Integrative chemistry portfolio toward designing and tuning vanadium oxide macroscopic fibers sensing and mechanical properties

Under certain synthetic conditions vanadium oxide gels are made of nanoribbons subunits. Due to this textural specificity it is possible to align the ribbons while employing an extrusion process, generating thereby vanadium oxide macroscopic fibers. In this process V₂O₅ gel is extruded through a syringe within a PVA (1% wt) solution rotating beaker. A composite fiber can be then extracted from the beaker. These as-synthesized fibers are bearing outstanding mechanical properties (20 GPa of Young modulus) addressed with transversal flexibility that alloys macroscopic knot formation. Furthermore, they appear to be excellent alcohol sensors, enable to detect 0.1 ppm of ethanol within 16 s at 40 °C, sensitivity being associated with a good selectivity. Subsequently, we were able to tune the fibers’ sensing and mechanical properties by varying the shear rate addressed to the vanadium oxide extruded gel. In order to better appreciate the correlation between fibers’ porosity, nanoribbons subunits alignment and the addressed properties (mechanical and sensing) we tuned the porosity making the use of latex nanoparticles inclusion followed by their calcinations while varying still the imposed sheer rate during the extrusion. Finally synthesis of hybrid PANI–V₂O₅ allowed reaching enhanced tenacity 12 J g^?1, concomitant with a loss of sensitivity. We show that all the parameters involved within the mechanical and sensing performances are acting within a strong partitioning mode rather than a cooperative one. Overall, these iterative synthetic approaches demonstrate once more the importance of the correlation between structures and properties, approaches where the integrative chemistry is appearing, via its versatility, as an essential tool of chemical science to conceive rationally functional architectures bearing enhanced properties.     

Hybrid macroscopic fibers from the synergistic assembly between silica and filamentous viruses

In this work, we report the elaboration of macroscopic hybrid virus-silica fibers. By using a silicate sol as inorganic precursor combined with the filamentous fd virus, well-dispersed hybrid fibers are obtained in solution. These macroscopic fd-silica fibers exhibit a narrow distribution of their diameter, while their length is at the millimeter scale. A scenario of the morphosynthesis is proposed to account for the formation of these high aspect ratio hybrid fibers.     

Millifluidic as a versatile reactor to tune size and aspect ratio of large polymerized objects

The continuous production “on demand” of large polymerized objects is presented using a versatile, easy to implement and low cost “millifluidic” reactor. Over microfluidic devices, the present set-up offers two considerable advantages: (i) much larger particles are produced with a very good control of sizes and shapes and (ii) no lithography is required for its design. Considering the high modularity of this synthetic pathway, “tubular millifluidic” appears as a new concept of synthesizing particles with a strong control over final object sizes, monodispersity and aspect ratio. The possibility to reach a high scale production makes it a promising production tools for the industry.     

Controlled production of hierarchically organized large emulsions and particles using assemblies on line of co-axial flow devices

We describe a continuous flow scheme to conceive and produce hierarchically organized large emulsions and particles with very good control over size, shape and internal structure. By assembling together elementary co-axial flow modules and integrating their corresponding functions, modular set-ups can be designed “on demand” to engineer complex architectures in characteristic sizes ranging from 50 μm up to a few millimeters. The high potentiality of this approach stems from the continuous production of drops and the ability to manipulate and functionalize each one independently “on line”. Its great versatility is limited only by the number of combinations possible using the modular toolbox and one's imagination. We illustrate this through the encapsulation of droplets or solid particles of various shapes, composition and size, in liquid or solidified drops as well as the formation of large organic or inorganic cylindrical particles.     

Preparation of remarkably tough polyHIPE materials via polymerization of oil‐in‐water HIPEs involving 1‐vinyl‐5‐aminotetrazole

Interconnected microcellular polymeric monoliths having unexpected high mechanical strength have been prepared using the high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) methodology. Oil‐in water concentrated emulsions of aqueous 1‐vinyl‐5‐amino [1,2,3,4]tetrazole (1‐VAT) mixed with a low molar ratio (7%) of N,N′‐methylenebisacrylamide as crosslinking agent were prepared using dodecane as dispersed phase and a mixture of hydrophilic surfactants. “Reverse” polyHIPE materials were obtained after radical copolymerization, solvent extraction, and drying. Their morphology, chemical composition, and physicochemical behavior are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 2942–2947, 2010     

Quantum chromodynamics: Working group report

This is the report of the QCD working group at WHEPP-6. Discussions and work on heavy ion collisions, polarized scattering, and collider phenomenology are reported.     

Role of lipids in urinary stones: studies of calcium oxalate precipitation at phospholipid langmuir monolayers

This article reviews the authors' experiments on calcium oxalate growth at lipid monolayers. Calcium oxalate is the principal mineral component of most urinary stones. Membrane constituents associate either actively or passively with calcific minerals during stone formation, and it has been proposed that lipid assemblies play a significant role, possibly providing sites for the initial nucleation event. Langmuir monolayers allow systematic studies of the heterogeneous precipitation of calcium oxalate at lipid assemblies. The influences of the chemical identity of the lipid headgroup, the organization of the monolayer, and the presence of heterogeneities and phase boundaries within the monolayer have been explored.