Nanostructured materials for biology and the environment

Inspired by nature’s architectures and interacting at biological length scales, we are developing nanomaterials for sustainable bio-interfaces, environmental technologies and functional electronic devices.

For instance, we are studying biofunctional surfaces combining inorganic materials and organic functionalization using wet chemistry processes. The processes developed are very varied and include, in particular, thin-layer deposition by sol-gel route, hydrothermal synthesis of nanowires, assembly of unidimensional nanostructures by liquid filtration and capillary printing to form nanowire networks (nanonets), and surface functionalization. Examples of materials currently under studies are: very high aspect ratio ZnO and Cu2O nanowires, silicon, ZnO and Cu2O nanonets, functionalization with silane for biomolecule grafting. Such materials are studied for further integration into functional devices such as electronic devices (transistors) or sensors.

Besides, functionalization methods developed in this research axis enable us to induce superhydrophilicity, superhydrophobicity or photocatalytic activity on any surface. These approaches rely on sol-gel chemistry and hydrothermal synthesis, using inorganic materials (e.g. TiO₂, SiO₂, Cu₂O or ZnO) and hybrid organic-inorganic ones (e.g. hexadecyltrimethoxysilane). These skills are now exploited to develop new original membranes for water purification or desalination, passive water harvesting devices or photocatalytic membranes for CO₂ reduction or valorization, water splitting, depollution …