The impressive flame retardancy and strength of PCNC materials fabricated through LBL methods has already been mentioned.
PCNCs formed through LBL assembly have been compared to nacre (mother of pearl), a natural layered mineral/biopolymer substance which is thought to be among the strongest mineral materials produced in nature.
LBL-assembled nanoclay/polymer or nano-silica/polymer materials have been found to have superior wettability, anisotropic ion transport and anti-reflectivity.
For food packaging applications, the most exciting attribute of these materials is their barrier properties, such that they have been envisioned to be potentially useful as ultrathin, flexible, high gas barrier coatings for conventional polymer films.
Grunlan and coworkers have pioneered the use of LBL assembly to fabricate polymer/clay films with high structural order and tailorable oxygen barriers.
In two recent studies, they reported LBL assembled films of MMT/poly(acrylamide) and MMT/poly(ethylene imine) which have oxygen permeabilities and transmission rates below instrument detection thresholds while only being a fraction of a micron thick.
For instance, an oxygen permeability of