Pourous nanostructures formation using polyamidoamine dendrimers as template

Recently there has been increasing interest in the synthesis of novel materials with controlled structural characteristics. Particularly interesting in this respect is the construction of supra-molecular hybrid organic-inorganic nanostructures based on microporous and nanoporous materials. Such self-assembly recently attracted a sensitive attention in material science also due to the important implications in the improvement of the models and theoretical approaches describing the relavant assembly mechanism involved in material science as well as in many processes involved in life science [3]. We describe the synthesis of spherical nanoaggregates derived by the controlled growth of zeolite LTA on a carboxyl-terminated poliamidoamine (Pamam) dendrimer [4]. More specifically we evidence that spherical pourous nanoparticle were formed when the charged terminal groups of the dendrimer interacted with the alluminosilicate components to irreversibly anchor the zeolite formation to the dendrimer surface. The use of branched polymeric materials, such as dendrimers, as nanotemplating agents has been proven as a versatile tool in the field of nanotechnology, due to the accurate control of the size of the inorganic particles involved.