Hence, 50 μL Mocetinostat of 10.0% (w/v) NaCl solution was added to 1 mL of PEG-coated AuNP solutions in order to screen the electrostatic repulsion between nanoparticles. In addition, the pH values of the PEG-coated AuNP solutions were maintained at 6.3, even after salt addition. According to the above analyses, the U elec = 0, under the salt addition condition.

The steric repulsion between two nanoparticles of radius R AuNPs with adsorbed PEG layers can be modeled as [30] (6) where (7) and (8) where L is the radial distance from the center of particles, σ p is the surface Selleck PXD101 density of adsorbed chains, k B is the Boltzmann constant, T is the kinetic temperature, N p is the number of segments in the polymer chain, and l is the segment length. The potential energy of the van der Waals interaction

between two particles, U vdW, NVP-HSP990 concentration can be approximated by the following calculation [14],[21]: (9) where A * is the effective Hamaker constant and H is the separation distance between the surfaces of the core particles. According to the DLVO theory, when the surface layers just touch (i.e., H = 2 t), the U steric = 0. The total energy (U total) of the net interaction has a deep minimum that is dependent on the value of the U vdW (Additional file 1: Figure S3) [13, 18, 31]. In general, the minimum of the U total(dashed line in Additional file 1: Figure S3) determines the stability of fully coated AuNPs, which is dependent on the t value of the adlayer [13]. If the adlayer is thick enough, the minimum becomes so slight that it can be ignored, thus resulting in greater nanoparticle stability, and vice versa [13]. In other words, the t

can determine the SDs of the PEG-coated AuNPs. After screening the electrostatic repulsion, the colors of the PEG-coated AuNP solutions were observed to change from wine red to blue within 10 min of NaCl addition, in accordance with the MW of PEG (Figure 2). The APEG 400-coated AuNPs aggregated rapidly to form a deposit within 3 to 5 min, so the data are not shown. However, the APEG 20,000-coated AuNPs remained stable, without significant aggregation (color change) during the experimental period (8 h). This phenomenon reflects the differences in the SDs of the AuNPs. This color change supports the ready distinction of PEG MW through visual inspection. TEM was employed to examine the PEG adlayers on the typical fully coated nanoparticle surfaces (by APEG 600, Vorinostat research buy 6,000, and 20,000). As shown in Figure 3, higher MW of PEG corresponded to a thicker adlayer, and hence, greater AuNPs stability. Figure 2 Visual color change of AuNPs coated with adsorbed PEG of different MW. (A) 16-nm AuNPs and (B) 26-nm AuNPs. Figure 3 TEM images of uncoated and PEG-coated AuNPs. TEM images of uncoated AuNPs: (A) 16-nm AuNPs and (H) 26-nm AuNPs. TEM images of fully coated AuNPs in the absence of 10.0% (w/v) NaCl solution for 16-nm AuNPs: (B) APEG 600, (C) APEG 6,000, and (D) APEG 20,000; for 26-nm AuNPs: (I) APEG 600, (J) APEG 6,000, and (K) APEG 20,000.