Layered Zinc Hydroxide Nanosheets Research Published

Trinity postgraduate Said Said’s research on layered zinc hydroxide materials has been published in Advanced Functional Materials, with his artwork illustrating the work selected as a frontispiece for the upcoming issue of the journal. 

The paper describes a convenient and versatile route to make ‘Two-Dimensional (2D) Layered Zinc Hydroxide‘ nanosheets that are fully exfoliated and soluble in a range of solvents, including in water. The method applies the hydrolysis of well-defined organozinc complexes with simple carboxylic acid ligands to produce a series of exfoliated layered zinc hydroxides that show high solubility in polar solvents, like alcohols and water, and functionally relevant chemistries useful for applications spanning catalysis, energy storage and composite materials. 

Said says of his paper: ‘Discovering methods to separate layered materials into single nanosheets is important as it greatly increases the surface area, allows for their processing using techniques like printing and enhances properties useful for a number of applications. This study provides an efficient and generally applicable route to make soluble nanosheets and solves some common draw-backs of conventional routes.’

The new materials synthesized in this work are part of a large-scale collaboration between researchers at Oxford, Imperial College and Shell to produce printable photocatalysts that can reduce carbon dioxide and produce dense energy carriers. The publication describes some of the work Said Said has undertaken for his Dphil in Chemistry; he is co-supervised by Trinity Chemistry Fellow Charlotte Williams and Professor Milo Shaffer at Imperial College.