A versatile new concept is presented for the synthesis of Janus colloids composed of Laponite nanoclay armored poly(divinylbenzene) with an anisotropic surface potential via a double Pickering emulsion template. First, polystyrene or poly(divinylbenzene) colloids stabilized with Laponite nanoclay are synthesized via a Pickering miniemulsion approach. These nanoparticle-stabilized colloids were ...

We calculate the phase diagrams of mixtures between hard-sphere colloids and star-polymers of arm numbers f 52,6,32 for different star-polymer–colloid size ratios 0.2<q<0.6 using an effective one-component description for the colloids in the presence of the stars. We map the full two-component system onto an effective one-component system by inverting numerically the Ornstein–Zernike equation f...

The asymmetry introduced by a complex or nonspherical basis promotes photonic band gap formation in three-dimensional photonic crystals. However, relatively few techniques have been demonstrated to produce uniform nonspherical colloids for use as photonic crystal bases. Here we expand the menu of basis types with high refractive index by preparing nonspherical zinc sulfide colloids of uniform s...

The interaction of bovine serum albumin (BSA) with gold colloids and surfaces was studied using zeta-potential and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) measurements, respectively, to determine the surface charge and coverage. The combination of these two measurements suggests that BSA binding to gold nanoparticles and gold surfaces occurs by an electrostatic mechanism when citrate is present. The ...

The behavior of plutonium still puzzles scientists 70 years after its discovery. There are several factors making the chemistry of plutonium interesting including its ability to keep several oxidation states. Another unique property is that the oxidation states +III, +IV, +V and +VI may exist simultaneously in solution. Another property plutonium shares with some other tetravalent metal ions is...

Recent work [Mahynski et al., Nat. Commun., 2014, 5, 4472] has demonstrated that the addition of long linear homopolymers thermodynamically biases crystallizing hard-sphere colloids to produce the hexagonal close-packed (HCP) polymorph over the closely related face-centered cubic (FCC) structure when the polymers and colloids are purely repulsive. In this report, we investigate the effects of t...

A new approach to the synthesis of highly stable aqueous colloids of coordination polymer nanoparticles was developed by using water-soluble chitosan beads as template and as stabilizing agent. The method consists in the synthesis of nanocomposite beads containing cyano-bridged coordination polymer nanoparticles via step-by-step coordination of the metal ions and the hexacyanometallate precurso...

This work deals with the development of a green and versatile synthesis of stable mono- and bi-metallic colloids by means of microwave heating and exploiting ecofriendly reagents: water as the solvent, glucose as a mild and non-toxic reducer and polyvinylpirrolidone (PVP) as the chelating agent. Particle size-control, total reaction yield and long-term stability of colloids were achieved with t...

We report on the formation of organized assemblies of 1 μm-in-diameter colloids (polystyrene (PS)) at the poles of water-dispersed droplets (diameters 7-20 μm) of nematic liquid crystal (LC). For 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl droplets decorated with two to five PS colloids, we found 32 distinct arrangements of the colloids to form at the boojums of bipolar droplet configurations. Significantly, all...