A novel oil-water microemulsion strategy for controllable synthesis of large mesoporous carbon nanoparticles

Abstract

Recently, the carbon nanoparticles with defined architecture, small particle diameter and large mesopore size, have aroused people's enormous interests on account of their laudable properties. Here, it is novel mesoporous carbon nanoparticles (MCNs) that have been successfully fabricated in a neoteric oil-water microemulsion system, which is developed to synchronously adjust the surface roughness, particle diameter, and large mesopore size through accommodating the emulsion polarity. Besides, pentanol as a cosurfactant not only significantly affects the evolution of mesopore size but also acts an vital role in the interfacial interaction between carbon precursors and soft templates, leading to the fluffy growth of particles. Interestingly, an extended swelling-penetration mechanism is subtly put forward to explain the formation and transformation of MCNs, which would provide a simple and unique ingenuity for this material species. Remarkably, to fulfill the multifunctional properties of such MCNs, MCNs-2 is further utilized as a fluorescent probe platform to detect mutated nucleic acids with high selectivity and low detection limit, as well as a medical carrier to work well in drug delivery system with high adsorption/release properties and extremely low cytotoxicity, which would empower it with luciferous prospects for the applications in biosensor and biomedical fields.