Facile synthesis of hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles with in-situ formed CuS templates

Abstract

Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles have been heavily explored as drug delivery vehicles due to their high drug loading capacity resulting from their interior cavities. Previously, hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles were mainly prepared with pre-synthesized templates, such as iron oxide, solid silica, polystyrene and gold nanoparticles. Therefore multiple steps were required, which make the synthesis complex and relatively time consuming. Here, we reported a novel approach to obtain hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles by using in-situ formed copper sulfide nanoparticles as temporary templates. Without pre-synthesized templates, hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles can be obtained with minimum number of steps. The obtained nanoparticles with uniform morphology, excellent biocompatibility, high drug loading capacity and pH-responsive drug release behavior can be excellent drug delivery vehicles.