A new certified reference material for size and shape analysis of nanorods using electron microscopy.

A new certified reference material (CRM) for size and shape analysis of elongated nanoparticles has been developed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The CRM consists of titanium dioxide nanorods dispersed in 1-butanol, was coded ERM-FD103 and has been certified for different electron microscopy-based operationally defined measurands such as the modal and median values of the particle number-weighted distributions of the minimum and maximum Feret diameter, the maximum inscribed circle diameter, the area-equivalent circular diameter and the aspect ratio. The nanorods have nominal dimensions of 15 nm in width and 55 nm in length.

DNA copy number concentration measured by digital and droplet digital quantitative PCR using certified reference materials.

The value assignment for properties of six certified reference materials (ERM-AD623a-f), each containing a plasmid DNA solution ranging from 1 million to 10 copies per μL, by using digital PCR (dPCR) with the BioMark™ HD System (Fluidigm) has been verified by applying droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) using the QX100 system (Bio-Rad). One of the critical factors in the measurement of copy number concentrations by digital PCR is the partition volume. Therefore, we determined the average droplet volume by optical microscopy, revealing an average droplet volume that is 8 % smaller than the droplet volume used as the defined parameter in the QuantaSoft software version 1.

Crystallization behaviour of nanostructured hybrid SiO2-TiO2 gel glasses to nanocomposites.

The crystallization behaviour of hybrid SiO2-TiO2 nanocomposites derived from titanosiloxanes by sol-gel method has been investigated depending on the type of siloxane precursor and the pirolysis temperature. The resulting hybrid titanosiloxanes, crosslinked with trimethylsilil isocyanate (nitrogen-modified) or methyltrietoxisilane (carbon-modified), were pirolyzed in an inert atmosphere in the temperature range between 600 to 1100 degrees C in order to form C-(N)-Si-O-TiO2 nanocomposites. By means of XRD, FTIR, 29Si NMR, SEM, TEM and AFM investigations have been established that the transformation of the nanostructured SiO2-TiO2 hybrid materials into nanocomposites as well as the crystalline size depend on the titanium content and the type of cross-linking agents used in the synthesizes.

Sulfonic acid functionalized crystal-like mesoporous benzene-silica as a remarkable water-tolerant catalyst.

Here we report that sulfonated crystal-like benzene-silica is much more robust and active than conventionally used periodic mesoporous silica for catalyzing aqueous organic reactions.