University of Pennsylvania

Giuseppe Di Vitantonio

Daeyeon Lee

Kathleen J Stebe

Tiancheng Wang

Methods of making robust bijels include dispersing metal oxide precursors and/or metal salts into at least one phase of a bijel and hydrolyzing and condensing the metal oxide precursors and/or metal salts in a sol-gel reaction to form sintered bridges between interfacially jammed surface-active nanoparticles. The methods can be used with any bijels, including those produced during solvent transfer-induced phase separation (STRIPS) methods and other methods. A robust bijel includes chemically sintered bridges between the interfacially jammed surface-active nanoparticles. Methods of making nanocatalyst-functionalized sintered bijels include adsorbing metal salts to a surface of sintered interfacially jammed nanoparticles of bijels, and reducing the metal precursors on the surface of the sintered nanoparticles. Nanocatalyst-functionalized sintered bijels include catalytically active metal or metal oxide nanocatalysts on a surface of the sintered interfacially jammed surface-active nanoparticles.

Growing community of inventors

Philadelphia, PA, United States of America

Giuseppe Di Vitantonio