Chemically anchored two-dimensional-SiO /zero-dimensional-MoO nanocomposites for high-capacity lithium storage materials.

Silicon oxides are promising alternatives for graphite anodes in lithium-ion batteries. SiO nanosheets exhibit favorable anodic performances, including outstanding capacity retention and dimensional stability, due to their unique two-dimensional (2D) microstructures, but suffer from low specific capacity and poor initial coulombic efficiency. Here we demonstrate that chemically anchoring of molybdenum dioxide (MoO) nanoparticles on the surface of 2D-SiO nanosheets a Mo-O-Si bond boosts both the reversible capacity and initial coloumbic efficiency without sacrificing the useful properties of 2D-SiO nanosheets.

Si Nanocrystal-Embedded SiO nanofoils: Two-Dimensional Nanotechnology-Enabled High Performance Li Storage Materials.

Silicon (Si) based materials are highly desirable to replace currently used graphite anode for lithium ion batteries. Nevertheless, its usage is still a big challenge due to poor battery performance and scale-up issue. In addition, two-dimensional (2D) architectures, which remain unresolved so far, would give them more interesting and unexpected properties.

Multivalent Aptamer-RNA Conjugates for Simple and Efficient Delivery of Doxorubicin/siRNA into Multidrug-Resistant Cells.

Multivalent aptamer-siRNA conjugates containing multiple mucin-1 aptamers and BCL2-specific siRNA are synthesized, and doxorubicin, an anthracycline anticancer drug, is loaded into these conjugates through intercalation with nucleic acids. These doxorubicin-incorporated multivalent aptamer-siRNA conjugates are transfected to mucin-1 overexpressing MCF-7 breast cancer cells and their multidrug-resistant cell lines. Doxorubicin-incorporated multivalent aptamer-siRNA conjugates exert promising anticancer effects, such as activation of caspase-3/7 and decrease of cell viability, on multidrug-resistant cancer cells because of their high intracellular uptake efficiency.

One-Step Formation of Silicon-Graphene Composites from Silicon Sludge Waste and Graphene Oxide via Aerosol Process for Lithium Ion Batteries.

Over 40% of high-purity silicon (Si) is consumed as sludge waste consisting of Si, silicon carbide (SiC) particles and metal impurities from the fragments of cutting wire mixed in ethylene glycol based cutting fluid during Si wafer slicing in semiconductor fabrication. Recovery of Si from the waste Si sludge has been a great concern because Si particles are promising high-capacity anode materials for Li ion batteries. In this study, we report a novel one-step aerosol process that not only extracts Si particles but also generates Si-graphene (GR) composites from the colloidal mixture of waste Si sludge and graphene oxide (GO) at the same time by ultrasonic atomization-assisted spray pyrolysis.

A swelling-suppressed Si/SiOx nanosphere lithium storage material fabricated by graphene envelopment.

A swelling-suppressed, Si nanocrystals-embedded SiOx nanospheres lithium storage material was prepared by graphene envelopment. The free void spaces formed between the graphene envelope and Si/SiOx nanospheres effectively accommodated the volume changes of Si/SiOx nanospheres during cycling, which significantly suppresses the swelling behavior and improves the capacity retention up to 200 cycles.

High-Performance Si/SiOx Nanosphere Anode Material by Multipurpose Interfacial Engineering with Black TiO(2-x).

Silicon oxides (SiOx) have attracted recent attention for their great potential as promising anode materials for lithium ion batteries as a result of their high energy density and excellent cycle performance. Despite these advantages, the commercial use of these materials is still impeded by low initial Coulombic efficiency and high production cost associated with a complicated synthesis process. Here, we demonstrate that Si/SiOx nanosphere anode materials show much improved performance enabled by electroconductive black TiO(2-x) coating in terms of reversible capacity, Coulombic efficiency, and thermal reliability.

Dual-Size Silicon Nanocrystal-Embedded SiO(x) Nanocomposite as a High-Capacity Lithium Storage Material.

SiOx-based materials attracted a great deal of attention as high-capacity Li(+) storage materials for lithium-ion batteries due to their high reversible capacity and good cycle performance. However, these materials still suffer from low initial Coulombic efficiency as well as high production cost, which are associated with the complicated synthesis process. Here, we propose a dual-size Si nanocrystal-embedded SiOx nanocomposite as a high-capacity Li(+) storage material prepared via cost-effective sol-gel reaction of triethoxysilane with commercially available Si nanoparticles.

Long chain microRNA conjugates in calcium phosphate nanoparticles for efficient formulation and delivery.

A long chain microRNA-34a conjugate (lc-miRNA) was prepared by chemical crosslinking in order to improve entrapment efficiency into calcium phosphate nanoparticles (CaPs) and intracellular delivery. Thiol-modified miRNA at both terminal ends was chemically conjugated using crosslinkers to form lc-miRNA which was encapsulated within CaPs by a conventional co-precipitation method. Encapsulation efficiencies, physicochemical properties, and in vitro intracellular delivery efficiencies of the prepared linear polyethyleneimine (LPEI)-coated CaPs (LPEI-CaP) containing common miRNA and lc-miRNA were comparatively evaluated.

Multivalent comb-type aptamer-siRNA conjugates for efficient and selective intracellular delivery.

In this study, a simple and efficient strategy for selective intracellular delivery of RNA therapeutics into target cancer cells was designed using direct complementary base pairing between chemically conjugated multimeric antisense strands and aptamer-incorporating sense strands.

Evaluation of multimeric siRNA conjugates for efficient protamine-based delivery into breast cancer cells.

Despite the preferable properties of well-defined cationic peptides for small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery, their application as siRNA carriers remains limited due to their poor binding affinity with short-chain RNAs. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of a novel strategy for circumventing this limitation, by assessing the utility of multimeric conjugates of siRNA for improving the binding affinity of siRNAs with cationic peptides and the extent of intracellular delivery. Protamine, a natural and arginine-rich peptide, was used to produce stably condensed polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) with multimeric siRNAs (multi-siRNA) with a size of 120 nm while conventional siRNA/protamine particles are over 500 nm.