Plant-based herding agent promising for oil spills response in cold regions and its effect on oil/water mixtures freezing and thawing as revealed by MRI.

This work reports on the first multi-scale NMR study of new plant-based herding agent suitable for application in Arctic marine environment. Using NMR spectroscopy the chemical components of the herding agent were established while through the NMR relaxometry and diffusometry the local dynamics, molecular mobility, and transport properties of the components were studied depending on water content upon dilution. MRI method was first applied to probe the effect of herder on freezing and thawing processes occurring in dodecane/water and light oil/water mixtures.

Antibacterial Ferroelectric Hybrid Membranes Fabricated via Electrospinning for Wound Healing.

In the present study, wound healing ferroelectric membranes doped with zinc oxide nanoparticles were fabricated from vinylidene fluoride-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer and polyvinylpyrrolidone using the electrospinning technique. Five different ratios of vinylidene fluoride-tetrafluoroethylene to polyvinylpyrrolidone were used to control the properties of the membranes at a constant zinc oxide nanoparticle content. It was found that an increase of polyvinylpyrrolidone content leads to a decrease of the spinning solution conductivity and viscosity, causing a decrease of the average fiber diameter and reducing their strength and elongation.

Composite Ferroelectric Membranes Based on Vinylidene Fluoride-Tetrafluoroethylene Copolymer and Polyvinylpyrrolidone for Wound Healing.

Wound healing is a complex process and an ongoing challenge for modern medicine. Herein, we present the results of study of structure and properties of ferroelectric composite polymer membranes for wound healing. Membranes were fabricated by electrospinning from a solution of vinylidene fluoride/tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (VDF-TeFE) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in dimethylformamide (DMF).