Recently, various types of nanoparticle materials come to be commercially available for development in the wide range of industrial application. Now, it is crucial important to consider the nanoparticles preparation from the viewpoint of the functional advancement on the optoelectronic, magnetic, catalytic, and mechanical materials. Within these applications, controlling nanoparticle shape has attracted attentions due to the increasing material functionality. Furthermore, structured nanoparticles are also expected to be the next generation of materials, because of a variety of characteristics including their mechanical properties and their optical and heat responses. In this presentation, we reviewed fundamental technique for the synthesis of shape controlled individual nanoparticles and structured nanoparticles, and focus on these properties from the viewpoint of functional materials.

Nanoparticles are now an indispensable material for science and technology such an in materials, medicals, and cosmetics areas. Controlling the dispersion stability of nanoparticles in various liquid media or solid matrix materials is an essential issue to control the properties of the final products. In this paper, I will briefly review the surface modification techniques to overcome the difficulties of handling nanoparticles in liquids. Many kinds of post-synthesis surface modification, such as adsorption of surfactant with various molecular structures and layer by layer surface reaction of coupling agents, will be introduced. Finally, some examples of nanoparticles for the application of new advanced composite material will be demonstrated.

Coating is generally defined as a process to replace air on a solid substrate by a liquid. However, recent development in coating technologies have shed light on self-organization and micro- structuring in evaporating complex thin fluids. In this article, some examples on structure formation in coating/drying processes are introduced, which include (i) particle-induced stabilization of a air film intruding between a moving solid and a liquid, (ii) drying induced segregation of particles and other components, and (iii) flow-induced surface roughening at air-liquid interface. The effect of operating parameters on the dynamic behavior at interfaces and in bulk liquid is also emphasized.

Graphite or carbon material is apt to be used under a hard chemical or physical condition. Stability and long life are requested for it. The investigation of the reaction mechanism at the interface of graphite is important to develop a new grade. In this presentation, two examples of the industrial application were chosen to explain above mentioned features. One is a graphite beam aperture for ion implantation in silicon technology and the other is a carbon electrode for the production of fluorine.

We have developed the novel network polymer with mesogen to improve the thermal conductivity of epoxy resins by controlling the higher order structure. To obtain the evidence for the higher order structure, we carried out direct observations at both mesoscopic and microscopic scales. The developed resin shows an obvious lattice structure in the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image and large domains with sizes of about several micrometers in the atomic force microscopy (AFM) image and the polarized optical microscope (POM). On the other hand, no domains of order-structures can be recognized in the TEM, AFM images and POM of conventional resin. Furthermore, the formed nanostructure of composite is confirmed by small-angle X-ray diffraction (SAXD).

Thermal conductivities of developed epoxy resins are 1.0 W/m •K at a maximum and five times higher than that of the conventional ones. We mixed these resins with conventional ceramic fillers, then the new epoxy composites (10 to 15 W/m •K) have been obtained. Fabricated B-stage (pre-cured) sheet is flexible and the cured one shows good electrical properties such as breakdown voltage and corona. Thus the developed high thermal conductive composites may be applicable to the insulating adhesive sheets for power devices, etc.

The needs for the secondary battery are apparently growing considerably to cope with the problems from the viewpoints of energy and environmental issues of the world. On the other hand, the nanoparticles having large specific surface area and special features have been used to increase the functionality of materials for the secondary batteries. In this report, the focus is placed on the powder processing of materials for the electrodes of lithium ion battery and several examples of applications of nanoparticles to this battery are introduced by referring to mainly the patent applications by use of particle composing machines developed by our company.

They are classified into two cases to make the positive electrode and negative one. For the former, various type of carbon nanoparticles including nanofibers usually are dispersed with the active material of the positive electrode in various forms using the particle composing machines. For the latter, the graphite particles are often used for the negative electrode and processed for particle design like particle composing, surface modification and sphericalization by use of the particle composing machines, which leads to the improvement of performance of the lithium ion battery in various aspects.