| Description |
Materials that have feature sizes on the mesoscale present unique properties based on diffusion and chemical reactions. Despite the breadth of work done in this area, there is little work done connecting biological mesostructures and the well-developed inorganic mesoporous materials. This thesis presents work done on mesostructured and mesoporous materials to connect biological mesostructures to the field of inorganic mesoporous materials. Specifically, we have developed novel methods for making self-assembled biological-inorganic mesoporous composites, densified mesoporous solids, and investigated tunability of mesostructured biological emulsions (cubosomes). Cubosomes were investigated for tunability of the lattice parameter via addition of a designer peptide and was characterized by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and small-angle x-ray scattering, which revealed a swelling of the lattice parameter and the appearance of a hexagonal phase at low peptide concentrations. Self-assembled biological-inorganic composite materials was shown to possess order on the mesoscale when observed by transmission electron microscopy and were loaded with Rhodamine B. Fluorescence studies revealed successful loading of the dye and changes in the salt or acid concentration unloaded the dye. SBA-type silica was densified while maintaining mesoporosity using spark plasma sintering and proof of principle were done to illustrate how these materials could be chemically modified into semiconductors relevant to energy applications. |
