Uniform Concave Polystyrene-Carbon Core鈥揝hell Nanospheres by a Swelling Induced Buckling Process

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• 作者：Deyu Liu ; Xinxing Peng ; Binghui Wu ; Xueyun Zheng ; Tracy T Chuong ; Jialuo Li ; Shigang Sun ; Galen D. Stucky
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：August 12, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：137
• 期：31
• 页码：9772-9775
• 全文大小：323K
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

We have developed a facile procedure that can create asymmetrical building blocks by uniformly deforming nanospheres into C_鈭?i>v symmetry at low cost and high quality. Concave polystyrene@carbon (PS@C) core鈥搒hell nanospheres were produced by a very simple microwave-assisted alcohol thermal treatment of spherical PS@C nanoparticles. The dimensions and ratio of the concave part can be precisely controlled by temperature and solvents. The concavity is created by varying the alcohol-thermal treatment to tune the swelling properties that lead to the mechanical deformation of the PS@C core鈥搒hell structure. The driving force is attributed to the significant volume increase that occurs upon polystyrene core swelling with the incorporation of solvent. We propose a mechanism adapted from published models for the depression of soft capsules. An extrapolation from this model predicts that the rigid shell is used to generate a cavity in the unbuckled shell, which is experimentally confirmed. This swelling and deformation route is flexible and should be applicable to other polymeric nanoparticles to produce asymmetrical nanoparticles.