Highly crystalline sphere and rod-shaped TiO2 nanoparticles: A facile route to bio-polymer grafting

The goal of this report is to provide a versatile one step method based on UV irradiation in order to graft a bioactive polymer bearing sulfonate groups called poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) (polyNaSS) onto titanium nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) through covalent bond. The synthetic approach consists in two steps: (1) fabrication of TiO2 nanocrystals with different shape and size by solvothermal method previous hydrolysis of titanium(IV)isopropoxide (TTIP) in the presence of benzyl alcohol (BzOH) and acetic acid (AcOH) at 180 °C, (2) TiO2 NPs were immersed in a solution of monomer bearing sulfonate group and were placed under UV irradiation to induce the formation of radical to initiate the polymerization of the monomer. To demonstrate the success of the procedure, modified nano-surfaces were characterized by different techniques including colorimetric method by complexation, ATR-FTIR and SEM (EDS). This approach is promising to develop bio-active polymer-TiO2 nanoparticles as carriers and further successful application in the field of regenerative-nanomedicine.