Surface plasmon resonance monitoring of Prussian blue analogue nanoparticles anchored on a gold-cysteamine substrate.

We report here a novel “one-pot” approach for the controlled growth and organization of Prussian blue nanostructures on three different surfaces: pure Au0, cysteamine-functionalized Au0, and SiO2-supported lipid bilayers with different natures of lipids. We demonstrate that fine control over the size, morphology, and the degree and homogeneity of the surface coverage by Prussian Blue (PB) nanostructures may be achieved by manipulating different parameters, which are the precursor concentration, the nature of the functional groups or the nature of lipids on the surfaces. This allows the growth of isolated PB nanopyramids and nanocubes or the design of thin dense films over centimeter square surfaces. The formation of unusual Prussian blue nanopyramids is discussed. Finally, we demonstrate, by using experimental techniques and theoretical modeling, that PB nanoparticles deposited on the gold surface exhibit strong photothermal properties, permitting a rapid temperature increase up to 90 °C with a conversion of the laser power of almost 50% for power source heat.

Ordered mesoporous materials and their modification with multiple functional groups are of wide scientific interest for many applications involving interaction with biological systems and biomolecules (e.g., catalysis, separation, sensor design, nano-science or drug delivery). In particular, the immobilization of enzymes onto solid supports is highly attractive for industry and synthetic chemistry, as it allows the development of stable and cheap biocatalysts. In this context, we developed novel silylated amino acid derivatives (Si-AA-NH2) that have been immobilized onto SBA-15 materials in biocompatible conditions avoiding the use of toxic catalyst, solvents or reagents. The resulting amino acid-functionalized materials (SBA-15@AA) were characterized by XRD, TGA, EA, Zeta potential, nitrogen sorption and FT-IR. Differences of the physical properties (e.g., charges) were observed while the structural ones remained unchanged. The adsorption of the enzyme lysozyme (Lyz) onto the resulting functionalized SBA-15@AA materials was evaluated at different pHs. The presence of different functional groups compared with bare SBA-15 showed better adsorption results, for example, 79.6 nmol of Lyz adsorbed per m2 of SBA-15@Tyr compared with the 44.9 nmol/m2 of the bare SBA-15.