Epoxy Matrices Modified by Green Additives for Recyclable Materials.

Epoxy-based thermosets are one of the most popular matrix materials in many industries, and significant environmental benefits can be obtained by developing a recyclable variant of this widely utilized material. Incorporation of a bio-based disulfide additive within a commercial epoxy system leads to a cross-linked material that can be fractionated under mild and environmentally benign conditions. The material has been analyzed by FTIR and solid-state NMR.

Nanowire Chemical/Biological Sensors: Status and a Roadmap for the Future.

Chemiresistive sensors are becoming increasingly important as they offer an inexpensive option to conventional analytical instrumentation, they can be readily integrated into electronic devices, and they have low power requirements. Nanowires (NWs) are a major theme in chemosensor development. High surface area, interwire junctions, and restricted conduction pathways give intrinsically high sensitivity and new mechanisms to transduce the binding or action of analytes.

Wireless gas detection with a smartphone via rf communication.

Chemical sensing is of critical importance to human health, safety, and security, yet it is not broadly implemented because existing sensors often require trained personnel, expensive and bulky equipment, and have large power requirements. This study reports the development of a smartphone-based sensing strategy that employs chemiresponsive nanomaterials integrated into the circuitry of commercial near-field communication tags to achieve non-line-of-sight, portable, and inexpensive detection and discrimination of gas-phase chemicals (e.g.

Mechanochemical Synthesis of Poly(phenylene vinylenes).

We report a simple, rapid, and solvent-free methodology for solid-state polymerizations yielding poly(phenylene vinylenes) (PPVs) promoted by ball-milling. This solid-state Gilch polymerization method produces PPVs in as little as five minutes of milling. Detailed investigations of the parameter space governing the solid-state polymerization, i.

Control of self-assembled 2D nanostructures by methylation of guanine.

Methylation of DNA nucleobases is an important control mechanism in biology applied, for example, in the regulation of gene expression. The effect of methylation on the intermolecular interactions between guanine molecules is studied through an interplay between scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory with empirical dispersion correction (DFT-D). The present STM and DFT-D results show that methylation of guanine can have subtle effects on the hydrogen-bond strength with a strong dependence on the position of methylation.

Single-molecule chemical reactions on DNA origami.

DNA nanotechnology and particularly DNA origami, in which long, single-stranded DNA molecules are folded into predetermined shapes, can be used to form complex self-assembled nanostructures. Although DNA itself has limited chemical, optical or electronic functionality, DNA nanostructures can serve as templates for building materials with new functional properties. Relatively large nanocomponents such as nanoparticles and biomolecules can also be integrated into DNA nanostructures and imaged.

Small molecule induced control in duplex and triplex DNA-directed chemical reactions.

Triplex DNA binders can effectively control copper-catalysed alkyne-azide click reactions in DNA architecture, such that either duplex or triplex DNA directed reactions of terminally attached azides and alkynes occur, in the absence or presence of triplex DNA binder, respectively.