General fabrication of hollow colloids from polymer self-assembly cavity-forming strategy

Abstract

The design, preparation and property-mining of hollow colloids are the focus of current research. However, there is an urgent need for a facile, controllable, general strategy to synthesize hollow structures with tunable cavities and diverse shell properties, but this remains a major challenge. Herein, we implement a universal method for the synthesis of hollow structures from microtumblers to hollow nanoparticles by the strategy of polyglycidyl methacrylate (PGMA) self-assembly cavity formation. The strategy includes self-assembly and diffusion-controlled silication procedures. The particle diameter, cavity shape, cavity microenvironment, and shell properties are precisely adjusted by the chain structure of the polymers. Random copolymers are used to fabricate hollow microtumblers, while hollow nanoparticles are obtained due to the contribution of block copolymers. Based on this facile approach, the one-pot encapsulation technology of active targets (e.g., Ag, Pt, Au nanoparticles, etc.) together with the polymers has been successfully established. In the course of the experiment, we found that these active targets, which show boundless prospects as micro/nano-containers, can be self-assembled in situ in hollow microtumblers. Thus, the hollow microtumblers present high-efficiency catalytic activity as a reactors. The reactive nature of the hollow structures also allows us to investigate the feasibility of seeded polymerization in the confined cavities. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of the PGMA polymer strategy as an affordable and scalable cavity-manufacturing protocol to generally fabricate hollow structures, which is expected to greatly enlarge the synthetic toolbox. This work can further enrich the theoretical exploration and technical reference of hollow materials in energy, catalysis, biomedicine and other fields.