Hybrid Janus Particles: Challenges and Opportunities for the Design of Active Functional Interfaces and Surfaces

Abstract

Janus particles are a unique class of multifunctional patchy particles combining two dissimilar chemical or physical functionalities at their opposite sides. The asymmetry characteristic for Janus particles allows them to self-assemble into sophisticated structures and materials not attainable by their homogeneous counterparts. Significant breakthroughs have recently been made in the synthesis of Janus particles and the understanding of their assembly. Nevertheless, the advancement of their applications is still a challenging field. In this Review, we highlight recent developments in the use of Janus particles as building blocks for functional materials. We provide a brief introduction into the synthetic strategies for the fabrication of JPs and their properties and assembly, outlining the existing challenges. The focus of this Review is placed on the applications of Janus particles for active interfaces and surfaces. Active functional interfaces are created owing to the stabilization efficiency of Janus particles combined with their capability for interface structuring and functionalizing. Moreover, Janus particles can be employed as building blocks to fabricate active functional surfaces with controlled chemical and topographical heterogeneity. Ultimately, we will provide implications for the rational design of multifunctional materials based on Janus particles.

Janus particles: from concepts to environmentally friendly materials and sustainable applications

“…During the past 20 years, the research on JPs has prospered (Fig. 1b,c) including manifold synthetic routes for the fabrication of JPs, investigation of their properties, computer simulations as a new perspective to investigate perfect monodisperse Janus particles [21][22][23][24], and their potential for various application fields [25].…”

Diverse Particle Carriers Prepared by Co‐Precipitation and Phase Separation: Formation and Applications

“…Dimer particles with two different chemical compositions, also called Janus particles, have great potential in colloidal surfactant, display, microlaser and drug release [85,86,87,88,89] . Similar to surfactant molecules, Janus dimer particles could also be amphiphilic and have a much stronger anchoring strength at the water/oil interface.…”

“…Dimer particles with two different chemical compositions, also called Janus particles, have great potential in colloidal surfactant, display, microlaser and drug release. [85,86,87,88,89] Similar to surfactant molecules, Janus dimer particles could also be amphiphilic and have a much stronger anchoring strength at the water/oil interface. We successfully prepared amphiphilic dimer particles consisting of a hydrophobic PLA bulb and a hydrophilic shellac-PEG bulb and demonstrated that by engineering the diameter ratio of the dimer particles, i. e. the ratio of the hydrophobic bulb to the hydrophilic bulb, the curvature of the water/oil interface could easily be tuned, thus giving a flexible control over the type of emulsions, as shown in Figure 5a.…”

Self-assembly of Janus Au:Fe3O4branched nanoparticles. From organized clusters to stimuli-responsive nanogel suprastructures

“…11,12 Other uses include nanomotors and nanojets, electronic displays, anti-reective surfaces, etc. [13][14][15][16][17] One remarkable use of Janus nanoparticles is as building blocks for nanoparticle self-assembly, enabling an advance in elds such as molecular colloids or supracrystals. 16,18,19 Therefore, a huge effort has been dedicated to the synthesis of novel Janus nanoparticles with a variety of morphologies and high uniformity, as well as their use in the generation of novel selfassembled suprastructures.…”