Light‐driven janus hollow mesoporous TiO2–Au microswimmers

2018

Article

pi

Abstract Light‐driven microswimmers have garnered attention for their potential use in various applications, such as environmental remediation, hydrogen evolution, and targeted drug delivery. Janus hollow mesoporous TiO2/Au (JHP–TiO2–Au) microswimmers with enhanced swimming speeds under low‐intensity ultraviolet (UV) light are presented. The swimmers show enhanced swimming speeds both in presence and absence of H2O2. The microswimmers move due to self‐electrophoresis when UV light is incident on them. There is a threefold increase in speed of JHP–TiO2–Au microswimmers in comparison with Janus solid TiO2/Au (JS–TiO2–Au) microswimmers. This increase in their speed is due to the increase in surface area of the porous swimmers and their hollow structure. These microswimmers are also made steerable by using a thin Co magnetic layer. They can be used in potential environmental applications for active photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and targeted active drug delivery of an anticancer drug (doxurobicin) in vitro in H2O2 solution. Their increased speed from the presence of a hollow mesoporous structure is beneficial for future potential applications, such as hydrogen evolution, selective heterogeneous photocatalysis, and targeted cargo delivery.

@article{doi:10.1002/adfm.201704902,
  title = {Light‐driven janus hollow mesoporous TiO2–Au microswimmers},
  author = {Sridhar, Varun and Park, Byung‐Wook and Sitti, Metin},
  journal = {Advanced Functional Materials},
  volume = {28},
  number = {5},
  pages = {1704902},
  month = jan,
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.1002/adfm.201704902},
  eprint = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adfm.201704902},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adfm.201704902},
  month_numeric = {1}
}