Grapefruit-Inspired Polymeric Capsule with Hierarchical Microstructure: Advanced Nanomaterial Carrier Platform for Energy Storage, Drug Delivery, Catalysis, and Environmental Applications

Abstract

Efficient support materials are crucial for maximizing the efficacy of nanomaterials in various applications such as energy storage, drug delivery, catalysis, and environmental remediation. However, traditional supports often hinder nanomaterial performance due to their high weight ratio and limited manageability, leading to issues like tube blocking and secondary pollution. To address this, a novel grapefruit-inspired polymeric capsule (GPC) as a promising carrier platform is introduced. The millimeter-scale GPC features a hydrophilic shell and an internal hierarchical microstructure with 80% void volume, providing ample space for encapsulating diverse nanomaterials including metals, polymers, metal-organic frameworks, and silica. Through liquid-phase bottom-up methods, it is successfully loaded Fe2O3, SiO2, polyacrylic acid, and Prussian blue nanomaterials onto the GPC, achieving high mass ratio (1776, 488, 898, and 634 wt.%, respectively). The GPC shell prevents nanomaterial leakage and the influx of suspended solids, while its internal framework enhances structural stability and mass transfer rates. With long-term storage stability, high carrying capacity, and versatile applicability, the GPC significantly enhances the field applicability of nanomaterials. Hydrophilic grapefruit-inspired polymeric capsules (HGPCs) are a superior carrier platform, which significantly enhanced the field applicability of nanomaterials by efficiently loading them into the internal void volume using various liquid-phase bottom-up methods. It provides significant progress in carrier platform technology for nanomaterials and can be used extensively for water treatment, resource recovery, drug delivery, and energy storage applications. image