Biopolymer colloids for controlling and templating inorganic synthesis

• Laura C. Preiss,
• Katharina Landfester and
• Rafael Muñoz-Espí

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2129–2138, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.222

• synthetic polymers (see Section 4 in [60] for a review), but only a limited number of works are found for biopolymers. Li et al. [61] prepared cross-linked chitosan microspheres and immobilized bovine serum albumin covalently on their surface. On the resulting particles, silica was formed by a sol–gel

• of “hard templates” stated above, the approach has been very productive with synthetic polymers [2][60], but only explored in a limited way with biopolymers. The main reason for this is that the assembly of many biopolymers results in a rather continuous network and not necessarily in “discrete

• supports (e.g., metallization or mineralization of DNA) or by using particle systems. Hydrogel approaches can also be confined to the spaces of particles. Clearly, synthetic polymers are often a more economic and versatile alternative, but biopolymers can be especially interesting in those applications in

Controlled synthesis and tunable properties of ultrathin silica nanotubes through spontaneous polycondensation on polyamine fibrils

• Jian-Jun Yuan,
• Pei-Xin Zhu,
• Daisuke Noda and
• Ren-Hua Jin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 793–804, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.90

• ]. Moreover, polypeptides are unsuitable for the large-scale production of silica nanotubes. In contrast, LPEI is one of simplest synthetic polymers and its alkali-induced self-assembly can be easily performed in water at room temperature. According to the recipe to the silica nanotubes shown in Figure 1A–C

Approaches to nanostructure control and functionalizations of polymer@silica hybrid nanograss generated by biomimetic silica mineralization on a self-assembled polyamine layer

• Jian-Jun Yuan and
• Ren-Hua Jin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 760–773, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.84

• one of the simplest synthetic polymers, LPEI is cost-effective and suitable for a wide range of applications. The silica mineralization reaction was assumed to occur site-selectively on the surface of crystalline LPEI aggregates, producing the LPEI@silica hybrid nanostructure or pure silica materials