title: Salt-Driven Deposition of Thermoresponsive Polymer-Coated Metal Nanoparticles on Solid Substrates.
abstract: Here we report on a simple, generally applicable method for depositing metal nanoparticles on a wide variety of solid surfaces under all aqueous conditions. Noble-metal nanoparticles obtained by citrate reduction followed by coating with thermoresponsive polymers spontaneously form a monolayer-like structure on a wide variety of substrates in presence of sodium chloride whereas this phenomenon does not occur in salt-free medium. Interestingly, this phenomenon occurs below the cloud point temperature of the polymers and we hypothesize that salt ion-induced screening of electrostatic charges on the nanoparticle surface entropically favors hydrophobic association between the polymer-coated nanoparticles and a hydrophobic substrate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Ghent University, Ottergemsesteenweg 460, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Zhiyue
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S4-bis, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Samarendra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maji
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Ghent University, Ottergemsesteenweg 460, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: André B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: da Fonseca Antunes
authors.affiliation: Inflammation Research Centre, VIB, Ghent.|Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology, Ghent University, 9052, Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Riet
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: De Rycke
authors.affiliation: Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S4-bis, 9000, Ghent, Belgium. Richard.hoogenboom@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hoogenboom
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Ghent University, Ottergemsesteenweg 460, 9000, Ghent, Belgium. br.degeest@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Bruno G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: De Geest
keywords: gold nanoparticles; polymers; self-assembly; surface chemistry; thin films