Authors: Shibu G. Pillai
Source: International Journal for Research Trends and Innovation (article, 2025-01-01)
Field: Materials Science — Ceramics and Composites

Microphase Separation Technique Mediated SiCN Ceramics: A Method for Mesostructuring of Polymer Derived SiCN Ceramics Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) are widely utilised across various fields, including engineering, science, and medicine.The ability to enhance their surface properties through mesostructuring transforms bulk PDCs into advanced materials with superior functionalities.Among PDCs, silicon carbonitride (SiCN) stands out as a non-oxide ceramic with exceptional properties such as high-temperature resistance, chemical inertness, mechanical stress resistance, and semiconducting capability.This review focuses on mesostructuring of SiCN ceramics through microphase separation of direct inorganic precursor-block-organic copolymers and other significant approaches.This approach is particularly advantageous, as the resulting mesostructured SiCN ceramics can be precisely tuned by adjusting polymer ratios, controlling thermal cross-linking, and implementing programmed pyrolysis.Furthermore, this method enables the synthesis of mesostructured SiCN-supported metal nanoparticles for catalysis.By incorporating metal precursors into amphiphilic copolymers prior to microphase separation and pyrolysis, a convenient and efficient route to catalytic materials is established.This review provides a comprehensive discussion of existing research on mesostructured SiCN ceramics and their supported catalysts, with a particular emphasis on self-assembly and microphase separation techniques. Self-assembledSiCN Ceramics Mesoporous SiCN catalyst Mesostructured SiCN Microphase separated SiCN ceramics. I.INTRODUCTION (HEADING 1)Novel polymer derived silicon based materials under the mesoscale regime (5-50nm) are much anticipated in many industries as they have capable of aligning with chip level scale and genetic arrays. [1]Within the broad applications aspects of polymer derived ceramics [2] (PDCs), siliconcorbonitride (SiCN) is of particular interest due to it's wide range of applications in catalysis [3] , energy storage [4] , aero-engine sensor [5] , elacromagnatic wave absorption devices [6] and living cell delivery [7] .These ceramics are particularly exceptional high temparature withstanding materials due to the amorphous phases and covalently linked network surface.In general, synthesis of nanoscale SiCN is possible under broad inventory of techniques such as lithograhy, PDMS molding, sputtering, template inversion and so on.Particularly, the self-assambly [8] of mesoscale materials using microphase separation [9] of copolymers offers wide range of mesostructured ceramics materials [10] due to the repulsive strength of the linked polymers and amphiphilic incompatibility between the linked copolymers. [11]However, only few specimens exists in the mesostructured form of SiCN due to the limited synthetic approaches namely block copolymer as structural directing agent, sacrificial template for the increased structure, and direct copolymer micro-phase separation.Bringing the uniformed morphology within the sample is a big hurdle due to the presence of ternary phases exists in the sample.Among many difficulties in producing mesostructured SiCN, choosing ceramic precursor, dissimilar other block, ratio of the blocks, block chain length, cross linking temperature condition, retaining the microphase separated structure within the green body and figuring out the controlled pyrolysis program are challenging task to retain the phase separated structure through out the entire process.This same technique also be applicable for the synthesis of mesostructured SiCN supported metal nanoparticles for catalysis.In addition to the above mentioned steps, a metal precursor is added before the formation of green body that allows the transmetallation from the metal precursor to SiCN precursor and stabilised by the N atom of the SiCN network leading to the synthesis of mesostructured M@SiCN catalyst.In this mini review, most of the techniques used for the synthesis of nanostructured SiCN ceramics will be presented and advantages of microphase separation technique in particular will be highlighted for the mesostructuring of SiCN and M@SiCN exclusively. Ceramic ; Materials science ; Polymer ; Chemical engineering ; Composite material Advanced ceramic materials synthesis ; Advanced materials and composites ; Aluminum Alloys Composites Properties