One-Pot Preparation of Hollow Silica Spheres by Using Thermosensitive Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) as a Reversible Template

Hollow silica nanospheres with mesoporous shells were successfully fabricated with a new one-pot strategy by using a thermosensitive polymer, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm), as a reversible template without the need of further calcination or chemical etching. By simply regulating the solution temperature with respect to the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAm, PNIPAm chains can reversibly form aggregates or dissolve in aqueous solution. The thermosensitive character makes PNIPAm chains behave as soft templates for the formation of core−shell silica nanospheres at elevated temperature (>LCST), and they will then diffuse out of the cores at lower temperature (

Keywords:

• Polymer
• Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)
• Adsorption
• Ether
• Desorption
• Lower critical solution temperature
• Mesoporous material
• Chemistry
• Aqueous solution
• Chromatography
• Calcination
• Scanning electron microscope
• Polymer chemistry

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