Polystyrene‐Core–Silica‐Shell Hybrid Particles Containing Gold and Magnetic Nanoparticles

Abstract

Polystyrene-core-silica-shell hybrid particles were synthesized by combining the self-assembly of nanoparticles and the polymer with a silica coating strategy. The core-shell hybrid particles are composed of gold-nanoparticle-decorated polystyrene (PS-AuNP) colloids as the core and silica particles as the shell. PS-AuNP colloids were generated by the self-assembly of the PS-grafted AuNPs. The silica coating improved the thermal stability and dispersibility of the AuNPs. By removing the "free" PS of the core, hollow particles with a hydrophobic cage having a AuNP corona and an inert silica shell were obtained. Also, Fe3O4 nanoparticles were encapsulated in the core, which resulted in magnetic core-shell hybrid particles by the same strategy. These particles have potential applications in biomolecular separation and high-temperature catalysis and as nanoreactors.

Synthesis of Hollow Silica Particles Using Acid Dissolvable Resorcinol‐Formaldehyde Resin Particles as Template

“…The TEM image in Figure b illustrates that nearly all the Au nanoparticles are located in the HSPs and no aggregation are observed. The result manifests that the acid‐etching method shown here is also effective in building the “rattle‐type” structure ,…”

“…The result manifests that the acidetching method shown here is also effective in building the "rattle-type" structure. [3,17]…”

“…Recent years, hollow silica particles (HSPs) have become the research focus among the various nanomaterials, due to their large surface to volume ratio, high stability and ideal compatibility with other materials, which have been widely used in many fields such as catalysis, separation, bioimaging,, drug delivery and surface coating ,. Up to now, the most efficient and frequently used approach is the template method, which can be further classified into soft template method and hard template method . Gas bubbles, emulsions,, and self‐assembled amphiphilic molecules are commonly used as the soft templates, which are usually facile to prepare and easy to remove after silica coating.…”

“…[15,16] Up to now, the most efficient and frequently used approach is the template method, which can be further classified into soft template method and hard template method. [17][18][19][20] Gas bubbles, [21] emulsions [18,22,23] and self-assembled amphiphilic molecules [1] are commonly used as the soft templates, which are usually facile to prepare and easy to remove after silica coating. However, the soft template method is often limited by the difficulty in controlling the uniformity of the product and it is sometimes challenging to scale up due to the complication associated with the self-assembly of templates and shell growth process.…”