Hollow/Rattle-Type Mesoporous Nanostructures by a Structural Difference-Based Selective Etching Strategy

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 529 - 539
• Main Authors: Chen, Yu, Chen, Hangrong, Guo, Limin, He, Qianjun, Chen, Feng, Zhou, Jian, Feng, Jingwei, Shi, Jianlin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 26.01.2010
• Subjects: Antineoplastic Agents - chemistry; Antineoplastic Agents - metabolism; Cell Line, Tumor; Doxorubicin - chemistry; Doxorubicin - metabolism; Drug Carriers - chemical synthesis; Drug Carriers - chemistry; Drug Carriers - toxicity; Ferric Compounds - chemistry; Ferrosoferric Oxide - chemistry; Gold - chemistry; Hemoglobins - chemistry; Hemolysis - drug effects; Humans; Immobilized Proteins - chemistry; Nanospheres - chemistry; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanostructures - toxicity; Porosity; Silicon Dioxide - chemistry; hollow mesoporous silica; selective etching; homogeneous templating; rattle structure; structural difference; heterogeneous structure
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/nn901398j

A novel “structural difference-based selective etching” strategy has been developed to fabricate hollow/rattle-type mesoporous nanostructures, which was achieved by making use of the structural differences, rather than traditional compositional differences, between the core and the shell of a silica core/mesoporous silica shell structure to create hollow interiors. Highly dispersed hollow mesoporous silica spheres with controllable particle/pore sizes could be synthesized by this method, which show high loading capacity (1222 mg/g) for anticancer drug (doxorubicin). Hemolyticity and cytotoxicity assays of hollow mesoporous silica spheres were conducted, and the synthesized hollow mesoporous silica spheres with large pores show ultrafast immobilization of protein-based biomolecules (hemoglobin). On the basis of this strategy, different kinds of heterogeneous rattle-type nanostructures with inorganic nanocrystals, such as Au, Fe2O3, and Fe3O4 nanoparticles, as the core and mesoporous silica as the shell were also prepared. This strategy could be extended as a general approach to synthesize various hollow/rattle-type nanostructures by creating adequate structural differences between cores and shells in core/shell structures in nanoscale.