Nanoparticle-Gel Hybrid Material Designed with Bile Acid Analogues

There is considerable interest in research directed toward the tailoring of metal nanoparticles (NPs) due to their futuristic applications. Surface functionalized metal NPs have been used for a variety of applications, such as in nanoscale electronics, biomedical sciences, sensor technology, and chemical catalysis. Metal NPs are known for their unusual optical, electrical, magnetic and catalytic properties compared to those of the bulk metal. Among the various metals, gold NPs have been studied in greater detail owing to their stability and ease of synthesis. Brust et al. set the stage for a rapid exploration of gold NPs using organic thiols. Subsequently, several other alkyl thiols and thiolderivatives of synthetic and biopolymers, dendrimers/dendrons, porphyrin, water soluble thiolderivatives, and so forth have been described as capping agents to stabilize gold NPs. Phosphine, pyridine, and selenide stabilized NPs have also been explored