Engineering at atomic scale to build ultra-low density 3D architectures for impact resistance applications
Chandra Sekhar Tiwary,
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, Wet Bengal-721302, India
The structural and functional nanomaterials have attracted a lot of attention due to their high surface area/volume ratio and showdrastic improvement in performance as compared to bulk counterparts. To build 3D architecture of these nano-materials for high impact applications, these are processed using different engineering techniques. Interconnecting these nano-materials with a control on density, surface and composition throws a big challenge. In last few years, the development of atomically thin (one and two dimensional) materials opened up new ways to build materials using bottom up approach of connecting them “atom by atom”. These new classes of atomically thin materials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, silicon carbide and other metal layered carbides, can be utilized in buildinghighly porous (low density) 3D architectures with high surface area and improved mechanical properties. Such approach opens the possibility to selectively connect the nanomaterials with specific composition, surface and dimension. In the presentation, few examples of building 3D architectures of CNT, graphene, and silicon carbide nanomaterialsfor structural, functional, and biomedical applications will be presented.