Achievement

Hollow inorganic nanospheres exhibit catalytic activities and properties similar to their solid counterparts but with the advantages of high surface area and low density. IGERT Trainee Spyridon Monastiriotis and CCNY Professor Alexander Couzis have developed a facile scalable method for the fabrication of porous hollow silica spheres using equilibrium catanionic vesicles and amidine functionalized polystyrene (PS) latex (?90nm) as templates. Electrostatic interactions promoted the formation of a silica shell on the outer surfaces of the templates. The unilamellar phase of the vesicles was established with small angle neutron scattering and dynamic light scattering. The silica particles were characterized by cryo-, transmission-, and scanning electron microscopy and light scattering experiments.