Controlling E. coli adhesion on high-k dielectric bioceramics films using poly(amino acid) multilayers.

The influence of high-k dielectric bioceramics with poly(amino acid) multilayer coatings on the adhesion behavior of Escherichia coli (E. coli) was studied by evaluating the density of bacteria coverage on the surfaces of these materials. A biofilm forming K-12 strain (PHL628), a wild-type strain (JM109), and an engineered strain (XL1-Blue) of E.

Defect engineering in cubic cerium oxide nanostructures for catalytic oxidation.

Traditional nanostructured design of cerium oxide catalysts typically focuses on their shape, size, and elemental composition. We report a different approach to enhance the catalytic activity of cerium oxide nanostructures through engineering high density of oxygen vacancy defects in these catalysts without dopants. The defect engineering was accomplished by a low pressure thermal activation process that exploits the nanosize effect of decreased oxygen storage capacity in nanostructured cerium oxides.