High-Performance Capacitive Deionization Disinfection of Water with Graphene Oxide-graft-Quaternized Chitosan Nanohybrid Electrode Coating.

Water disinfection materials should ideally be broad-spectrum-active, nonleachable, and noncontaminating to the liquid needing sterilization. Herein, we demonstrate a high-performance capacitive deionization disinfection (CDID) electrode made by coating an activated carbon (AC) electrode with cationic nanohybrids of graphene oxide-graft-quaternized chitosan (GO-QC). Our GO-QC/AC CDID electrode can achieve at least 99.

Modified chitosan emulsifiers: small compositional changes produce vastly different high internal phase emulsion types.

High internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) are indisputably a core technology for various industries involving pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, and biologics but they usually require surfactants/co-surfactants to form, which is often undesired. More specifically, micro-HIPEs are thermodynamically stable, optically clear emulsions with droplet sizes in the range of around 1-100 nm that form spontaneously with little energy input but are rare. Mini-/macro-HIPEs have larger droplet sizes in the range of 50-500 nm and >500 nm, respectively, and typically require high energy input for emulsification.

Injectable, interconnected, high-porosity macroporous biocompatible gelatin scaffolds made by surfactant-free emulsion templating.

High-porosity interconnected, thermoresponsive macroporous hydrogels are prepared from oil-in-water high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) stabilized by gelatin-graft-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). PolyHIPEs are obtained by gelling HIPEs utilizing the thermoresponsiveness of the copolymer components. PolyHIPEs properties can be controlled by varying the aqueous phase composition, internal phase volume ratio, and gelation temperature.

High internal phase emulsion templating with self-emulsifying and thermoresponsive chitosan-graft-PNIPAM-graft-oligoproline.

High internal phase emulsion (HIPE)-templating is an attractive method of producing high porosity polymer foams with tailored pore structure, pore size and porosity. However, this method typically requires the use of large amounts of surfactants to stabilize the immiscible liquid phases, and polymerizable monomers/cross-linker in the continuous minority phase to solidify the HIPE, which may not be desirable in many applications. We show that polyHIPEs with a porosity of 73% can be formed solely using a copolymer of chitosan-graft-PNIPAM-graft-oligoproline (CSN-PRO), which acts simultaneously as emulsifier and thermoresponsive gelator, and forms upon removal of the liquid templating phases, the bulk structure of the resulting polyHIPE.

High capacitive performance of flexible and binder-free graphene-polypyrrole composite membrane based on in situ reduction of graphene oxide and self-assembly.

Exploiting flexible and binder-free electrode materials is of importance for the fast development of smart supercapacitor devices. A simple and effective strategy is demonstrated to fabricate a flexible composite membrane of reduced graphene oxide and polypyrrole nanowire (RGO-PPy) via in situ reduction of graphene oxide and self-assembly. More importantly, the shape and thickness of the membrane can be reasonably controlled by varying either the concentration of GO and PPy nanowires or the filtration volume.

High water content hydrogel with super high refractive index.

Transparent, high water content (>65%), and cytocompatible hydrogels, which also possess super high refractive indices (RI > 1.5), are needed for ophthalmological applications. Most hydrogels can achieve either high RI or high water content but not both in the same system because water is a low RI material.

Functionalization of calcium carbonate microparticles as a combined sensor and transport system for active agents in cells.

In recent years colloidal particles and capsules, layer-by-layer (LbL) coated with biocompatible polyelectrolytes, have received much attention as drug-delivery systems. In this study an LbL-assembled, biopolymer-based multilayer system was established as a combined transporter and sensor for monitoring intracellular degradation and processing. CaCO(3) cores were functionalized with fluorescein isothiocyanatelabelled poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (FITC-PAH).

Colloidal DNA carriers for direct localization in cell compartments by pH sensoring.

Multifunctional colloidal microparticles allow the integration of various active agents as well as reporter molecules into one system without interfering combining delivery and sensing functions. In this study, calcium carbonate particles were functionalized with fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (FITC-PAH) allowing particle localization in cell compartments of different pH. Plasmid DNA (pEGFP-C1 and pDsRed1-N1) as a reporter agent for drug release in the cytoplasm and rhodamine-B-isothiocyanate-labeled protamine (RITC-PRM) were integrated into biocompatible and biodegradable PRM/DXS multilayers.