Salt-Driven Deposition of Thermoresponsive Polymer-Coated Metal Nanoparticles on Solid Substrates.
Here we report on a simple, generally applicable method for depositing metal nanoparticles on a wide variety of solid surfaces under all aqueous conditions. Noble-metal nanoparticles obtained by citrate reduction followed by coating with thermoresponsive polymers spontaneously form a monolayer-like structure on a wide variety of substrates in presence of sodium chloride whereas this phenomenon does not occur in salt-free medium. Interestingly, this phenomenon occurs below the cloud point temperature of the polymers and we hypothesize that salt ion-induced screening of electrostatic charges on the nanoparticle surface entropically favors hydrophobic association between the polymer-coated nanoparticles and a hydrophobic substrate.
['Zhang|Zhiyue|Z|', 'Maji|Samarendra|S|', 'da Fonseca Antunes|André B|AB|', 'De Rycke|Riet|R|', 'Hoogenboom|Richard|R|', 'De Geest|Bruno G|BG|']
polymers gold nanoparticles self-assembly surface chemistry thin films