Development of Plasmonic Goldnanorods stabilized with PEG and MBT, and included in Biocompatible PVA/Chitosan Hydrogels for Applications in Wound Healing Monitoring

Because of their peculiar optical and electronic characteristics, gold nanorods (GNRs) have been widely studied for numerous applications in the fields of plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy, photonics, therapeutics, chemical sensing and bioimaging. GNRs synthesis protocols have been revisited in order to optimize different applications, including: contrast agents for photoacoustic imaging, scaffolds for tissue engineering and controlled drug release, materials development for Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) [1]. We worked to achieve core-shell structures by the formation of a metallic silver layer on the surface of the rods [2]. This silver coverage has been obtained in order to try to reach another goal, that consists in producing GNRs presenting a superficial roughness (Figure 1A) more or less marked, because the roughness improves the thermal coupling of the particles with their environment for the acceleration of the heat release from particles to environment, avoiding the particles overheating. These so-prepared colloidal GNRs dispersions have been included in scaffolds systems to simulate the human tissue for tissue engineering applications [3]. Slurries of PVA/chitosan gel in water have been prepared and then electro-spinned (Figure 1B).