基于有序介孔碳的氯离子选择性电极的制备及其在手持传感系统中的应用

以有序介孔碳(OMC)球为离子-电子转换层,制备了固态氯离子选择性电极,构建了基于离子敏感的场效应晶体管(ISFET)的手持式传感系统,用于检测人体血清中的氯离子。优化了OMC前驱体的碳化温度,探究了OMC形貌结构对电极传感性能的影响;电极柔性化制备后考察了其在手持系统中对氯离子的检测效果。结果表明,最优条件下,电极在5.12×10^-4~1.02 mol/L的浓度范围呈现线性响应,响应斜率为60 mV/decade。该柔性电极在手持传感系统中展现出高灵敏度和重现性,可用于人体血清样品中氯离子的检测,其回收率为96.3%~104.9%。     

Spherical hollow mesoporous silica supported phosphotungstic acid as a promising catalyst for α-arylstyrenes synthesis via Friedel-Crafts alkenylation

This work presents a scalable approach for preparing spherical hollow mesoporous silica with high surface area/pore volume, serving as outstanding support for supported phosphotungstic acid catalyst with much superior catalytic performance to the one on previously reported spherical mesoporous silica toward diverse transformations, ascribed to the strengthened mass transfer and the enlarged exposure degree of acidic sites to reactants those resulting from unique hollow and mesoporous morphology.     

Length scale effects in epoxy: The dependence of elastic moduli measurements on spherical indenter tip radius

Significant increases in the measured elastic moduli with decreasing indentation depth have been previously found in various polymers by indentation tests with a Berkovich tip at micro-to nanometer length scales. These increases in the determined elastic moduli were related to second order displacement gradients which increase with decreasing depth when a conical tip is applied. When a spherical tip is applied, such depth dependence should not be present as the second order displacement gradients remain essentially unchanged with indentation depth. However, these gradients should be proportional to the radius of the spherical tip. To examine the notion of second order displacement gradient dependence in measurements of elastic moduli, indentation experiments are conducted on epoxy with spherical tips of different nominal radii. Accounting for tip imperfections, an increase in the determined elastic moduli is found with decreasing tip radius, which corroborates the notion of second order displacement gradient dependence.     

Shape stability of a gas bubble in a soft solid

Predicting the onset of non-spherical oscillations of bubbles in soft matter is a fundamental cavitation problem with implications to sonoprocessing, polymeric materials synthesis, and biomedical ultrasound applications. The shape stability of a bubble in a Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic medium with nonlinear elasticity, the simplest constitutive model for soft solids, is analytically investigated and compared to experiments. Using perturbation methods, we develop a model reducing the equations of motion to two sets of evolution equations: a Rayleigh-Plesset-type equation for the mean (volume-equivalent) bubble radius and an equation for the non-spherical mode amplitudes. Parametric instability is predicted by examining the natural frequency and the Mathieu equation for the non-spherical modes, which are obtained from our model. Our theoretical results show good agreement with published experiments of the shape oscillations of a bubble in a gelatin gel. We further examine the impact of viscoelasticity on the time evolution of non-spherical mode amplitudes. In particular, we find that viscosity increases the damping rate, thus suppressing the shape instability, while shear modulus increases the natural frequency, which changes the unstable mode. We also explain the contributions of rotational and irrotational fields to the viscoelastic stresses in the surroundings and at the bubble surface, as these contributions affect the damping rate and the unstable mode. Our analysis on the role of viscoelasticity is potentially useful to measure viscoelastic properties of soft materials by experimentally observing the shape oscillations of a bubble.     

Nano-sized local magnetic field induced by circular motion of ions and molecules in a nanotorus under gigahertz rotating electric fields

Recently, we reported molecular dynamics simulations of stable cyclotron motions of ions and water molecules in a carbon nanotorus, induced by different rotating electric fields (EFs). This study is devoted to the calculation and characterisation of the magnetic field (MF) induced by these cyclotron motions. Results show that carbon nanotorus containing ions or water molecules acts as an EF-to-MF transducer. Components of the instantaneous induced MF show large-scale oscillations superimposed by strong fluctuations arising respectively from overall circular motion and random collisions of moving species. Analysis of the space-dependencies of the induced MF components shows that the induced MF is maximum at the centre of the nanotorus. The MF induced by cyclotron motion of ions follows the orders B(Ca²⁺)?>?B(Na⁺)?≈?B(K⁺) at E?=?1.0?V/nm and B(E?=?1.0?V/nm)?>?B(E?=?0.5?V/nm)?>?B(E?=?0.1?V/nm). The time-averaged induced MF of the cyclotron motion of 81 water molecules is almost 10² times stronger than that of ions. The induced MF strength is decreased with increasing distance from nanotorus and decays effectively at about 17.3–18.1 and 15.9–18.2?nm along the z-axis of the nanotorus for ions and water molecules, respectively. The magnitude of the MF induced by cyclotron motions of water molecules and ions, respectively, decreases and increases in the nanotorus with freed carbon atoms.     

Interactions of DNA with graphene and sensing applications of graphene field-effect transistor devices: A review

Graphene field-effect transistors (GFET) have emerged as powerful detection platforms enabled by the advent of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) production of the unique atomically thin 2D material on a large scale. DNA aptamers, short target-specific oligonucleotides, are excellent sensor moieties for GFETs due to their strong affinity to graphene, relatively short chain-length, selectivity, and a high degree of analyte variability. However, the interaction between DNA and graphene is not fully understood, leading to questions about the structure of surface-bound DNA, including the morphology of DNA nanostructures and the nature of the electronic response seen from analyte binding. This review critically evaluates recent insights into the nature of the DNA graphene interaction and its affect on sensor viability for DNA, small molecules, and proteins with respect to previously established sensing methods. We first discuss the sorption of DNA to graphene to introduce the interactions and forces acting in DNA based GFET devices and how these forces can potentially affect the performance of increasingly popular DNA aptamers and even future DNA nanostructures as sensor substrates. Next, we discuss the novel use of GFETs to detect DNA and the underlying electronic phenomena that are typically used as benchmarks for characterizing the analyte response of these devices. Finally, we address the use of DNA aptamers to increase the selectivity of GFET sensors for small molecules and proteins and compare them with other, state of the art, detection methods.