Cotton-quality fibers from complexation between anionic and cationic cellulose nanoparticles.

Natural polymers are attractive sustainable materials for production of fibers and composite materials. Cotton and flux are traditional plants used to produce textiles with comforting properties while technologies like Viscose, Lyocell and Ioncell-F allowed to extent fiber use into regenerated cellulose from wood. Neither natural nor man-made fibers completely satisfy the needs for cellulose based fabrics boosting development of new approaches to bring more sustainability into the fashion.

Cationic CNC-stabilized Pickering emulsions of linseed oil for hydrophobic coatings.

Coating paper with polymers is an efficient way of awarding it with gas-tightness and moisture protection in food packaging applications, but it impedes the recyclability of the both paper and polymer. Cellulose nanocrystals were found to be excellent gas barrier materials, but their hydrophilicity forbids their straightforward application as protective coatings. To introduce hydrophobicity into a CNC coating, this work exploited the capability of cationic CNCs isolated in a one-step treatment with a eutectic medium to stabilize Pickering emulsions in order to include a natural drying oil in a dense layer of CNCs.

How Much Physical Guidance is Needed to Orient Growing Axons in 3D Hydrogels?

Directing cells is essential to organize multi-cellular organisms that are built up from subunits executing specific tasks. This guidance requires a precisely controlled symphony of biochemical, mechanical, and structural signals. While many guiding mechanisms focus on 2D structural patterns or 3D biochemical gradients, injectable material platforms that elucidate how cellular processes are triggered by defined 3D physical guiding cues are still lacking but crucial for the repair of soft tissues.

Benzoquinonoid-bridged dinuclear actinide complexes.

We report the coordination chemistry of the tripodal tris[2-amido(2-pyridyl)ethyl]amine ligand, L, with thorium(iv) and uranium(iv). Using a salt-metathesis strategy from the potassium salt of this ligand, K3L, new actinide complexes were isolated, namely the dimeric thorium complex [ThCl(L)] (1) and the monomeric uranium complex UI(THF)(L) (2); under different crystallisation conditions, the dimeric uranium complex is also isolated, [UI(L)] (2-dimer). With the aim of studying electronic phenomena such as magnetic exchange between two actinide ions, we have synthesised the first examples of dinuclear, quinoid-bridged actinide complexes from dianionic 2,5-bis[2,6-(diisopropyl)anilide]-1,4-benzoquinone (QDipp) and 2,5-bis[2-(methoxy)anilide]-1,4-benzoquinone (QOMe) ligands.