Abstract
Monodisperse polystyrene spheres are functional materials with interesting properties, such as high cohesion strength, strong adsorptivity, and surface reactivity. They have shown a high application value in biomedicine, information engineering, chromatographic fillers, supercapacitor electrode materials, and other fields. To fully understand and tailor particle synthesis, the methods for characterization of their complex 3D morphological features need to be further explored. Here we present a chemical imaging study based on three-dimensional confocal Raman microscopy (3D-CRM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for individual porous swollen polystyrene/poly (glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene di-methacrylate) particles. Polystyrene particles were synthesized with different co-existing chemical entities, which could be identified and assigned to distinct regions of the same particle. The porosity was studied by a combination of SEM and FIB. Images of milled particles indicated a comparable porosity on the surface and in the bulk. The combination of standard analytical techniques such as DRIFT and NMR spectroscopies yielded new insights into the inner structure and chemical composition of these particles. This knowledge supports the further development of particle synthesis and the design of new strategies to prepare particles with complex hierarchical architectures.
Highlights
Modified polystyrene particles are versatile and popular in many scientific fields, e.g., in material sciences, engineering, catalysis, nanomedicine, and biotechnology [1,2,3,4].The tailored design of particles enables new approaches for imaging and drug delivery [5].One of the most important approaches is the tuning of particle morphology and topology as well as their charge distribution [4]
Polystyrene particles S1 were dispersed in water and treated with an emulsion consisting of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), ethylene di-methacrylate (EDMA), sodium lauryl sulfate (SDS), polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), and 1-hexanol
This study shows that the combination of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and 3D confocal Raman microscopy (3D-CRM) is wellsuited for controlled synthesis of polymer particles
Summary
Modified polystyrene particles are versatile and popular in many scientific fields, e.g., in material sciences, engineering, catalysis, nanomedicine, and biotechnology [1,2,3,4].The tailored design of particles enables new approaches for imaging and drug delivery [5].One of the most important approaches is the tuning of particle morphology and topology as well as their charge distribution [4]. The availability of synthetic procedures leading to polystyrene spheres with narrow size distributions and their ability to swell in different media make them ideal templates for the generation of more complex isotropic and anisotropic materials [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. For this purpose, it is important to control specific particle properties, such as size and size distribution, shape, surface porosity, and chemical composition during synthesis [11]
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