Preparation and Characterization of Epoxy/Inorganic Anti‐electrostatic Nanocomposites Using Submicrometer Al(OH)3 and Colloid Al2O3

New organic‐inorganic hybrid materials and their anti‐electrostatic hybrid membranes are prepared via sol‐gel process. The polycondensation of epoxy oligomers and AEAPS/Al₂O₃ complexes which are organically surface modified submicrometer aluminum trihydroxide inorganic fillers with an active aminoterminal silane coupling agent, N‐(2‐aminoethyl)‐3‐aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (AEAPS), are performed. AEAPS enhances the interfacial interactions between the inorganic fillers and epoxy polymers. Meanwhile, this coupling agent maintains well dispersion of fillers in these composites. To improve the mechanical strength and thermal stability, pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) is used as curing agent. These hybrid films prepared from this method have excellent physical properties, such as UV‐shielding, high transmission in visible resign (> 85%), high hardness (7～8H) , high adhesive force (7～8) and low relative surface resistance (9.71 × 10¹¹～1.26 × 10¹⁰ Ω/cm²) with anti‐electrostatic characters. For thermal resistance, the best Td value of epoxy/PMDA/AEAPS/Al₂O₃ is 378.6 °C which is 85.4 °C higher than that of neat epoxy resin. Physical properties of these materials are almost the same as those of the nanocomposites prepared from expensive colloid Al₂O₃. Evidences from TEM micrograph show that the inorganic additives are dispersed evenly in organic matrix with nanometer scale.     

Immobilization of cholesterol oxidase to finely dispersed silica-coated maghemite nanoparticles based magnetic fluid

In the recent years, the potential applicability of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) has witnessed a significant increase in interest towards the medical field, in particular, towards the usage of novel nanoparticles in diagnostics and disease treatment, respectively. In a present study, cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) was covalently immobilized to magnetic nanoparticles of maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃) and further functionalized by silica (SiO₂) and amino-silane molecules. The activity of the bound enzyme was retained up to 60%, respectively. The binding of cholesterol oxidase was confirmed using FT-IR spectrophotometer. SEM analysis showed uniformly dispersed functional magnetic nanoparticles, which ranged in size from 22.5 to 50.8 nm, surrounded by amorphous silica. In this paper, the potential applications of chemically modified magnetic nanoparticles as carriers for cholesterol oxidase and other enzymes are discussed.     

Silanization and antibody immobilization on SU-8

SU-8, an epoxy based negative photoresist, has emerged as a structural material for microfabricated sensors due to its attractive mechanical properties like low Young's modulus and chemical properties like inertness to various chemicals used in microfabrication. It can be used to fabricate MEMS structures of high aspect ratio. However, the use of SU-8 in BioMEMS application has been limited by the fact that immobilization of biomolecules on SU-8 surfaces has not been reported. In this study, the epoxy groups on the SU-8 surface were hydrolyzed in the presence of sulphochromic solution. Following this, the surface was treated with [3-(2-aminoethyl) aminopropyl]-trimethoxysilane (AEAPS). The silanized SU-8 surface was used to incubate human immunoglobulin (HIgG). The immobilization of HIgG was proved by allowing FITC tagged goat anti-human IgG to react with HIgG. This process of antibody immobilization was used to immobilize HIgG on microfabricated SU-8 cantilevers.