Abstract
There is increasing interest in the synthesis of well-organized silica nanostructures using designed peptides as templates. We have demonstrated an approach to synthesize silica nanofibers by sol-gel condensation of tetramethoxysilane as a silica source on the surface of self-assembled peptide nanofibers. Nonapeptide can undergo self-assembly to form peptide nanofibers and was used as templates for silicification under ambient conditions. Peptide nanofibers were stably entrapped within the silica precipitates through templating. The silica morphology and dimensions remained largely intact even after removal of the template by calcination. These findings clearly indicate that the peptide nanoarchitecture allows us to increase diversity in peptide-templated inorganic material synthesis and mimics the natural biomineralization process by means of facile, chemically synthesizable, and controllable self-assembling peptides. This would be an effective approach to produce bulk amounts of inorganic nanostructures for various applications.
