Abstract
By manipulating the nucleation and growth of solid materials, the synthesis of various sophisticated nanostructures has been achieved. Similar methodology, if applied to liquid, could enable the mass-production and control of ultra-small droplets at the scale of nanoparticles (10 -18 L or below). It would be highly desirable since droplets plays a fundamental role in numerous applications. Here we present a general strategy to synthesize and manipulate nanoscale droplets, similar to what has been done to solid nanoparticles in the classis solution-synthesis. It was achieved by a solute-induced phase separation which initiates the nucleation of droplets from a homogeneous solution. These liquid nanoparticles have great potentials to be manipulated like their solid counterparts, borrowing from the vast methodologies of nanoparticle synthesis, such as burst nucleation, seeded growth and co-precipitations. LNPs also serve as a general synthetic platform, to fabricate nanoreactors, drug-loaded carriers, and other hollow nanostructures with a variety of shell materials.
Original language | English (US) |
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Journal | Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 16 2020 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-11-19Acknowledgements: The authors thank the Facility for Analysis Characterisation Testing and Simulation of the Nanyang Technological University for access to the facilities. This work is support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21673117), Recruitment Program of Global Experts, Jiangsu Provincial Foundation for Specially Appointed Professor, Start-up fund of Nanjing Tech University (39837102), and SICAM Fellowship from Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials. Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1: RG10/16, RG111/15, Singapore. H.Z. thanks the financial support from ITC via Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), and the start-up grant (Project No. 9380100) and grants (Project No. 9610478 and 1886921) in City University of Hong Kong.