A Dynamic Temperature Control System for the Optimized Production of Liquid Metal Nanoparticles
2020
Nanoparticles
(NPs) of gallium-based liquid metal (LM) alloys have
potential applications in flexible electronics, drug delivery, and
molecular imaging. They can be readily produced using top-down methods
such as sonication. However, the sonication process generates heat
that can cause dealloying of NPs through hydrolysis and oxidation
of gallium. This limits the sonication power and period that can be
applied for disrupting LM into smaller particles with high concentrations.
Also, it remains challenging to achieve long-term colloidal stability
of NPs in biological buffers. Here, we develop a dynamic temperature
control system for improving the production performance of LM NPs.
The enhanced performance is reflected by the significantly increased
particle concentration, the decreased overall particle size, the prevention
of the formation of oxide nanorods, and the versatility of producing
NPs of different types of alloys. In addition, we design a brushed
polyethylene glycol polymer with multiple phosphonic acid groups for
effectively anchoring the NPs. More importantly, we discover that
phosphate can effectively passivate the surface of NPs to further
improve their stability. Using these strategies, the produced NPs
remain stable in biological buffers for at least six months. Thus,
the proposed methods can unleash the vast potential of LM NPs for
biomedical applications.
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