SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATIONS OF NEW NANOMATERIALS AND FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS

Nanomaterials exhibit unique optical, electronic and catalytic properties emerging from the nanometer-sized dimensions of the systems. Different nanomaterials, such as semiconductor quantum dots (QD), silver nanoclusters (NCs), graphene oxide (GO) and imprinted Au nanoparticles (NPs), find growing interest as new materials for sensing and photoelectrochemical applications. The use of these nanomaterials for the development of optical or photoelectrochemical sensors for the detection of explosives, pathogens and aptamer-ligand complexes will be described.

A further rapidly developing area involves the development of stimuli-responsive hydrogels. The assembly of stimuli-responsive oligonucleotide-based acrylamide hydrogels undergoing reversible hydrogel-to-solution transitions will be presented. Metal ions, pH, thermal signals and more are applied to trigger the phase transitions of the hydrogels. The use of the systems as reversible catalytic gels, conducting hydrogels, and shape-memory hydrogels will be discussed. Specifically, the immobilization of stimuli-responsive hydrogels on surfaces and the miniaturization of the hydrogels into microcapsules will be presented, and different applications of these systems will be discussed.