Monodisperse polymer spheres applications

As for the preparation of colloidal crystals using polymer spheres, the monodispersity of the cells strongly influences the order of the material. Hence yeast cells were carefully grown to form spherical cells of similar diameter. These cells were dip coated with a silica sol on a microscope slide [39]. A mono-layer of the cells arranged in a hexagonal close packing form on the microscope slide. The interstitial sites between the cells contained silica, an SEM image of the film is shown in Fig. 4. The cells remain alive and such films have potential applications in catalysis and as sensors. 

Because of the attractive physicochemical properties and potential applications in catalysis, biotechnology, adsorption, and separation, fabrication of hierarchically porous (macro/mesoporous) materials, especially for the three-dimensional ordered macro/ mesoporous (3DOM) materials, has been a focus in the research on materials science and engineering in recent years [99,199,200], By using close-packed arrays of monodisperse spheres, such as polystyrene (PS), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and silica as template, metals [201,202], metal oxides [203-208], metal chalcogenides [209], silica [204,210,211], carbon [212,213], polymers [214,215], and hydroxyapatite [216] with 3DOM structures have been generated. 

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