Nanoparticles feature exceptional material properties and thus provide a wide range of possible applications in various areas such as lightweight construction (composite materials, concrete), energy and environmental engineering (batteries, fuel cells, hydrogen storage), electronics (cooling, transistors, field emission display), medicine (sensor technology, drug-delivery) and also information and communication technology.
For instance, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) show outstanding mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. Hence they are already used in industrial applications for mechanical reinforcement and optimization of electrical conductivity of polymer composite materials. Besides carbon or boron-nitride based nanoparticles (Fullerene, CNTs, graphene, BN-NTs) also ceramic and metallic nanoparticles have already been synthesized with remarkable properties.
In the context of design and production of nanomaterials many questions and challenges emerge. To this end, the Department of Virtual Material Design of Fraunhofer SCAI provides several efficient software tools to tackle these problems.