Immobilization of Nanoparticles on Fibrous Clay Surfaces: Towards Promising Nanoplatforms for Advanced Functional Applications

Abstract

This account discusses on diverse general approaches employed for the preparation of heterostructured materials based on the immobilization of metal oxides and other nanoparticles on sepiolite and palygorskite fibrous clay minerals, showing the many opportunities of application offered by the resulting materials. Various examples from our own experience have been selected to show how sepiolite acts as a convenient nanoplatform for immobilization of diverse type of nanoparticles, such as TiO , Fe O , Prussian blue, zeolites, layered double hydroxides, carbon nanotubes and graphenes, etc., to produce functional materials for applications in catalysis, environmental remediation, sensing devices, energy production, and others.

Photoactive nanoarchitectures based on clays incorporating TiO2and ZnO nanoparticles

“…2D nanoarchitectures have been recently reviewed by Ariga and collaborators [4–6]. Among 2D solids, clay minerals have been widely studied as versatile components for the preparation of functional nanoarchitectures by means of their assembly with diverse active compounds including nanoparticles (NPs) of variable nature, such as metal-oxide NPs, which is of great interest for many diverse applications [7–11]. As it is well known, clay minerals are a big family of silicates showing diverse structural arrangements and morphologies (Fig.…”

Functional biohybrid materials based on halloysite, sepiolite and cellulose nanofibers for health applications

“…33,34 In light of these properties and features, it is clear that sepiolite represents a very interesting starting building block for designing a wide class of smart materials. 35 Nevertheless, one limitation of sepiolite is its restriction only to its external surface during the interaction with other active and bulky species due to the reduced accessibility of the Mg-OH groups located inside the microporous tunnels. 30 Hence, the use of further components to overcome this limitation and to fully exploit the features of sepiolite and to develop potential synergistic effects is pursued here through the co-assembly of clay nanotubes.…”

Graphene Derivatives in Biopolymer-Based Composites for Food Packaging Applications

“…Remarkably, these semiconducting NP are also provided with bactericidal activity. In addition, it may be considered that clay minerals are efficient adsorbents for many diverse organic compounds as well as support of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles [ 235 , 236 , 237 ]. Therefore, the presence of clays in the carbon–clay materials could be of interest to modulate the properties of the resulting films based on clay–graphene biocomposites.…”