Tailoring cubic and dodecagonal quasicrystalline mesophases of mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles and core/shell structure

Abstract

Herein, the synthesis of mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles with cubic and dodecagonal quasicrystalline mesophases is reported. Mesoporous nanoparticles are synthesized by base-catalyzed hydrolysis and condensation reactions of silane-based monomers in the presence of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), which is used as a structure-directing agent to form the mesostructures. Cubic orders in the mesophases are formed using tetraethoxysilane monomers, and the mesophase is tuned to the dodecagonal quasicrystalline order by using binary monomers including tetraethoxysilane and dimethyldiethoxysilane. The size of the quasicrystalline-phase organosilica is tailored by changing the amount of base catalyst used. Additionally, we obtained well-defined core/shell structures with quasicrystalline ordered mesoporous organosilica. Furthermore, we investigate the cytotoxicity of mesoporous organisilica nanoparticles using a CCK-8 assay to demonstrate that our NPs have a potential for the utilization as biomedical applications. These novel findings could guide the formation of mesophase structures with quasicrystalline order in silica-based mesoporous nanoparticles.