Effect of monomer sequences on conformations of copolymers grafted on spherical nanoparticles: a Monte Carlo simulation study.

Functionalizing nanoparticles with organic ligands, such as oligomers, polymers, DNA, and proteins, is an attractive way to manipulate the interfacial interactions between the nanoparticles and the medium the particles are placed in, and thus control the nanoparticle assembly. In this paper we have conducted a Monte Carlo simulation study on copolymer grafted spherical nanoparticles to show the tremendous potential of using monomer sequence on the copolymers to tune the grafted chain conformation, and thus the effective interactions between copolymer grafted nanoparticles. We have studied AB copolymers with alternating, multiblock, or diblock sequences, where either A monomers or B monomers have monomer-monomer attractive interactions. Our focus has been to show the nontrivial effect of monomer sequence on the conformations of the grafted copolymers at various particle diameters, grafting densities, copolymer chain lengths, and monomer-monomer interactions in an implicit small molecule solvent. We observe that the monomer sequence, particle diameter, and grafting density dictate whether (a) the grafted chains aggregate to bring attractive monomers from multiple grafted chains together (interchain and intrachain monomer aggregation) if the enthalpy gained by doing so offsets the entropic loss caused by stretching of chains, or (b) each grafted chain folds onto itself to bring its attractive monomers together (only intrachain monomer aggregation) if the entropic loss from interchain aggregation cannot be overcome by the enthalpic gain. For six copolymers of chain length N=24 grafted on a spherical particle of diameter D=4, interchain and intrachain monomer aggregation occurs, and the radius of gyration varies nonmonotonically with increasing blockiness of the monomer sequence. At larger particle diameters the grafted chains transition to purely intrachain monomer aggregation. The radius of gyration varies monotonically with monomer sequence for intrachain monomer aggregation because as the sequence becomes blockier (like monomers are grouped together), the copolymer chain has to fold less compactly to maximize the enthalpically favorable contacts while maintaining high conformational entropy. The radius of gyration of alternating and diblock copolymers scales with chain length N through a power law (1/2) = alphaN(nu) with the prefactor alpha and scaling exponent nu, varying with monomer sequence and monomer-monomer attraction strength.

Molecular recognition using corona phase complexes made of synthetic polymers adsorbed on carbon nanotubes.

Understanding molecular recognition is of fundamental importance in applications such as therapeutics, chemical catalysis and sensor design. The most common recognition motifs involve biological macromolecules such as antibodies and aptamers. The key to biorecognition consists of a unique three-dimensional structure formed by a folded and constrained bioheteropolymer that creates a binding pocket, or an interface, able to recognize a specific molecule. Here, we show that synthetic heteropolymers, once constrained onto a single-walled carbon nanotube by chemical adsorption, also form a new corona phase that exhibits highly selective recognition for specific molecules. To prove the generality of this phenomenon, we report three examples of heteropolymer-nanotube recognition complexes for riboflavin, L-thyroxine and oestradiol. In each case, the recognition was predicted using a two-dimensional thermodynamic model of surface interactions in which the dissociation constants can be tuned by perturbing the chemical structure of the heteropolymer. Moreover, these complexes can be used as new types of spatiotemporal sensors based on modulation of the carbon nanotube photoemission in the near-infrared, as we show by tracking riboflavin diffusion in murine macrophages.

Controlling the electrophoretic mobility of single-walled carbon nanotubes: a comparison of theory and experiment.

The electrophoretic mobilities of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in agarose gels subjected to negatively charged covalent functionalization and noncovalent anionic surfactant adsorption are compared using a simplified hydrodynamic model. Net charges are calculated on the basis of estimated friction coefficients for cylindrical rodlike particles. The effects of functionalization with negatively charged 4-hydroxybenzene diazonium and anionic sodium cholate are quantified and compared with model predictions. The adsorption of Na+ counterions into the nonionic surfactant layer adsorbed on SWNTs (Triton-X-405) is shown to induce a positive charge and reverse the mobility under select conditions. This effect has not been identified or quantified for nanoparticle systems and may be important in the processing of these systems.