Hydrophobic pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls are persistent in the waters of Upstate New York. To determine their levels in the environment, it is critical to have a sensor that can sequester these hazardous materials from an aqueous environment. Previous studies in the Robertson lab have focused on synthesizing two-dimensional gold nanoparticle arrays by embedding hydrophobically functionalized nanoparticles between two peptoid monolayers via monolayer assembly and collapse at the toluene-water interface. These nanoparticle-embedded peptoid nanosheets can potentially function as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors for hydrophobic pollutants in water, as they contain a hydrophobic interior where the pollutants can intercalate between the gold nanoparticles and a hydrophilic exterior that allows the sheets to remain stable in water. Previously, gold nanoparticle-embedded peptoid nanosheets were successfully synthesized using 5 nm particles. In this study, the formation of nanosheets using 10 nm gold nanoparticles with different ligands (polystyrene and octanethiol) is explored as a function of nanoparticle concentration. Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy imaging reveal that the nanoparticle ligand and concentration greatly affects the properties of the nanoparticle-embedded peptoid nanosheets, which can affect their applicability as SERS sensors for hydrophobic pollutants.
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