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.....Nanostructures
.....Biomimetics
.....Bio-Nano

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Charles Martin - Research in the Martin group is conducted at the interface between Analytical Chemistry and Materials Science. This entails developing new approaches to do chemical analyses and separations and developing the new materials that will make these separations and analyses possible.

..... We are particularly interested in the application of nanomaterials to Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. In general, the nanomaterials research area entails preparation of nanoscopic particles of a desired material, characterization of the fundamental properties of the nanomaterials obtained, and development of practical applications of nanomaterial-based systems. Our group has pioneered a powerful new method to prepare nanomaterials called the "template method." This method entails using the nanoscopic pores in a host membrane as templates to prepare monodisperse nanoscopic particles of a desired material. Nanotubule membranes prepared via the template method are of particular interest. These are synthetic membranes that contain a parallel collection of nanotubules with inside diameters of molecular dimension. We are exploring applications of these nanotubule membranes in chemical analysis and in membrane-based chemical separations. For example, we have shown that these membranes can be used as filters to cleanly separate small molecules on the basis of molecular size - "molecule sorters."

.....We have also shown that these nanotubule membranes can form the basis of a new method of electrochemical analysis that has detection limits as low as 10-11 M.
In both the applications to chemical analysis and chemical separations, it is important to introduce chemical selectivity into the nanotubule membrane. Ideally, the membrane should show molecular-recognition capabilities; that is, it should be able to identify and extract a particular target molecule and ignore all other molecules present in a contacting solution phase. One approach to developing such ideal molecular-recognition membranes is to immobilize biochemical molecular-recognition agents within the nanotubules. This "bio/nano" research effort is of particular importance in our group. Indeed, Professor Martin is the Director of a newly established research center at the University of Florida called "The Center for Research at the Bio/Nano Interface.

.....We are also interested in electrochemical energy production, and nanomaterials play a major role in our research efforts here also. We are investigating new nanostructured electrodes for Li-ion batteries - the type of battery that powers modern laptop computers and cellular phones. We have shown that because of the very high surface area of nanomaterials, the nanostructured electrode can support much higher discharge currents without loss of battery capacity. Finally, we are also conducting research on carbon nanotubule membranes, corrosion, and basic electrochemistry.