Swelling-Induced Symmetry Breaking: A Versatile Approach to the Scalable Production of Colloidal Particles with a Janus Structure.

Janus particles are widely sought for applications related to colloidal assembly, stabilization of emulsions, and development of active colloids, among others. Here we report a versatile route to the fabrication of well-controlled Janus particles by simply breaking the symmetry of spherical particles with swelling. When a polystyrene (PS) sphere covered by a rigid shell made of silica or polydopamine is exposed to a good solvent for PS, a gradually-increased pressure will be created inside the shell. If the pressure becomes high enough to poke a hole in the shell, the spherical symmetry will break while pushing out the swollen PS through the opening to generate a Janus particle comprised of two distinct components. One of the components is made of PS and its size is controlled by the extent of swelling. The other component is comprised of the rigid shell and remaining PS, with its overall diameter determined by the original PS sphere and the rigid shell. This solution-based route holds promises for the scalable production of complex Janus particles with a variety of compositions and in large quantities.

[1]  F. Schork,et al.  Fundamentals of Emulsion Polymerization. , 2020, Biomacromolecules.

[2]  W. Gu,et al.  Therapeutic Delivery of Polymeric Tadpole Nanostructures with High Selectivity to Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells. , 2020, Biomacromolecules.

[3]  Zhongfan Jia,et al.  UV-Crosslinked Polymer Nanostructures with Preserved Asymmetry and Surface Functionality. , 2020, Biomacromolecules.

[4]  Younan Xia,et al.  Synthesis, Transformation, and Utilization of Monodispersed Colloidal Spheres. , 2019, Accounts of chemical research.

[5]  Younan Xia,et al.  General Approach to the Synthesis of Hetero-Dimers of Metal Nanoparticles through Site-Selected Protection and Growth. , 2019, Nano letters.

[6]  Zhihong Nie,et al.  Symmetry-Breaking Synthesis of Multicomponent Nanoparticles. , 2019, Accounts of chemical research.

[7]  Zhongfan Jia,et al.  Uniform Symmetric and Asymmetric Polymer Nanostructures via Directed Chain Organization. , 2018, Biomacromolecules.

[8]  B. Grzybowski,et al.  Systems of mechanized and reactive droplets powered by multi-responsive surfactants , 2018, Nature.

[9]  Zhongfan Jia,et al.  Temperature-Directed Self-Assembly: from Tadpole to Multi-Arm Polymer Nanostructures Directly in Water. , 2017, ACS macro letters.

[10]  D. Zhao,et al.  Dumbbell-Shaped Bi-component Mesoporous Janus Solid Nanoparticles for Biphasic Interface Catalysis. , 2017, Angewandte Chemie.

[11]  Younan Xia,et al.  Keimvermitteltes Wachstum kolloidaler Metallnanokristalle , 2017 .

[12]  Younan Xia,et al.  Seed-Mediated Growth of Colloidal Metal Nanocrystals. , 2017, Angewandte Chemie.

[13]  Jie Zhang,et al.  Reconfiguring active particles by electrostatic imbalance. , 2016, Nature materials.

[14]  C. Mirkin,et al.  Polyelemental nanoparticle libraries , 2016, Science.

[15]  M. Monteiro,et al.  Temperature-Directed Self-Assembly of Multifunctional Polymeric Tadpoles. , 2015, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[16]  Xiaohui Song,et al.  Achieving Site-Specificity in Multistep Colloidal Synthesis. , 2015, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[17]  Anisotropic microparticles created by phase separation of polymer blends confined in monodisperse emulsion drops. , 2015, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[18]  Limin Wu,et al.  Fabrication, properties and applications of Janus particles. , 2012, Chemical Society reviews.

[19]  Hui Zhang,et al.  Controlling the nucleation and growth of silver on palladium nanocubes by manipulating the reaction kinetics. , 2012, Angewandte Chemie.

[20]  Z. Nie,et al.  A general approach to synthesize asymmetric hybrid nanoparticles by interfacial reactions. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[21]  Cai‐Feng Wang,et al.  Versatile Bifunctional Magnetic‐Fluorescent Responsive Janus Supraballs Towards the Flexible Bead Display , 2011, Advanced materials.

[22]  S. Granick,et al.  Supracolloidal Reaction Kinetics of Janus Spheres , 2011, Science.

[23]  Xiaohu Gao,et al.  Nanocomposites with spatially separated functionalities for combined imaging and magnetolytic therapy. , 2010, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[24]  David A. Weitz,et al.  Janus Supraparticles by Induced Phase Separation of Nanoparticles in Droplets , 2009 .

[25]  Dayang Wang,et al.  Genesis of anisotropic colloidal particles via protrusion of polystyrene from polyelectrolyte multilayer encapsulation. , 2009, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[26]  Younan Xia,et al.  A facile synthesis of asymmetric hybrid colloidal particles. , 2009, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[27]  Alfons van Blaaderen,et al.  Self-assembly of colloids with liquid protrusions. , 2009, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[28]  M. Kappl,et al.  Hollow silica spheres: synthesis and mechanical properties. , 2009, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[29]  S. Glotzer,et al.  Anisotropy of building blocks and their assembly into complex structures. , 2007, Nature materials.

[30]  David J Pine,et al.  Formation of anisotropic polymer colloids by disparate relaxation times. , 2006, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[31]  John W. Vanderhoff,et al.  Phase separation in polystyrene latex interpenetrating polymer networks , 1990 .