ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the development in the three most important areas of surfactant-assisted synthesis of nanomaterials: microemulsion-based synthesis of nanoparticles, preparation of mesoporous materials from surfactant liquid crystals, and surfactant-mediated crystallization. Synthesis of inorganic materials with nanosized dimensions can take advantage of the ability of surfactants to self-assemble into well-defined structures. The accuracy and reproducibility of the self-assembly process has been seen as means of achieving control of materials architecture on the nanometer scale. A somewhat different approach for the formation of mesoporous materials is the so-called evaporation-induced surfactant self-assembly technique developed by Brinker and colleagues. Self-assembled surfactants can affect crystallization of metal salts and oxides, often in a way that is difficult to predict. The wide applicability of surfactant self-assembly for inorganic structure direction has been further studied for various forms of calcium carbonate structures that have been synthesized using different types of liquid crystalline phases resulting in the formation of different morphologies and polymorphs.
