Issue 27, 2013
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Complex architectures formed by alginate drops floating on liquid surfaces†‡

Elisa Mele,*a   Despina Fragouli,a   Roberta Ruffilli,b   Gian Luca De Gregorio,c   Roberto Cingolanid  and  Athanassia Athanassioua  

* Corresponding authors

a Nanophysics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego, 30, 16163 Genoa, Italy
E-mail: elisa.mele@iit.it

b Nanochemistry, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Via Morego 30, 16163 Genoa, Italy

c Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies@UniLe, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Barsanti, 73010 Arnesano, LE, Italy

d Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Via Morego 30, 16163 Genoa, Italy

Abstract

We demonstrate the generation of natural polymeric structures of complex shapes and controlled composition, starting from the collision of aqueous drops of alginate with the surface of a calcium ion-based liquid. We prove that by tuning the impact velocity of the alginate drops on the target surface one can control the floating state of the drops inducing the formation of mushroom-like structures, upon alginate gelation. Besides the geometric peculiarity, the presented approach allows us to provide dual functionality to the polymeric objects, attaching different kinds of functional molecules onto their surface areas, which are immersed or not in the liquid, making such architectures attractive for the development of a novel class of bionanocomposites.

Graphical abstract: Complex architectures formed by alginate drops floating on liquid surfaces

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C3SM27847F
Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Dec 2012
Accepted
13 May 2013
First published
20 May 2013

Soft Matter, 2013,9, 6338-6343

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Complex architectures formed by alginate drops floating on liquid surfaces

E. Mele, D. Fragouli, R. Ruffilli, G. L. De Gregorio, R. Cingolani and A. Athanassiou, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 6338 DOI: 10.1039/C3SM27847F

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