Chitosan nanostructures deposited from solutions in carbonic acid on a model substrate as resolved by AFM

Chitosan macromolecules can be dissolved in water saturated with CO₂ under high pressure, i.e. in carbonic acid. This unique biocompatible solvent with acidity regulated by the variation of applied CO₂ pressure is rather promising for biomedical applications. In this work the main features of deposition of chitosan structures on the model substrate from solutions in this media were examined. After deposition on the mica surface, the obtained structures have been successfully visualised by atomic force microscopy (AFM). It has been found out that they adsorb as rather peculiar elongated objects with an average length of about 70?nm. Such conformations are believed to appear due to amphiphilic nature of chitosan semiflexible chains in agreement with recent theoretical findings. The well-defined geometry of the elongated monodispersed structures allows them to demonstrate some elements of liquid crystalline-like ordering.     

Amyloid peptide Aβ40 inhibits aggregation of Aβ42: evidence from molecular dynamics simulations

Effects of amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide Aβ(40) on secondary structures of Aβ(42) are studied by all-atom simulations using the GROMOS96 43a1 force field with explicit water. It is shown that in the presence of Aβ(40) the beta-content of monomer Aβ(42) is reduced. Since the fibril-prone conformation N? of full-length Aβ peptides has the shape of beta strand-loop-beta strand this result suggests that Aβ(40) decreases the probability of observing N? of Aβ(42) in monomer state. Based on this and the hypothesis that the higher is the population of N? the higher fibril formation rates, one can expect that, in agreement with the recent experiment, Aβ(40) inhibit fibril formation of Aβ(42). It is shown that the presence of Aβ(40) makes the salt bridge D23-K28 and fragment 18-33 of Aβ(42) more flexible providing additional support for this experimental fact. Our estimation of the binding free energy by the molecular mechanics-Poisson-Boltzmann surface area method reveals the inhibition mechanism that Aβ(40) binds to Aβ(42) modifying its morphology.     

Polyvinyl pyridines as flocculating agents

Summary High molecular weight poly 2- and 4-vinyl pyridines were synthesized by ionic polymerisation and their flocculation efficiency tested against kaolin and silica dispersions at pH 3. Low additions of the polymers, around 3 parts per 10₃ parts solid, destabilize the dispersions and clarify silica dispersions to a remarkable extent; however, over-addition of polymer leads to partial restabilization. The flocculation efficiency improves with increase of solids content, especially with clay dispersions. Flocculation efficiency increases with polymer molecular weight, especially over the lower part of the range covered, but is relatively independent of pH in the range 2–4. Quaternization of poly(4-vinyl pyridine) with bromobutane produces a good flocculant for aqueous silica dispersions in which the degree of restabilization on over-dosing depends on the KCI content. TheN-oxide derivatives of the vinyl pyridine polymers do not affect the colloidal stability of silica dispersions. The observations are interpreted in terms of bridging flocculation by the cationic polymer molecules between anionic surface sites on the solid particles.     

The morphologies and optoelectronic properties of delafossite CuFeO2 thin films prepared by PEG assisted sol–gel method

Single phase delafossite CuFeO₂ thin films were synthesized by a simple sol–gel method. The influence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) on the morphology and optoelectronic properties of the films was studied by addition of 1.0 g PEG in 10 ml precursor solution. The crystal sizes of the derived CuFeO₂ films with and without addition of PEG were 49 nm, but the sample with addition of PEG (labeled as CFO-PEG) showed weaker c-axis orientation growth. The sample without addition of PEG (labeled as CFO) showed a compact surface without detectable pores and had a thickness around 50 nm. However, the sample CFO-PEG exhibited a porous surface with worm-like grains in nanometric scale and had a thickness around 310 nm. Enhanced absorbance in UV–vis region was observed for the sample CFO-PEG which might ascribe to both the thickness and porous surface. The optical direct bandgaps at near-UV were estimated to be ~3.0 and 3.38 eV for the sample CFO-PEG and CFO, respectively. Though the porous surface of CFO-PEG has improved the absorbance in UV–vis region, the resistivity has also been increased due to the homogeneous distribution of interspaces between the worm-like grains, which makes the incident photon to current efficiency of CFO-PEG lower than that of CFO.     

