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Aerosol-assisted self-assembly of mesostructured spherical nanoparticles

Nature volume 398, pages 223–226 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Particles possessing nanometre-scale pores of well-defined size and connectivity are of interest for catalysis, chromatography and controlled release of drugs, and as fillers with low dielectric constant, pigments and hosts for optically active compounds1,2. Silica containing ordered mesopores (of nanometre-scale width) can be prepared by templating of surfactant3,4 and block copolymer5 liquid-crystalline mesophases, and interfacial phenomena have been used to control the macroscopic form of these materials, providing mesoporous particles1,6, fibres7,8 and films9,10. A variety of spherical or nearly spherical particles has been reported1,6,7,11,12,13, but the degree of ordering and the range of the porous mesostructures have been limited. Here we report a rapid, aerosol-based14,15,16 process for synthesizing solid, well-ordered spherical particles with stable pore mesostructures of hexagonal and cubic topology, as well as layered (vesicular) structures. Our method relies on evaporation-induced interfacial self-assembly17 confined to spherical aerosol droplets. This simple, generalizable process can be modified for the formation of ordered mesostructured thin films.

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Figure 1: Diagram of aerosol reactor.
Figure 2: Representative TEM micrographs of mesostructured silica particles.
Figure 3: TEM micrographs of a variety of nanocomposite particles.
Figure 4: Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) curves for silica particles with hexagonal (trace A) or vesicular (B and C) mesophases.
Figure 5: TEM images of mesostructured films formed by an aerosol-assisted thin film deposition route.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Singh and J. Nebo for discussions about porous particles, and A.Sellinger for discussions of oligomeric swelling agents. We also thank G. P. Lopez for assistance with the fluorescent emission microscopy and W. Gong for assistance with TEM. This work was partially supported by the UNM/NSF Center for Micro-Engineered Materials and the DOE Basic Energy Sciences Program. TEM investigations were performed in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. This work was done under contract from the US Department of Energy. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the US Department of Energy.

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  1. University of New Mexico/NSF Center for Micro-Engineered Materials, The Advanced Materials Laboratory, 1001 University Boulevard SE, Albuquerque, 87106, New Mexico, USA

    Yunfeng Lu, Hongyou Fan, Aaron Stump, Timothy L. Ward, Thomas Rieker & C. Jeffrey Brinker

  2. Direct Fabrication Department, Sandia National Laboratories, 1831, Albuquerque, 87185, New Mexico, USA

    C. Jeffrey Brinker

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  1. Yunfeng Lu
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Correspondence to C. Jeffrey Brinker.

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Lu, Y., Fan, H., Stump, A. et al. Aerosol-assisted self-assembly of mesostructured spherical nanoparticles. Nature 398, 223–226 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18410

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