title: Passion fruit-like nano-architectures: a general synthesis route.
abstract: Noble metal nanostructures have demonstrated a number of intriguing features for both medicine and catalysis. However, accumulation issues have prevented their clinical translation, while their use in catalysis has shown serious efficiency and stability hurdles. Here we introduce a simple and robust synthetic protocol for passion fruit-like nano-architectures composed by a silica shell embedding polymeric arrays of ultrasmall noble metal nanoparticles. These nano-architectures show interesting features for both oncology and catalysis. They avoid the issue of persistence in organism thanks to their fast biodegradation in renal clearable building blocks. Furthermore, their calcination results in yolk-shell structures composed by naked metal or alloy nanospheres shielded from aggregation by a silica shell.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanotechnology Innovation @NEST, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.|NEST, Scuola Normale Superiore, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cassano
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanotechnology Innovation @NEST, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: David
authors.affiliation: NEST, Scuola Normale Superiore, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.|NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze - CNR, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Luin
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanotechnology Innovation @NEST, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, P.zza San Silvestro, 12 - 56126, Pisa (PI), Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Voliani