Vol.5 No.3 2012

52/94

Research paper : Novel functional gels and their commercial distribution as chemical reagents (M. Yoshida)−187−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.3 (2012) 6 Future perspectivesAlthough chemical reagents is a somewhat niche market, it was very encouraging for the author to see the material that we developed draw attention and then become actually commercialized, as stated in the research goal. As the reagent went on sale, it is now readily available to the external research institutions for R&D purposes, but the practical application is still in the budding stage. As a basic issue, “gelation” itself is an extremely fundamental chemical phenomenon, and this is rarely recognized to be a simple industrial technology where some specific product can be directly imaged from this phenomenon. On the other hand, through technical consultation with various companies, I am convinced that there is high expectation for the core technology of “gelation”, and I feel that sufficient contribution can be made to industry and society by advancing this “gelation” technology. Specifically, in actual industrial application, in most cases, the solvents or solutions that people wish to gelate contain various solutes, and it is necessary to fine-tune the performance of the gelators individually through feedback from the corporate users. On this point, mutual understanding cannot be obtained merely through only the sales of the reagent, and I think it is necessary to establish a communication system between us and company researchers to promote understanding to further the practical application of the product.In terms of the technological view, the critical issues are to increase the efficiency of gelation and the number of gelatable solvents. We are actively working on the preparation of a new electrolyte gelator, and various derivatives are prepared by a co-polymerization method using two types of monomers, and high gelation capacity has been observed.[13] For the CNT dispersion function, we succeeded in enhancing the function such as addition of further optical responsivity by developing a material dedicated to the dispersal function,[14] and joint research has been started with a company for industrial realization using CNTs. On the other hand, by using the gelator that was commercialized by an independent research group, an extremely fascinating phenomenon unseen before, that is the asymmetric environment (circular dichroism activity) dependent on the stirring direction of the solution, has been reported (different CD activity is observed in the solution by right- or left-rotational stirring). Interestingly, this asymmetric field can be fixed by gelation.[15] It is becoming clear that the material that was initially developed for the objective of a new gelator discovery has diverse functions, and we wish to engage in further research for future practical applications with collaboration with other researchers inside and outside of the institute. In writing this paper, I realized that “synthetic strategy” thinking where individual elements are optimized and built up is important in developing a new material from the chemical viewpoint that involves trial-and-error of molecular design and synthesis methods. I hope this paper will be of some help for the other researches in the future.AcknowledgementThe research on the new gel material described in this paper is the result of the joint research over the years with the people at AIST: Dr. Nagatoshi Koumura, Dr. Yoshihiro Misawa, Dr. Hajime Matsumoto, Dr. Nobuyuki Tamaoki (currently, professor of Hokkaido University), Dr. Hajime Kawanami, Dr. Said Kazaoui, Dr. Nobutsugu Minami, Dr. Beena James, Ms. Chikako Awata, and Ms. Harumi Ohyama. I express my thanks. I am also thankful to the people of Smart Material Group, Nanosystem Research Institute, who gave us much advice. I am grateful to Mr. Toru Aikawa of TA Instruments Japan Inc. who provided me with the opportunity for measurement and valuable advice in measuring the dynamic gel viscoelasticity. I am also grateful to Professor Mitsuhiro Shibayama and Dr. Shyamal Kumar Kundu of the Institute of Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo. This research was conducted with the 2005 2nd Grant for Industrial Technology Research, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (ID:05A25710a) and Fig. 6 Pamphlet for the reagent (created by Kanto Chemical Co., Inc.) (top) and the commercial reagent (bottom)

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer9以上が必要です