Operando Investigation of Zr Doping in NMC811 Cathode for High Energy Density Lithium Ion Batteries.

LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.

Structure-properties correlations in low-methylated pectin hydrogels and aerogels crosslinked by divalent ions.

In this paper, structure-properties relationship between ionically crosslinked pectin hydrogels and aerogels is drawn, by focusing the study on the small amount of added cationic crosslinkers. Through this strategy and by coupling results from rheology and nanostructure of the gels provided by small-angle X-ray scattering, the early stages of the formation of ionic crosslinking junction zones are observed. Furthermore, as a major predictor of the samples' ability to resist linear shrinkage upon solvent exchange and supercritical drying processes, the gel-state (and thus rheological properties) emerges as a key element.

Recombinant silk protein condensates show widely different properties depending on the sample background.

There is an increasing understanding that condensation is a crucial intermediate step in the assembly of biological materials and for a multitude of cellular processes. To apply and to understand these mechanisms, biophysical characterisation techniques are central. The formation and biophysical properties of protein condensates depend on a multitude of factors, such as protein concentration, pH, temperature, salt concentration, and presence of other biomolecules as well as protein purification and storage conditions.

Temperature promotes selectivity during electrochemical CO reduction on NiO:SnO nanofibers.

Electrolyzers operate over a range of temperatures; hence, it is crucial to design electrocatalysts that do not compromise the product distribution unless temperature can promote selectivity. This work reports a synthetic approach based on electrospinning to produce NiO:SnO nanofibers (NFs) for selectively reducing CO to formate above room temperature. The NFs comprise compact but disjoined NiO and SnO nanocrystals identified with STEM.

Incorporation of Nano-Zinc Oxide as a Strategy to Improve the Barrier Properties of Biopolymer-Suberinic Acid Residues Films: A Preliminary Study.

Finishing coatings in the wood-based composites industry not only influence the final appearance of the product but also serve to protect against fungi and molds and reduce the release of harmful substances, particularly formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Carbon-rich materials, such as those derived from birch bark extraction, specifically suberin acids, can fulfill this role. Previous research has demonstrated that adding suberin acid residues (SAR) at 20% and 50% by weight significantly enhances the gas barrier properties of surface-finishing materials based on poly(lactide) (PLA) and polycaprolactone (PCL), particularly in terms of total VOC (TVOC) and formaldehyde emissions.

Liposome-based hybrid drug delivery systems with DNA nanostructures and metallic nanoparticles.

Introduction: This review discusses novel hybrid assemblies that are based on liposomal formulations. The focus is on the hybrid constructs that are formed through the integration of liposomes/vesicles with other nano-objects such as nucleic acid nanostructures and metallic nanoparticles. The aim is to introduce some of the recent, specific examples that bridge different technologies and thus may form a new platform for advanced drug delivery applications.

A DNA robotic switch with regulated autonomous display of cytotoxic ligand nanopatterns.

The clustering of death receptors (DRs) at the membrane leads to apoptosis. With the goal of treating tumours, multivalent molecular tools that initiate this mechanism have been developed. However, DRs are also ubiquitously expressed in healthy tissue.

Microfluidic production, stability and loading of synthetic giant unilamellar vesicles.

In advanced drug delivery, versatile liposomal formulations are commonly employed for safer and more accurate therapies. Here we report a method that allows a straightforward production of synthetic monodisperse (~ 100 μm) giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) using a microfluidic system. The stability analysis based on the microscopy imaging showed that at ambient conditions the produced GUVs had a half-life of 61 ± 2 h.

Manually pressurized droplet digital PCR chip for rapid SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics.

Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) is a technique in which PCR reaction is divided into thousands of nanoliter-sized droplets and has proven to be a great tool in virus diagnostics. Compared to the gold standard system quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR), ddPCR functions particularly well when dealing with samples with low template counts, such as viral concentration. This feature makes the technique suitable for early detection of the virus.

An atomic layer deposition diffusion-reaction model for porous media with different particle geometries.

This work presents a diffusion-reaction model for atomic layer deposition (ALD), which has been adapted to describe radial direction reactant transport and adsorption kinetics in a porous particle. Specifically, we present the effect of three particle geometries: spherical, cylindrical and a slab in the diffusion-reaction model. The reactant diffusion propagates as a unidimensional front inside the slab particle, whereas with cylinder and spherical particles, the reactant diffusion approaches the particle centre from two and three dimensions, respectively.

Enhanced Electrochemical Hydrogenation of Benzaldehyde to Benzyl Alcohol on Pd@Ni-MOF by Modifying the Adsorption Configuration.

Electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) approaches under ambient temperature and pressure offer significant potential advantages over thermal hydrogenation processes but require highly active and efficient hydrogenation electrocatalysts. The performance of such hydrogenation electrocatalysts strongly depends not only on the active phase but also on the architecture and surface chemistry of the support material. Herein, Pd nanoparticles supported on a nickel metal-organic framework (MOF), Ni-MOF-74, are prepared, and their activity toward the ECH of benzaldehyde (BZH) in a 3 M acetate (pH 5.

Calcite Surfaces Modified with Carboxylic Acids (C to C): Layer Organization, Wettability, Stability, and Molecular Structural Properties.

