorganic, organic and nano-based materials with a structure vs. properties approach, providing a suitable breath and deep coverage of rapidly evolving material fields. A few examples are advanced polymeric materials such as polymer matrix nanocomposites containing layered fillers (such as phyllosilicates and layered double hydroxides,) or carbon-based nanofillers like nanotubes, graphenes and fullerenes.  From the application point of view, such novel materials may take on an increasingly important role in frontier research fields like solar energy harvesting in organic solar cells, organic conductors in devices currently based on silicon semiconductors (like OLED, flexible displays, smart electrochromic windows).

Nano-based materials will be introduced with a focus on the two different approaches to prepare them: top-down and bottom-up assembling of individual building blocks into more complex architectures.

Solid state chemistry, with its traditional emphasis on crystalline structures featuring the most important archetypical unit cells, fundamental principles of X-ray diffraction and band model, still  deserves some attention in this Materials Chemistry course, but it is paired with an amorphous-solids section to include up-to-date concepts in sol-gel synthesis techniques in the field of thin film preparation or surface modification.

Course contents

Inorganic and Organic chemistry are pre-requisites for this course.

Fluent spoken and written English is a necessary pre-requisite; all lectures and all study material will be in English.

Amorphous and crystalline solids. Symmetry; the main symmetry elements. Lattices; unit cell; Bravais lattices. Miller indices for planes and lattice directions.
Review on packing of atoms, close-packed structures. ionic crystals and their main structures (rocksalt, fluorite, blende, wurtzite, rutile, ReO3; mixed oxides: perosvkite and spinels). Silicates.

Bonding in solids. Ionic solids; the role of ion size; Shannon-Prewitt model for ions. Transition metal compounds and non-bonding electron effects. Crystal field theory. Band model for metals and semiconductors.

Crystal defects and non-stoichiometry. Role of point defects in diffusion in solids. Ionic conductivity. Some important solid state electrolytes for batteries and fuel cells.

Carbon based materials: conducting polymers, structure and properties. Polymer electrolyte for Li batteries. Proton conducting polymers for fuel cells electrolytes. Fullerenes and fullerides, synthesis and properties. Carbon nanotubes, graphene and their application in polymer nanocomposites. 

Layered solids: layered double hydroxides, clays and their modification to improve the compatibility with polymers. Preparation of polymer nanocomposites using organoclays. Flame retardant properties of LDH and organoclay based polymer nanocomposites.

Readings/Bibliography

B. D. Fahlman "Materials Chemistry" 2nd ed, Springer (2011)
A. R. West "Basic Solid State Chemistry" 2nd ed. Wiley (1999)
L. E Smart, E. A. Moore "Solid State Chemistry. An introduction" 1st ed. CRC Press (2005)

Teaching methods

Learning objectives are defined on a weekly base. Several innovative topics are better focused on by reading papers published on scientific journals

Assessment methods

Writtent test at the end of the course

Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Fiorini