Biomimetic silica nanostructures on the surface, controlled by polyvalent counteranions

Biosilicification (silica biomineralization in diatoms) has been intensively investigated for the in vitro formation of inorganic nanostructures under the ambient condition. It is known that biosilicification occurs at the interface of catalytic templates, derived by interactions between cationic polyamines and anions. In this work, nanostructures of silica thin films were controlled by exchanging counteranions of quaternized poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) with orthophosphate/pyrophosphate anions such as H2PO4−, HPO42−, PO43− and P2O74−. Thickness of silica films and diameters of silica nanoparticulates were tuned at the nanometer scale. In addition, it was found that resulted silica structure highly depended on the structure of catalytic polymeric templates.

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