ARC Australian Research Fellow

CONTACT DETAILS:

Address: School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010 Australia

Room: 276

Email: rcaruso@unimelb.edu.au

Teaching responsibilities

• 610-280 Environmental Chemistry
• 610-400 Honours

Field of expertise

The fabrication of porous inorganic structures

Advanced materials, Materials chemistry, Colloid science, Porous materials, Templating procedures, Sol-gel chemistry, Photocatalysis

The fabrication of porous inorganic structures using various templating procedures and numerous polymeric templates is the main goal of this research. This involves the formation of the initial template and the incorporation of the inorganic material, or a precursor to which reactions are carried out leading to the required material.   The templating material is then removed in such a way that the final product retains porosity and structure.   The areas of application for the final materials range from solar energy conversion, catalysis and photocatalysis to biosensing.

Porous organic structures, such as polymer gels, filter membranes, fibres and spheres, have been used successfully as templates to give inorganic structures as bulk networks, films, tubes and beads. The general procedure is to conduct sol-gel chemistry within the confines of the template, then remove the template at high temperatures (500 °C). This procedure produces inorganic structures that replicate the morphology of the initial organic template, hence highly porous metal oxide materials are obtained. The materials are then tested in applications, for example, titania materials have been assessed for photocatalytic ability by the decomposition of pollutants.

For further information view the Caruso research group page.

Selected Publications:

1. Shchukin, D. G. and Caruso, R. A., Chem. Mater . 2004, 16, 2287-2292.
2. Shchukin, D. G. and Caruso, R. A., Chem. Commun . 2003, 1478-1479.
3. Caruso, R. A., Top. Curr. Chem. 2003, 226 , 91-118 .
4. Schattka, J. H.; Shchukin, D. G.; Jia, J.; Antonietti, M., and Caruso, R. A., Chem. Mater . 2002, 14, 5103-5108.
5. Caruso, R. A. and Antonietti, M., Adv. Functional Mater. 2002, 12, 307.