Influence of parent graphite particle size on the electrochemistry of thermally reduced graphene oxide.

Electrochemical applications of graphene are of very high importance. For electrochemistry, bulk quantities of materials are needed. The most common preparation of bulk quantities of graphene materials is based on oxidation of graphite to graphite oxide and subsequent thermal exfoliation of graphite oxide to thermally reduced graphene oxide (TR-GO).

Metal-based impurities in graphenes: application for electroanalysis.

We show here that metallic impurities presented in graphenes prepared from graphite can be usefully employed for electroanalysis. We demonstrate that cumene hydroperoxide electrochemical reduction on graphene containing iron-based impurities provides significantly larger voltammetric currents than the same experiment using iron oxide nanoparticles. This opens doors for turning metallic impurities into potentially useful components of graphene based electrochemical systems.

Metallic impurities in graphenes prepared from graphite can dramatically influence their properties.

All at C? Graphenes prepared by the top-down exfoliation of graphite are shown to contain metallic impurities (see scheme, metal impurities shown as black dots). These impurities may dominate their properties and can have a negative influence on their potential applications.

Rational disruption of the oligomerization of the mini-ferritin E. coli DPS through protein-protein interface mutation.

DNA-binding protein from starved cells (DPS), a mini-ferritin capable of self-assembling into a 12-meric nano-cage, was chosen as the basis for an alanine-shaving mutagenesis study to investigate the importance of key amino acid residues, located at symmetry-related protein-protein interfaces, in controlling protein stability and self-assembly. Nine mutants were designed through simple inspection, synthesized, and subjected to transmission electron microscopy, circular dichroism, size exclusion chromatography, and "virtual alanine scanning" computational analysis. The data indicate that many of these residues may be hot spot residues.