Porous Materials and Colloidal Carriers

Porous materials provide large internal interfaces, which are required in many applications, such as heterogeneous catalysis, interfacial transport or molecular uptake, triggered release and recognition of small molecular entities. Similarly, colloidal particles can have complex geometries and subdomains allowing molecular encapsulation, controlled release or surface modification. Hierarchically porous materials, microparticles with nanopores, etc. are thus examples which constitute interesting materials for tailored applications.

systemincor
Molecular transport in a hierarchically porous material
© AK Schönhoff
systemincor
Permeation rates of different molecular probes through nanoporous walls of vesicles or polymer capsules are obtained by diffusion-exchange NMR
© AK Schönhoff

In our group we investigate the properties of nano- and microporous materials by physico-chemical methods. We are mainly interested in the interaction of small molecules, which may be model drugs or other active molecules, with interfaces and porous systems, i.e. their uptake, transport and release. For this purpose we employ NMR methods such as pulsed Field Gradient NMR diffusion, spin relaxation or solid state NMR to study molecular transport or surface immobilization, respectively.

Examples of systems studied are

- Proton conducting membranes for fuel cell applications

- Inverse opal microspheres with nanopores

- Surface-modified silica particles for catalysis

- Thermoreversible microgels and polymer particles

- Hollow polyelectrolyte capsules

- Surfactant self-assembly: micelles and vesicles





Selected publications

Hammer, R.; Schönhoff, M.; Hansen, M.
A Comprehensive Picture of Water Dynamics in Nafion Membranes at Different Levels of Hydration
J. Phys. Chem. B 2019, 123(39), 8313-8324.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b05093

Termühlen, F., Kuckling, D., Schönhoff, M.
Isothermal Titration Calorimetry to Probe the Coil-to-Globule Transition of Thermoresponsive Polymers
J. Phys. Chem. B 2017, 121(36), 8611-8618
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.7b07428

Himmelein, S., Sporenberg, N., Schönhoff, M., Ravoo, B.L. Size-Selective permeation of water-solube polymers trough the bilayer membrane of cyclodextrin vesicles investigated by PFG-NMR
Langmuir 2014, 30, (14), 3988 - 3995
https://doi.org/10.1021/la500226z

Gauczinski, J.; Liu, Z.; Zhang, X.; Schönhoff, M.
Surface Molecular Imprinting in Layer-by-Layer Films on Silica Particles
Langmuir 2012, 28, 4267-4273
https://doi.org/10.1021/la205027j

Krzyzanek, V.; Sporenberg, N.; Keller, U.; Guddorf, J.; Reichelt, R.; Schönhoff, M.
Polyelectrolyte multilayer capsules: Nanostructure and visualisation of nanopores in the wall
Soft Matter 2011, 7(15), 7034-7041
https://doi.org/10.1039/C1SM05406F