Hierarchical products structure—property functions

Particles are seldom sole as such, and they are usually integrated in products. Paper, ceramics, and bread are just three well-known examples of everyday use. Advanced structural and functional materials consisting of particles and powders are made to be integrated into all the functional devices mentioned in this overview. The implementation of nanotechnologies is stiU hmited due to the difficulties in preserving the beautifiil nanostructures and their excellent properties produced in the lab upon transferring them into industrial practice. We have to understand how hierarchical products evolve in multiscale processes. Important questions must be answered such as where does quahty evolve in chemical processes and how can we control electronic and structural defects of particles and particle systems across all... 

Nanoscience demands efficient synthetic methods for materials with controlled particle properties by timing the preparative chemistry and has led to several methods adopted for hierarchical inorganic materials for potential applications. Aided by the soft chemical approach, highly stabilized crystalline and monodispersed nanomaterials may be synthesized on bench scale and may subsequently be scaled up for higher production level with an important facet of the molecules-to-materials approach. By tuning the desired functional properties of precise size and shape, this may offer exciting possibilities to fabricate new nanodevices with reproducible results based on structural-performance-activity relationships with high reliability. 

The authors developed a unique form of i-glucan association, nematic ordered cellulose (NOC) that is molecularly ordered, yet noncrystalline. NOC has unique characteristics in particular, its surface properties provide with a function of tracks or scaffolds for regulated movements and fiber production of Acetobacter xylinum (=Gluconacetobacter xylinus), which produces cellulose ribbon-like nanofibers with 40-60 nm in width and moves due to the inverse force of the secretion of the fibers (Kondo et al. 2002). This review attempts to reveal the exclusive superstructure-property relationship in order to extend the usage of this nematic-ordered cellulose film as a functional template. In addition, this describes the other carbohydrate polymers with a variety of hierarchical nematic-ordered states at various scales, the so-called nano/micro hierarchical structures, which would allow development of new functional-ordered scaffolds. 

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