Abstract
Immobilizing particles on beads, fibers, or filaments, when only one side is exposed to the reaction medium and therefore can be selectively functionalized, is a scalable and easy to control strategy for the fabrication of amphiphilic Janus particles. Here we describe a new, robust method for the fabrication of amphiphilic Janus particles based on immobilization of polymethylsilsesquioxane (PMSQ) particles on polycarbonate (PC), a high impact-resistance polymer with superior mechanical properties. The immobilization of the particles on the PC microspores is performed via inverse solvent displacement method. PMSQ particles are added to a PC solution in tetrahydrofuran (THF), a good solvent for PC. The solution is then precipitated by the introduction of aqueous surfactant solution (antisolvent for PC) under an ultrasonic field. It is important to note that THF and water are miscible and do not form emulsion. During precipitation, PMSQ particles are assembled onto the surface of the PC spherical precipitates/microspheres. The exposed hemispheres of the PMSQ particles are then selectively silanized by (3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) to introduce amine groups on their surface. To increase the polarity of the functionalized hemispheres, the amine groups are further modified to introduce carboxyl groups. SEM characterization confirms the fine embedment of PMSQ particles onto the PC microspheres. Covalent attachment of silica nanoparticles (NPs) to the functionalized hemispheres of the resulting particles along with fluorescent confocal microscopy conclusively prove the successful fabrication of amphiphilic Janus particles. The immobilization of particles onto highly rigid polymeric microspheres such as PC may pave the way for the development of a robust fabrication procedure with high resistance to temperature fluctuations and harsh mixing conditions that can arise during preparation. This method can be implemented toward a large variety of other synthetic commercial polymers such as polyamide, polyether sulfones, Polyether, ether ketone, or similar.
Highlights
Amphiphilic particles are a special class of materials where the particles are functionalized asymmetrically with domains of hydrophobic and hydrophilic ligands on their respective hemispheres [1,2,3,4,5,6]
PMSQ particles with a diameter of ~2 μm are added to the PC solution, which is precipitated by the addition of a dodecylethyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB) (60 mg/L) aqueous solution under an ultrasonic field at a rate of 1 mL/min
This study presents a new robust method for the fabrication of amphiphilic Janus particles by
Summary
Amphiphilic particles are a special class of materials where the particles are functionalized asymmetrically with domains of hydrophobic and hydrophilic ligands on their respective hemispheres [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Immobilizing particles on beads, fibers, or filaments, when only one side is exposed to the reaction medium and can be selectively functionalized, is a scalable and easy to control strategy for the fabrication of amphiphilic Janus particles. This approach has been successfully implemented by particle embedment on electro-spun polymer fiber [34,35] and on spherical polystyrene beads [36]. The current study presents the immobilization of particles on a high impact-resistance polymer with superior mechanical properties, such as polycarbonate (PC).
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