Bioinspired Microgel-Loaded Smart Membrane Filtration with the Thermo- and Ion-Dual Responsive Water Gate for Selective Lead(II) Separation.

Lead (Pb) is a ubiquitous pollutant. Membrane filtration represents one of the most common water treatment methods, but nanofiltration and ultrafiltration require high transmembrane pressure, while microfiltration has larger pore sizes than ions, making them unfavorable for direct ion removal at low cost. Selective and direct separation of Pb via membrane filtration at high efficiency without sacrificing the flux of clean water still remains challenging.

Structural evolution during inverse vulcanization.

Inverse vulcanization exploits S to synthesize polysulfides. However, evolution of products and its mechanism during inverse vulcanization remains elusive. Herein, inverse vulcanization curves are obtained to describe the inverse vulcanization process in terms of three stages: induction, curing and over-cure.

An Inspection into Multifarious Ways to Synthesize Poly(Amino Acid)s.

Poly(α-amino acid)s (PAAs) attract growing attention due to their essential role in the application as biomaterials. To synthesize PAAs with desired structures and properties, scientists have developed various synthetic techniques with respective advantages. Here, different approaches to preparing PAAs are inspected.

Understanding Acid-Promoted Polymerization of the -Substituted Glycine -Thiocarboxyanhydride in Polar Solvents.

Polymerization of -substituted glycine -thiocarboxyanhydrides (NNTAs) is a promising pathway to prepare functional polypeptoids benefiting from their tolerance to nucleophilic impurities. However, controlled NNTA polymerization is hard to achieve in amide polar solvents, including ,-dimethylacetamide (DMAc), ,-dimethylformamide (DMF), and -methyl pyrrolidone (NMP), the only aprotic solvents for many biomacromolecules and polypeptoids. In the present work, we successfully achieve controlled NNTA polymerization in amide polar solvents by adding acetic acid as a promoter.

Direct N-substituted N-thiocarboxyanhydride polymerization towards polypeptoids bearing unprotected carboxyl groups.

Synthesis of poly(α-amino acid)s bearing carboxyl groups is a critical pathway to prepare biomaterials to simulate functional proteins. The traditional approaches call for carboxyl-protected monomers to prevent degradation of monomers or wrong linkage. In this contribution, we synthesize N-carboxypentyl glycine N-thiocarboxyanhydride (CPG-NTA) and iminodiacetic acid N-thiocarboxyanhydride (IDA-NTA) without protection.

Understanding ring-closing and racemization to prepare α-amino acid NCA and NTA monomers: a DFT study.

Polypeptides and polypeptoids are promising materials in biomedical applications bearing α-amino acid repeating units, which are prepared from ring-opening polymerizations of α-amino acid N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) or N-thiocarboxyanydride (NTA) monomers. Detailed studies on monomer synthetic routes are essential to explore new α-amino acid NCA and NTA monomers as well as the corresponding poly(α-amino acid) materials. In this contribution, density functional theory (DFT) is applied to investigate the mechanism of the Leuchs approach including two possible pathways, precursor structure and racemization in the ring-closing reaction.

Identifying the Hydrolysis of Carbonyl Sulfide as a Side Reaction Impeding the Polymerization of N-Substituted Glycine N-Thiocarboxyanhydride.

Polypeptoids are noticeable biological materials due to their versatile properties and various applications in drug delivery, surface modification, self-assembly, etc. N-Substituted glycine N-thiocarboxyanhydrides (NNTAs) are more stable monomers than the corresponding N-carboxyanhydrides (NNCAs) and enable one to prepare polypeptoids via ring-opening polymerization even in the presence of water. However, larger amounts of water (>10,000 ppm) cause inhibition of the polymerization.

Genotoxicity of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles with Different Surface Chemistry on Rat Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells.

The surface chemistry of nanoparticles (NPs) is one of the critical factors determining their cellular responses. In this study, the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of copper oxide (CuO) NPs with a similar size but different surface chemistry to rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were investigated. The morphology, size and surface charge of four types of CuO NPs, i.

Suppressing the cytotoxicity of CuO nanoparticles by uptake of curcumin/BSA particles.

The adverse effects of metal-based nanoparticles on human beings and the environment have received extensive attention recently. It is urgently required to develop a simple and effective method to suppress the toxicity of metal-based nanomaterials. In this study, a hydrophobic antioxidant and a chelation agent curcumin (CUR) were encapsulated into bovine serum albumin (BSA) particles by a simple co-precipitation method, and followed by glutaraldehyde cross-linking.