Direct Determination of Gold in Rock Samples Using Collision Cell Quadrupole ICP-MS

This study investigated the determination of Au in rock samples using collision cell quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). It is essential to remove various interferents using a collision cell because polyatomic ions such as ¹⁸¹Ta¹⁶O⁺ and ¹⁸⁰Hf¹⁶O¹H⁺ can interfere with the direct determination of monoisotopic ¹⁹⁷Au when using ICP-MS. The addition of oxygen as a reaction gas removed isobaric interferents by transforming TaO⁺ and HfOH⁺ to TaO₂⁺, TaO₃⁺, and HfO₂H⁺, HfO₃H⁺, respectively, in the cell without significant Au⁺ loss. The ion kinetic energy effect (IKEE) due to the potential difference between the plasma and the hexapole affected the reactions in the cell. Au and interfering ions were very sensitive to cell bias voltage (Vc) at constant plasma potential (Vp) and quadrupole bias voltage (Vq). Under the condition of hot plasma, the transmission of ions was promoted, and the maximum Au signal intensity was 50% greater than under normal conditions. At Vc > 7 V, TaO⁺ ions were removed to background level. Optimized conditions for real sample analysis were obtained by introducing He as an additional collision gas in hot plasma. TaO⁺ ions were removed to background level at He flow rates above 0.6 mL min⁻¹, and the Au signal remained high. The detection limit (three times the standard deviation of the blank) of this method was 3.06 pg g⁻¹. The results for reference materials (STM-1 and DGPM-1) and spiked samples showed good agreement between specified and measured concentrations.     

Effect of Water Fraction on Rheological Properties of Waxy Crude Oil Emulsions

This article discusses the effect of water fraction on the rheological properties of waxy crude oil emulsions including gel point, yield stress, viscosity, and thixotropy. The experimental results reveal that the rheological behaviors of the w/o emulsion samples all intensify with the increase of water volume fraction within 60%. Of more significance is that a correlation for w/o emulsions between yield stress and water volume fraction is put forward with an average relative error of 6.75%. In addition, some mainstream viscosity prediction models of w/o emulsions are evaluated, and Elgibaly model is the best-fit for the emulsions in this study.     

Cost-effective dye-sensitized solar cells consisting of two metal foils instead of transparent conductive oxide glass

A cost-effective structure for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) without using transparent conductive oxide (TCO) is reported. Instead of high-cost F/SnO(2) glass (FTO-glass) or woven metal mesh, a Ti foil and a perforation-patterned stainless steel (StSt) foil are introduced as the substrates for a counter-electrode and a photo-electrode, respectively.     

Exceptionally strong multiphoton-excited blue photoluminescence and lasing from ladder-type oligo(p-phenylene)s

We report the synthesis and investigation of multiphoton absorption properties of a novel series of diphenylamino-end-capped ladder-type oligo(p-phenylene)s which exhibit greatly enhanced and efficient multiphoton (from two- to five-photon) upconverted blue photoluminescence with which the record-high intrinsic three-photon absorption cross-section of 4.56 × 10(-76) cm(6) s(2) in the femtosecond regime has been obtained. Exceptionally efficient two- to five-photon-excited lasing in the blue region has also been demonstrated in which the highest two-photon-excited lasing efficiency of 0.34% has been achieved.     

Adhesion of polyelectrolyte multilayers: sealing and transfer of microchamber arrays

Polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) films with array of responsive microchambers are promising candidates for site-specific release of chemicals in small and precisely defined quantities on demand. It requires effective sealing of the microchambers toward a support to prevent leakage of a cargo. In this paper, we study the pressure-induced adhesion of poly(allylammonium)-poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PAH-PSS) multilayers assembled on different templates toward the poly(4-styrenesulfonate)-poly(diallyldimethylammonium) multilayer. The tensile bond strength increases from 0.4 to 3.5 MPa upon the increase of PAH-PSS bilayers from 10 to 40, if assembled on a silicon template. Weaker tensile bond strength of 0.35 MPa between the PAH-PSS multilayer and a poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) template results in adhesive break at this interface and allows mechanical removal of the template. The successful PEM transfer is demonstrated for templates of various geometrical patterns, while the tensile break of a multilayer film happens for the others.