Dispersions of Monodisperse Hybrid Rod-Like Particles by Mineralization of Filamentous Viruses

In this work, we report on the synthesis through a direct chemical approach of hybrid organic/inorganic rod-like particles with a very high aspect ratio (length/diameter) by the use of a biotemplate, the fd virus. A synthetic route is proposed based on an initial step of steric stabilization of the colloidal template by hydrophilic polymer grafting. Thanks to this polymer functionalization, the filamentous viruses are well-dispersed in solution during their mineralization by different inorganic salts, leading to suspensions of individual hybrid rod-like particles such as virus/SiO2 and virus/TiO2. This aqueous solution based approach is shown to be highly reproducible, scalable for large production synthesis, and versatile to different inorganic materials.