Recently, Dr. Nie Huali, an Associate Professor of the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Biotechnology at Donghua University, and Dr. Huang Jiaxing, an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University in USA have worked together to solve, by means of electrospray, a difficult problem that has perplexed the researchers in Langmuir-Blodgett assembly for more than 80 years. The paper titled “High-Yield Spreading of Water-Miscible Solvents on Water for Langmuir–Blodgett Assembly”was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), the most prestigious journal in Chemistry.Dr. Nie is the first author and Dr. Huang, the second.
Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) assembly, with a history of 80 years, is a classical molecular thin-film processing technique, based on which LB film has a prospect of wide application in producing new high-performance integrated electron devices, semiconductor devices and bionic sensor components.
It is quite challenging to make the nano particles well disperse in both the water-immiscible spreading organic solvents and on water surface.
DHU has cooperated closely with NWU to reduce the droplets’ volume of spreading solvents by more than 6 orders of magnitude. By electrospraying materials on water's surface, they found this new technique drastically expands the scope of applying LB assembly, and to avoid the use of toxic spreading solvents while making Langmuir-Blodgett assembly more efficient, easier to standardize, and safer to scale up.
The research has received international attention and wide media coverage since its findings were reported online on August 14.
Also see:C&E News: 80-Year-Old Langmuir-Blodgett Technique Gets An Electrospray
