Dextran stabilised hematite: a sustainable anode in aqueous electrolytes.

During the last decades, the use of innovative hybrid materials in energy storage devices has led to notable advances in the field. However, further enhancement of their electrochemical performance faces significant challenges nowadays, imposed by the materials used in the electrodes and the electrolyte. Such problems include the high solubility of both the organic and the inorganic anode components in the electrolyte as well as the limited intrinsic electronic conductivity and substantial volume variation of the materials during cycling.

Interfacial interactions between DNA and polysaccharide-coated magnetic nanoparticles: Insight from simulations and experiments.

In this work we examine the structural and energetic stability and the interactions between dextran-coated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) and a DNA oligonucleotide at ionic strength conditions that are relevant to physiological gene delivery processes. All-atom Molecular Dynamics simulations provided information at the atomic-level regarding the mechanisms responsible for the physical adsorption of Dextran on the magnetic surface and the conditions under which a successful DNA-Dextran complexation can be accomplished. Coulombic interactions were found to play the main role for the formation of the Dextran interfacial layer onto the magnetic surface while hydrogen bonding between the Dextran molecules enhanced the structural integrity of this layer.

Bioactive and biomimetic 3D scaffolds for bone tissue engineering using graphitic carbon nitride as a sustainable visible light photoinitiator.

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) is explored as a novel sustainable visible light photoinitiator for the preparation of biomimetic 3D hydrogel scaffolds comprising gelatin methacrylamide (GelMA) and dopamine methacrylamide for use in tissue engineering. The initiator efficiency was assessed by comparing the swelling behavior and the stability of photopolymerized hydrogels prepared with GelMA of different degrees of functionalization and different comonomer compositions. Bioactive composite hydrogels with a 50 wt% nanohydroxyapatite (nHAp) content, to closely mimic the actual bone composition, were successfully obtained by the introduction of nHAp in the prepolymer solutions followed by photopolymerization.