Particle Engineering via Supramolecular Assembly of Macroscopic Hydrophobic Building Blocks

Tailoring the hydrophobicity of supramolecular assembly building blocks enables the fabrication of well-defined functional materials. However, the selection of building blocks used in the assembly of metal–phenolic networks (MPNs), an emerging supramolecular assembly platform for particle engineering, has been essentially limited to hydrophilic molecules. Herein, we synthesized and applied biscatechol-functionalized hydrophobic polymers (poly(methyl acrylate) (PMA) and poly(butyl acrylate) (PBA)) as building blocks to engineer MPN particle systems (particles and capsules). Our method allowed control over the shell thickness (e.g., between 10 and 21 nm), stiffness (e.g., from 10 to 126 mN m–1), and permeability (e.g., 28–72% capsules were permeable to 500 kDa fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran) of the MPN capsules by selecting hydrophobic polymer building blocks (PMA or PBA) and controlling the polymer concentration in the MPN assembly solution (0.25–2.0 mM) without additional/engineered assembly processes. Molecular dynamics simulations provided insights in the structural states of the hydrophobic building blocks during assembly and mechanism of film formation. Furthermore, the hydrophobic MPNs facilitated the preparation of fluorescent-labeled and bioactive capsules through postfunctionalization and particle–cell association engineering by controlling the hydrophobicity of the building blocks. Engineering MPN particle systems via building block hydrophobicity is expected to expand their use.