A fundamental understanding of the interactions between mineral surfaces and amphiphilic surface modification agents is needed for better control over the production and uses of mineral fillers. Here, we controlled the carboxylic acid layer formation conditions on calcite surfaces with high precision via vapor deposition. The properties of the resulting carboxylic acid layers were analyzed using surface-sensitive techniques, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle measurements, angle resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and vibrational sum-frequency spectroscopy.

Thermodynamically controlled multiphase separation of heterogeneous liquid crystal colloids.

Phase separation is a universal physical transition process whereby a homogeneous mixture splits into two distinct compartments that are driven by the component activity, elasticity, or compositions. In the current work, we develop a series of heterogeneous colloidal suspensions that exhibit both liquid-liquid phase separation of semiflexible binary polymers and liquid crystal phase separation of rigid, rod-like nanocellulose particles. The phase behavior of the multicomponent mixture is controlled by the trade-off between thermodynamics and kinetics during the two transition processes, displaying cholesteric self-assembly of nanocellulose within or across the compartmented aqueous phases.

Simultaneous Improvement of Surface Wettability and UV Resistance of Wood with Lignin-Based Treatments.

Recent advancements in wood modification aim to enhance the inherent qualities of this versatile biological material, which includes renewability, ease of processing, and thermal insulation. This study focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of lignin as a protective agent for less durable wood species, namely, and L. The impregnation of wood with three various forms of lignin, such as kraft lignin, acetylated kraft lignin, and lignin nanoparticles, was carried out using the vacuum technique at room conditions.

In-situ Monitoring of Photocontrollable Wrinkle Erasure in Azobenzene-based Supramolecular Systems.

In this contribution, dynamic photoinduced wrinkle erasure enabled by photomechanical changes in supramolecular polymer-azo complexes was characterized via confocal microscopy. Different photoactive molecules, disperse yellow 7 (DY7) and 4,4'-dihydroxyazobenzene (DHAB), were compared to 4-hydroxy-4'-dimethylaminoazobenzene (OH-azo-DMA). The characteristic erasure times of wrinkles were quickly assessed by using an image processing algorithm.

Computer-Aided Design of A-Trail Routed Wireframe DNA Nanostructures with Square Lattice Edges.

In recent years, interest in wireframe DNA origami has increased, with different designs, software, and applications emerging at a fast pace. It is now possible to design a wide variety of shapes by starting with a 2D or 3D mesh and using different scaffold routing strategies. The design choices of the edges in wireframe structures can be important in some applications and have already been shown to influence the interactions between nanostructures and cells.

Compressibility and porosity modulate the mechanical properties of giant gas vesicles.

Gas vesicles used as contrast agents for noninvasive ultrasound imaging must be formulated to be stable, and their mechanical properties must be assessed. We report here the formation of perfluoro--butane microbubbles coated with surface-active proteins that are produced by filamentous fungi (hydrophobin HFBI from ). Using pendant drop and pipette aspiration techniques, we show that these giant gas vesicles behave like glassy polymersomes, and we discover novel gas extraction regimes.

Temperature-Controlled Syngas Production via Electrochemical CO Reduction on a CoTPP/MWCNT Composite in a Flow Cell.

The mixture of CO and H, known as syngas, is a building block for many substantial chemicals and fuels. Electrochemical reduction of CO and HO to syngas would be a promising alternative approach for its synthesis due to negative carbon emission footprint when using renewable energy to power the reaction. Herein, we present temperature-controlled syngas production by electrochemical CO and HO reduction on a cobalt tetraphenylporphyrin/multiwalled carbon nanotube (CoTPP/MWCNT) composite in a flow cell in the temperature range of 20-50 °C.

Single-step extraction of small-diameter single-walled carbon nanotubes in the presence of riboflavin.

We propose a novel approach to disperse and extract small-diameter single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) using an aqueous solution of riboflavin and Sephacryl gel. The extraction of small-diameter semiconducting SWCNTs was observed, regardless of the initial diameter distribution of the SWCNTs. Dispersion of SWCNTs occurs due to the adsorption of π-conjugated isoalloxazine moieties on the surface of small-diameter nanotubes and interactions between hydroxy groups of ribityl chains with water.

Solid Phase Synthesis of DNA Nanostructures in Heavy Liquid.

Introduction of the solid phase method to synthesize biopolymers has revolutionized the field of biological research by enabling efficient production of peptides and oligonucleotides. One of the advantages of this method is the ease of removal of excess production materials from the desired product, as it is immobilized on solid substrate. The DNA origami method utilizes the nature of nucleotide base-pairing to construct well-defined objects at the nanoscale, and has become a potent tool for manipulating matter in the fields of chemistry, physics, and biology.

Probing the Free Energy of Small Water Clusters: Revisiting Classical Nucleation Theory.

By addressing the defects in classical nucleation theory (CNT), we develop an approach for extracting the free energy of small water clusters from nucleation rate experiments without any assumptions about the form of the cluster free energy. For temperatures higher than ∼250 K, the extracted free energies from experimental data points indicate that their ratio to the free energies predicted by CNT exhibits nonmonotonic behavior as the cluster size changes. We show that this ratio increases from almost zero for monomers and passes through (at least) one maximum before approaching one for large clusters.

Modelling atomic layer deposition overcoating formation on a porous heterogeneous catalyst.

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to deposit a protective overcoating (AlO) on an industrially relevant Co-based Fischer-Tropsch catalyst. A trimethylaluminium/water (TMA/HO) ALD process was used to prepare ∼0.7-2.