Well-defined hollow nanochanneled-silica nanospheres prepared with the aid of sacrificial copolymer nanospheres and surfactant nanocylinders

Young Yong Kim, Bora Hwang, Sungjin Song, Brian J. Ree, Yongjin Kim, Seo Yeon Cho, Kyuyoung Heo, Yong Ku Kwon, Moonhor Ree

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

A new approach for synthesizing well-defined hollow nanochanneled-silica nanosphere particles is demonstrated, and the structural details of these particles are described for the first time. Positively charged styrene copolymer nanospheres with a clean, smooth surface and a very narrow size distribution are synthesized by surfactant-free emulsion copolymerization and used as a thermal sacrificial core template for the production of core-shell nanoparticles. A surfactant/silica composite shell with a uniform thickness is successfully produced and deposited onto the polymeric core template by charge density matching between the polymer nanosphere template surface and the negatively charged silica precursors and then followed by selective thermal decomposition of the polymeric core and the surfactant cylinder domains in the shell, producing the hollow nanochanneled-silica nanospheres. Comprehensive, quantitative structural analyses collectively confirm that the obtained nanoparticles are structurally well defined with a hollow core and a shell composed of cylindrical nanochannels that provide facile accessibility to the hollow interior space. Overall, the hollow nanochanneled-silica nanoparticles have great potential for applications in various fields.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14774-14785
Number of pages12
JournalNanoscale
Volume7
Issue number35
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 Sep 2015

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