Aggregation behavior of snowman-like particles with oppositely charged large microspheres and polymers

Abstract

Recently Evers et al. [1] have shown that snowman particles assemble into hollow virus-like capsules in the absence of template. In this thesis I will show the aggregation behavior of the snowman particles in the presence of oppositely charged large template. Also the aggregation behavior of snowman particles with oppositely charged polymer (acts as extremely small template) was studied. Three types of snowman particles with a protrusion larger, slightly larger and slightly smaller than the seed particle were synthesized. The coverage of the microspheres by each of the snowman particles was influenced by the ionic strength, the pH andthe size of the protrusion, but the size of the microsphere had little influence. With oppositely charged polymer the snowman particles formed random large clusters, except for he snowman particles with the largest protrusion. This behavior of snowman particles with oppositely charged templates might provide some insight in the formation process of virus shells.