Robust Microcompartments with Hydrophobically Gated Shells

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• 作者：Jonathan S. Sander ; Mathias Steinacher ; Eve Loiseau ; Ahmet F. Demir枚rs ; Michele Zanini ; Lucio Isa ; Andr茅 R. Studart
• 刊名：Langmuir
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：June 30, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：31
• 期：25
• 页码：6965-6970
• 全文大小：460K
• ISSN：1520-5827

文摘

We report on robust synthetic microcompartments with hydrophobically gated shells that can reversibly swell and contract multiple times upon external stimuli. The gating mechanism relies on a hydrophilic鈥揾ydrophobic transition of a polymer layer that is grafted on inorganic colloidosomes using atom-transfer radical polymerization. As a result of such a transition, the initially tight hydrophobic shell becomes permeable to the diffusion of hydrophilic solutes across the microcompartment walls. Surprisingly, the microcompartments are strong enough to retain their spherical shape during several swelling and contraction cycles. This provides a powerful alternative platform for the creation of synthetic microreactors and protocells that interact with the surrounding media through a simple gating mechanism and are sufficiently robust for further engineering of increasingly complex compartmentalized structures.