Bowl- and porous sphere-shaped supramolecular assemblies and their application as templates for confined assembly of gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Polymeric supramolecular assemblies provide a simple and versatile approach to fabricate specific nanostructures and functional nanocomposites in recent years. However, only few supramolecular assembly morphologies, in most cases, micelles and vesicles, have been reported. Herein, novel bowl- and porous sphere-shaped supramolecular assemblies were prepared by self-assembly of a supramolecular copolymer which was formed through end group ionic interaction between hydrophilic poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine) with amino end groups (PMPC-NH₂) and hydrophobic polystyrene with carboxyl end groups (PSt-COOH). Furthermore, it is interesting to find that the electrostatic induced supramolecular assemblies possess great potential for further functionalization at the ionic combining interfaces. Gold nanoparticles with a weak positive charge on their surface were assembled in a series of supramolecular assemblies. It was important to note that the gold nanoparticles were preferentially located at the inner interface of the supramolecular assemblies, bowls, porous spheres and others. The present method might be promising to extend to other supramolecular and nanoparticle systems to build spatial distribution precisely controlled nanoparticle–polymer composites.