Preparation of crosslinked polymeric nanocapsules by surface-initiated self-condensing vinyl polymerization on silica templates.

We developed a process to fabricate crosslinked polymeric nanocapsules with about 10-40 nm hollow cores. These crosslinked polymeric nanocapsules were fabricated via the surface-initiated self-condensing vinyl polymerization (SI-SCVP) of p-chloromethyl styrene (CMS) from initiator modified silica nanoparticles with atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) technique. The silica templates were removed by HF etching to produce the crosslinked polymeric nanocapsules after the grafted hyperbranched polymers had been crosslinked. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to characterize the products and to demonstrate that the polymeric nanospheres were hollow. FTIR spectroscopy showed that the silica templates were completely removed by etching.