Design of Silica Nanostructures with Tunable Architectures Templated by Ferrocene Peptides

Abstract

AbstractIn this work, we report the synthesis of silica nanomaterials with controllable architectures using self‐assembling peptides as templates. We utilized three different peptides, including ferrocene‐L‐Phe‐OH (Fc−F), ferrocene‐L‐Phe‐L‐Phe‐OH (Fc‐FF) and ferrocene‐L‐Phe‐L‐Phe‐L‐Phe‐OH (Fc‐FFF). These peptides could self‐assemble in aqueous solution to form one‐dimensional (1D) nanostructures, such as nanofibers and nanohelices. By incorporating tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and co‐structure directing agent N‐trimethoxysilylpropyl‐N, N, N‐trimethylammonium chloride (TMAPS), we could control the condensation and mineralization of the silica precursors with the self‐assembled peptide nanostructures. This led to the formation of a series of silica nanostructures, including nanotubes, nanohelices and mesoporous silica nanofibers. The morphology of the silica nanostructures could be controlled by changing the length of the peptide sequence, pH, solvents and counterions. The results outline a strategy for the fabrication of well‐ordered silica nanomaterials, which is of significance for the practical applications in biosensing, catalysis and drug delivery.