Pratik Mankidy
Bachelors of Chemical Engineering, University of Pune, India, 2002
MS, Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004
Materials in the nanometer to sub-micron scale exhibit interesting
properties compared to their inherent properties when in the bulk
phase. Our current research involves with fabrication of some of
these nanomaterials and the investigation of their properties. The
material being used for these studies are nanofibers of polymers.
Polymer nanofibers are typically fabricated by different methods
such as electro-spinning or templating resulting in a spaghetti-like
mass of fibers, which make them difficult for subsequent processing
and/or placement.
The challenge in our research was then to fabricate these nanofibers in a controlled and aligned fashion. We employ an anodized aluminum oxide membrane as a nanochannel reactor. Here the monomer enters the pores of membrane from one end, polymerizes within the pore channels and is then removed as polymer fibers out the other ends of the pores. In this manner we are able to achieve an aligned assembly of polymer nanofibers out the other side of the membrane. As the pore size of the membrane can easily be altered during the anodization procedure, we have control over the tunabilty of the diameter of the fibers formed.