Two-dimensional arrays of AuNPs have very promising uses as sensors. AuNP embedded peptoid nanosheets, which are essentially a peptoid bilayer with AuNPs sandwiched within, are significant because of their stability in water which may allow for pollutant detection. For the purposes of making these nanosheets effective, it is imperative that the packing of nanosheets within the bilayer be controlled for which we present a novel method. Our earlier work has demonstrated that the length of the attached thiol ligand is a major limiting factor, for tuning the packing density, all things considered. Thus, as part of this study, we synthesized our own nanoparticles by exchanging the citrate ligand on the more commonly available aqueous AuNPs with a thiol ligand of our choice. The procedure involved shaking the AuNPs in aqueous phase with a ligand solution in toluene in a vortex mixer until the AuNPs were in the organic phase, which was decided based on the appearance of a pink color in the toluene. The ligands used in this experiment were octanethiol, decanethiol and dodecanethiol. UV-Visible spectroscopy and NMR measurements were performed to ensure the ligand exchange was successful. Peptoid nanosheets were synthesized using the purified alkanethiol-functionalized AuNPs and characterized using light microscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and elemental analysis. We have, thus far, been successful in demonstrating a successful ligand exchange and that all three kinds of alkanethiol nanoparticles were successfully incorporated into the nanosheet interior.
Primary Speaker
Faculty Sponsors