Advanced Functional Materials Laboratory

Staff & Contact

Educational Staff	Adjunct Prof. Masanari Takahashi Adjunct Prof. Joji Kadota Adjunct Associate Prof. Mari Yamamoto
Contact	TEL: +81-6-6963-8011
URL	https://msnaistafm.wixsite.com/naistafm

Education and Research Activities in the Laboratory

Polymers, ceramics and metals are materials used widely in industry. Their applications are widespread from structural uses to a variety of functional uses. We devote our efforts to develop these materials and their nanocomposites to be applied in advanced industry. We focus on the nanostructure control of the materials to realize next generation electronic, optical, and energy devices. Another important challenge is the development of environmental-conscious material processing technology. Our laboratory is located in the Osaka Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, Morinomiya Center near the downtown area of Osaka city. Our laboratory conducts intimate collaborations with engineers from private companies; this leads to the rapid application of the developed materials into practical devices.

Research Themes

1. Highly thermal conductive materials and transparent and highly thermal emissivitive coating materials

Super hybrid materials made up of honeycomb structures with nanoparticles show 10 W/(m K) of thermal conductivity with electric insulation, although those with co-continuous phases, made by SPS method have been developed to attain super highly thermal conductivity (> 120 W/(m K). Furthermore, those with both a high thermal emissivity (> 0.9) and light transparency (haze<2%) have been developed, resulting in application to heat releasing materials in LED devices, communicators, robots and rockets.).

2.Lithium ion batteries fully composed of ceramics

Our research is aims for the development of all solid state lithium ion batteries with high safety standards and high rechargeable capacity without liquid leakage. Our approaches to fabricate this lithium ion battery are economically and ecologically viable techniques expected to be used in industry. Core techniques employed are the slurry coating, aerosol deposition and the spray pyrolysis methods.

3.Biomass polymer materials with unique properties

A group of environmental and functional polymer materials, poly(lactic acid) materials, was developed to obtain properties of similar flexibility, high elongation and transparency to polyethylene, although they were perfectly biodegradable. Additionally, poly(lactic acid) can be synthesized to have high adhesion strength and unique rheological properties, because of high brunch chains and approximately 1 of Mw/Mn.

Explanatory Pictures of Research Activities

Fig. 1 Honeycomb structure of phenol resin particles with thermal conductive BN nanoparticles, or bridged structure of graphite plates with CNF has promoted thermal conductivity to increase immediately (two times).

Fig. 2 A cross-section of an all solid state lithium ion battery. The layer by layer structure is composed of a cathode (LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2with Li3PS4 and acetylene black), a solid state electrolyte (Li3PS4), and an anode (carbon with Li3PS4 and acetylene black).

Fig. 3 Controlled synthesis of structure well-defined biomass-based polymers, as branched PLAs, PLA-grafted cellulose nanofiber and lignin-initiated PLA, by acid/base organo-catalyst for industrial use.

Recent Research Papers and Achievements

Y. Agari, K. Uotani, K. Mizuuchi, H. Hirano, J. Kadota, A. Okada, “Preparation and Properties of Al alloy/PPS Hybrid Materials with Co-continuous Phases by Spark Plasma Sintering Method”, Asia Thermophysical Properties Conference 2016 (Yokohama).
M. Yamamoto, Y. Terauchi, A. Sakuda, M. Takahashi, “Binder-free sheet-type all-solid-state batteries with enhanced rate capabilities and high energy densities”, Scientific Reports, vol. 8 1212 (2018).
J. Kadota, D. Pavlovic, H. Hirano, A. Okada, Y. Agari, B. Bibal, A. Deffieux, F. Peruch, “Controlled bulk polymerization of L-lactide and lactones by dual activation with organo-catalytic systems”, Rsc Advances, vol. 4, 14725-14732 (2014).