Fabrication and Scalable Production of Nanobottles

该基金支持的研究将创造与制造由不同材料制成的纳米瓶相关的新知识，这些纳米瓶的尺寸、形状和开口尺寸都是可控的。宏观瓶子在我们的日常生活中无处不在。瓶子的独特设计为包装、储存和运输提供了简单方便的直接优势。虽然有成熟的技术可以在工业规模上制造由玻璃、金属和聚合物制成的宏观瓶子，但由于缺乏能够处理这种微小结构的工具，不可能将相同的技术应用于纳米级（甚至微观）瓶子的制造。该基金支持基础研究，以提供所需的知识，以开发一种精确而可靠的制造纳米瓶的方法，这项研究的结果将有益于美国经济和社会。纳米瓶越来越多地应用于封装、控释和给药等领域，在生物医学和医疗保健领域有着直接的影响。它们还有望使对环境修复和农业至关重要的化学物质的封装和控制释放成为可能。多学科和合作的性质将有助于扩大代表性不足的群体参与研究，为参与的学生提供丰富教育和培训经验的工具。这项研究的结果将进一步应用于课堂教学，包括发展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。这项研究将集中在直径为50 - 500纳米的胶体空心颗粒形式的纳米瓶上，在不透水的壁上有一个单孔。通过在胶体模板表面涂上不同的材料，然后选择性地蚀刻模板，可以得到一个中空的颗粒，其大小和形状由模板精确定义。这种方法已经成功地应用于多种材料，但目前还没有可靠的策略来在空心颗粒的壁上产生一个控制良好的孔。本研究是为了填补空白的机制，孔形成机制的壳涂层模板溶胀与溶剂。当膨胀诱导的压力达到临界水平时，它会自发地在外壳上戳一个洞来释放压力，使膨胀的模板从开口中逸出。这种制造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，只要它们能被涂在胶体模板上作为均匀的外壳。涂层和膨胀过程将进行实验研究和理论建模，以建立对纳米瓶未来制造所必需的机理理解和深刻指导。在概念验证演示中，将评估纳米瓶的封装和控制释放用于根除癌细胞的治疗剂。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.