Ensuring Food Integrity by Metrology and FAIR Data Principles.

Food integrity is a general term for sound, nutritive, healthy, tasty, safe, authentic, traceable, as well as ethically, safely, environment-friendly, and sustainably produced foods. In order to verify these properties, analytical methods with a higher degree of accuracy, sensitivity, standardization and harmonization and a harmonized system for their application in analytical laboratories are required. In this view, metrology offers the opportunity to achieve these goals.

Frequency and Temperature Dependence of Fabrication Parameters in Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal Devices.

A series of polymer dispersed liquid crystal devices using glass substrates have been fabricated and investigated focusing on their electrical properties. The devices have been studied in terms of impedance as a function of frequency. An electric equivalent circuit has been proposed, including the influence of the temperature on the elements into it.

Room temperature self-healing power of silicone elastomers having silver nanoparticles as crosslinkers.

Thiol-functionalised silicone-oils were crosslinked with silver nanoparticles to give mechanically consistent elastomers with high self-healing power. The materials were broken into small pieces and put together in intimate contact for 24 hours at room temperature, observing a complete macroscopic healing and a quantitative recovery of compression-stress and strain.

Electrochemical reduction of O2 in 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ionic liquid containing Zn2+ cations: deposition of non-polar oriented ZnO nanocrystalline films.

The influence of the Zn(2+) concentration and temperature on the electrochemical reduction of O(2) in a solution of zinc bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (Zn(TFSI)(2)) salt in 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (PYR(14)TFSI) ionic liquid is presented. ZnO nanocrystalline films were then electrodeposited, under enhanced O(2) reduction, at temperatures in the 75-150 °C range. Their morphology, chemical composition, structural and optical properties were analyzed.

Designing neutral metallophilic hydrogels from di- and tripeptides.

Here we report the metallophilic attraction driven gel-forming capability of four cysteine-containing short peptides at neutral pH. Such peptides were designed to have an isoelectric point (pI) close to 7, aided by the introduction of an arginine unit with its highly basic guanidinium group.

Converting drugs into gelators: supramolecular hydrogels from N-acetyl-L-cysteine and coinage-metal salts.

Here we present the concept of metallophilic hydrogels, supramolecular systems in which the gelator species are metal-thiolates that self-assemble through metallophilic attractions. The principle is applied for a small drug, the mucolytic agent N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC), which readily forms hydrogels in the presence of Au(iii), Ag(i) and Cu(ii) salts. The resulting transparent hydrogels present pH induced sol/gel transition.

Phase diagrams in compressible weakly interacting all-polymer nanocomposites.

A compressible regular solution free energy model for describing the phase behavior of weakly interacting binary blends comprising nonrigid polymer nanoparticles and linear-polymer chains (i.e., all-polymer nanocomposites) has been developed by incorporating specific nanoparticle-nanoparticle and nanoparticle-polymer contributions into the original free volume theory for binary polymer blends of Ruzette et al.

Irreversible thermochromic behavior in gold and silver nanorod/polymeric ionic liquid nanocomposite films.

The novel application of gold and silver nanorods as irreversible thermochromic dyes in polymeric ionic liquid (PIL) nanocomposites is proposed here. These materials have been synthesized by anion exchange of an imidazolium-based PIL in a solution that also contained gold nanorods. This resulted in the entrapment of the nanoobjects within a solid polymer precipitate.

Combined electrochromic and plasmonic optical responses in conducting polymer/metal nanoparticle films.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxithiophene)/poly(styrene sulphonate) (PEDOT/PSS) aqueous dispersions were mixed with aqueous gold nanoparticle and aqueous silver nanoparticle colloids. PEDOT/gold nanoparticles (Au NP) and PEDOT/silver nanoparticles (Ag NP) films were obtained by solvent casting the corresponding aqueous solutions. The nanocomposite films showed the optical characteristics associated with both the surface plasmon absorption resonance of the metal nanoparticles and the excitation of the bipolaron band of the conducting polymer.

First enzymatic synthesis of water-soluble conducting poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene).

The enzymatically catalyzed polymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene in the presence of polystyrenesulfonate is introduced. This is the first time that an enzymatically catalyzed poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is reported. Horseradish peroxidase enzyme was used as a catalyst for the polymerization process leading to a water-soluble PEDOT that was characterized by UV-vis spectra, Fourier transform infrared, and electrical conductivity measurements.