Electrostatic co-assembly of nanoparticles with oppositely charged small molecules into static and dynamic superstructures

Tong Bian; Andrea Gardin; Julius Gemen; Lothar Houben; Claudio Perego; Byeongdu Lee; Nadav Elad; Zonglin Chu; Giovanni M Pavan; Rafal Klajn

doi:10.1038/s41557-021-00752-9

Electrostatic co-assembly of nanoparticles with oppositely charged small molecules into static and dynamic superstructures

Tong Bian, Andrea Gardin, Julius Gemen, Lothar Houben, Claudio Perego, Byeongdu Lee, Nadav Elad, Zonglin Chu, Giovanni M Pavan, Rafal Klajn^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

157 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Coulombic interactions can be used to assemble charged nanoparticles into higher-order structures, but the process requires oppositely charged partners that are similarly sized. The ability to mediate the assembly of such charged nanoparticles using structurally simple small molecules would greatly facilitate the fabrication of nanostructured materials and harnessing their applications in catalysis, sensing and photonics. Here we show that small molecules with as few as three electric charges can effectively induce attractive interactions between oppositely charged nanoparticles in water. These interactions can guide the assembly of charged nanoparticles into colloidal crystals of a quality previously only thought to result from their co-crystallization with oppositely charged nanoparticles of a similar size. Transient nanoparticle assemblies can be generated using positively charged nanoparticles and multiply charged anions that are enzymatically hydrolysed into mono- and/or dianions. Our findings demonstrate an approach for the facile fabrication, manipulation and further investigation of static and dynamic nanostructured materials in aqueous environments.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	940-949
Number of pages	10
Journal	Nature Chemistry
Volume	13
Issue number	10
Early online date	6 Sept 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00752-9
Publication status	Published - Oct 2021

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) (grants 820008 to R.K. and 818776 to G.M.P.), the Minerva Foundation with funding from the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research and the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants 200021_175735 and IZLIZ2_183336 to G.M.P.). We acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 812868. Z.C. acknowledges support from the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, the Koshland Foundation and a McDonald–Leapman grant. The authors acknowledge the computational resources provided by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). The support of the Irving and Cherna Moskowitz Center for Nano and Bio-Nano Imaging is gratefully acknowledged. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility, operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Extraordinary facility operations were supported in part by the DOE Office of Science through the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory, a consortium of DOE national laboratories focused on the response to COVID-19, with funding provided by the Coronavirus CARES Act. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

General Chemistry
General Chemical Engineering

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10.1038/s41557-021-00752-9

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7611764Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

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abstract = "Coulombic interactions can be used to assemble charged nanoparticles into higher-order structures, but the process requires oppositely charged partners that are similarly sized. The ability to mediate the assembly of such charged nanoparticles using structurally simple small molecules would greatly facilitate the fabrication of nanostructured materials and harnessing their applications in catalysis, sensing and photonics. Here we show that small molecules with as few as three electric charges can effectively induce attractive interactions between oppositely charged nanoparticles in water. These interactions can guide the assembly of charged nanoparticles into colloidal crystals of a quality previously only thought to result from their co-crystallization with oppositely charged nanoparticles of a similar size. Transient nanoparticle assemblies can be generated using positively charged nanoparticles and multiply charged anions that are enzymatically hydrolysed into mono- and/or dianions. Our findings demonstrate an approach for the facile fabrication, manipulation and further investigation of static and dynamic nanostructured materials in aqueous environments.",

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AU - Perego, Claudio

AU - Lee, Byeongdu

AU - Elad, Nadav

AU - Chu, Zonglin

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Electrostatic co-assembly of nanoparticles with oppositely charged small molecules into static and dynamic superstructures

Abstract

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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

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