Investigating the Behavior of Boron Nitride Nanomaterials in Aqueous Surfactant Solutions

Boron nitride nanomaterials are an exciting and understudied class of materials with enticing properties for a wide range of applications. They’re extremely lightweight and strong, with high thermal and chemical stability, and a wide bandgap that makes them electrically insulating and transparent to visible light. This unique set of properties makes them exceptional candidates for application in fields ranging from space exploration to drug delivery; however, obtainment of these advanced applications still requires researchers to overcome some large obstacles. Chief among them is the amphiphobic nature of the materials, which makes them difficult to work with in liquid-phase processes that are key to material processing and biomedical applications alike. This thesis investigates how to produce uniform dispersions of boron nitride nanomaterials in aqueous solution, and then, probes how the materials behave within these dispersions using single molecule diffusion studies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Natural Sciences

Grantor

Rice University

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Smith McWilliams, Ashleigh Dawn

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martí, Angel A

• Boron Nitride Nanomaterials
• surfactants
• brownian motion
• Boron Nitride Nanotubes
• hexagonal Boron Nitride

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1911/109177

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.rice.edu:1911/109177