Fabrication and Scalable Production of Nanobottles

这笔赠款支持的研究将创造与制造纳米瓶有关的新知识，这些纳米瓶由不同的材料制成，尺寸、形状和开口大小可控。宏观瓶子在我们的日常生活中随处可见。瓶子的独特设计在包装、储存和运输方面提供了立竿见影的优势。虽然已经有了成熟的技术来制造由玻璃、金属和聚合物制成的工业规模的宏观瓶子，但由于缺乏能够处理这种微小结构的工具，不可能将同样的技术应用于纳米(甚至微观)瓶子的制造。这笔赠款支持基础研究，为开发制造纳米瓶的精确和可靠的方法提供所需的知识，这项研究的结果将使美国经济和社会受益。纳米瓶越来越多地被用于包裹、控制释放和药物输送等应用，对生物医学和医疗保健有直接影响。它们还有望实现对环境修复和农业所必需的化学物质的封装和受控释放。多学科和协作的性质将有助于扩大代表不足的群体在研究中的参与，为丰富参与研究的学生的教育和培训经验提供一种工具。这项研究的结果将进一步用于加强课堂教学，包括开发与材料科学和生物医学工程的关键概念相关的演示，例如动画和实验。这项研究将集中在纳米瓶的形式，即直径50−500 nm的胶体中空颗粒，以及在否则不透水的墙壁上有一个孔。通过在胶体模板的表面涂覆不同的材料，然后选择性地蚀刻模板，可以获得由模板精确定义其大小和形状的中空颗粒。这种方法已经成功地应用于各种材料，但目前还没有可靠的策略来在中空颗粒的壁上生成可控的孔洞。本研究旨在通过溶胀壳层模板来填补对孔洞形成机理(S)的认识空白。当膨胀诱导的压力达到临界值时，它会自发地在外壳上戳一个洞来释放压力，让膨胀的模板通过开口逃逸。这种制备方法基本上可以应用于所有类型的材料，包括陶瓷、金属和聚合物，只要它们能够作为均匀的外壳被涂覆在胶体模板上。将对包衣和溶胀过程进行实验研究和理论建模，以建立对未来纳米瓶制造所需的机理理解和有洞察力的指导。在概念验证演示中，将对纳米瓶的封装和随后用于根除癌细胞的治疗剂的受控释放进行评估。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This grant supports research that will create new knowledge related to the manufacturing of nanobottles made of diverse materials, together with controllable dimensions, shapes, and opening sizes. Macroscopic bottles are ubiquitous in our everyday life. The unique design of a bottle offers immediate advantages in terms of easiness and convenience for packaging, storage, and transportation. While there are mature technologies for manufacturing macroscopic bottles made of glasses, metals, and polymers on an industrial scale, it is impossible to apply the same technology to the fabrication of nanoscopic (or even microscopic) bottles due to lack of tools capable of handling such minuscule structures. This grant supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge for the development of a precise and robust method for fabricating nanobottles and the results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. The nanobottles are increasingly preferred for applications involving encapsulation, controlled release, and drug delivery, with immediate impacts on biomedicine and healthcare. They are also expected to enable the encapsulation and controlled release of chemical substances essential to environmental remediation and agriculture. The multi-disciplinary and collaborative nature will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research, offering a vehicle to enrich the education and training experiences of participating students. The results from this research will be further adapted to enhance classroom teaching, including the development of demonstrations, e.g. animations and experiments, related to the key concepts of materials science and biomedical engineering.This research will focus on nanobottles in the form of colloidal hollow particles of 50−500 nm in diameter, together with a single hole in the otherwise impermeable wall. By coating the surface of a colloidal template with a different material and then selectively etching away the template, one can obtain a hollow particle with its size and shape precisely defined by the template. This method has been successfully applied to a variety of materials, but there is no reliable strategy for generating a well-controlled hole in the wall of the hollow particle. This research is to fill the knowledge gap on the mechanism(s) of hole creation by swelling the shell-coated template with a solvent. When the swelling-induced pressure reaches a critical level, it will spontaneously poke a hole in the shell to release the pressure and allow the swollen template to escape through the opening. This fabrication method can be applied to essentially all types of materials, including ceramics, metals, and polymers, as long as they can be coated on the colloidal templates as uniform shells. Both the coating and swelling processes will be experimentally investigated and theoretically modeled to establish a mechanistic understanding and insightful guidance necessary for the future manufacturing of nanobottles. In a proof-of-concept demonstration, the nanobottles will be evaluated for the encapsulation and then controlled release of a therapeutic agent for the eradication of cancer cells.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.