Synthesis of Prussian Blue-Containing Polymeric Nanocapsules via Interfacial Confined Coordination in Crosslinked...

Herein, we describe a versatile synthetic strategy for constructing Prussian Blue (PB)-coated polymeric nanocapsules (PB@nanocapsules) with tunable sizes and controlled PB loading. A soft template was first formed from a miniemulsion composed of water/chloroform/hexadecane (94.55:5:0.2, w/w/w), using P4VP₈₂-b-PDMAA₁₈₀ as a stabilizer and varying amounts of P4VP homopolymer as a hydrophobe and additional reactive site provider. Crosslinked nanocapsules were obtained by adding 1,2-bis-(2-iodoethoxy)ethane (BIEE) as a crosslinker. The resulting nanocapsules exhibited average hydrodynamic diameters ranging from approximately 282 nm (without P4VP homopolymer) down to 58 nm (with 0.01 g P4VP homopolymer), as determined by DLS and TEM. Subsequently, sequential coordination with sodium pentacyanoammine -ferroate(II) hydrate (Na₃ [Fe(CN)₅NH₃]), followed by the addition of FeCl₃, yielded a uniform PB coating, as confirmed by the appearance of a characteristic absorption peak at 780 nm in the UV-Vis spectra and a CN stretching shift from 2060 to 2070 cm^-1 in FT-IR. TEM and HAADF-STEM with EDX mapping revealed the homogeneous distribution of Fe across the nanocapsule shells. The PB loading could be further controlled by varying the Fe³⁺ addition (5.0 × 10^-3-4.5 × 10^-2 mmol), with higher loading improving thermal stability. This rational design provides a robust and generalizable platform for engineering polymer-inorganic hybrid nanostructures with tailored functionalities.