Bio‐inorganic Nanohybrids Based on Organoclay Self‐assembly

Abstract

A core focus of the burgeoning field of nanomaterials science is to develop innovative synthesis protocols that enable controlled and integrated organization of functional organic, inorganic and biological building blocks [1,2]. In this context, research on the synthesis of clay-based organic-inorganic hybrid materials has received considerable attention because these lamellar materials not only possess ordered and constrained structures in 2D but also furnish interesting chemical intercalation and surface properties. As a result, entrapment and orientation of various functional guest molecules into layered inorganic solids has been well exploited [3][4][5][6].Considering the technological importance of layered materials, there is a great deal of interest in the rational design of hybrid bio-inorganic composites on the nanometer to micrometer length scales. These hybrids encompass highly selective recognition properties associated with biological species, combined with catalytic, optical and electronic properties of the inorganic lamellar framework. Such biomaterials have numerous biotechnological applications ([5,6] and references therein). However, as naturally occurring clay minerals suffer from heterogeneity and poor swelling ability in polar/nonpolar solvents, both of which hamper their application, current research has placed increasing emphasis on the development of low temperature protocols for synthetic clay minerals [7]. Recently, a new class of synthetic organic-inorganic layered materials have emerged that are derivatives of 2 : 1 trioctahedral phyllosilicates with covalently bonded organic moieties occupying the interlayer regions. Significantly, the structural and chemical properties of these organically modified phyllosilicates can be utilized for the integration of functional guest biomolecules to produce bio-inorganic hybrids with potential applications in biosensing, biocatalysis and pharmaceutical/biomedical devices.This chapter reviews recent work on the fabrication and characterization of bio-inorganic nanomaterials based on organically functionalized magnesium phyllosilicate materials. We begin with the general procedures used to synthesize and characterize these organoclays (Section 8.2), and then describe how higher-order

Improving the prediction of environmental fate of engineered nanomaterials by fractal modelling

“…The initial monocrystals are then considered information carriers, responsible for the subsequent symmetrical aggregate self-assembly (Walker et al, 2010b(Walker et al, , 2010a. This approach to modelling hierarchical nanoparticles enhanced by physicochemical functionalization can be further applied to modelling heteroaggregation (Bitutskaya et al, 2013;Patil and Mann, 2008;Ruiz-Hitzky et al, 2008). Experimental evidence (Bitutskaya et al, 2013;Neil et al, 2016) shows that during the formation of hybrid nanosystems NMs can rebuild their structure depending on the intrinsic qualities (i.e.…”