1,003 results match your criteria: "School of Chemical and Physical Sciences[Affiliation]"

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There are thousands of disused and abandoned mining sites around the world with substantial accumulations of exposed mine spoil materials that pose a direct threat to their surrounding environment. Management of such sites, and neutralisation of the environmental threats they pose, is therefore extremely important and is an issue of global significance. Low cost management and remediation strategies need to be developed because many abandoned mine sites are in remote and/or economically challenged areas.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The physical characterisation, capture and detection of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and exosomes derived from breath condensate is reported. Breath-derived EVs were isolated from breath condensate and captured on a gold substrate using two complimentary methods. The characterised and isolated EVs were detected using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Morphological stability is crucially important for the long-term stability of polymer solar cells (PSCs). Many high-efficiency PSCs suffer from metastable morphology, resulting in severe device degradation. Here, a series of copolymers is developed by manipulating the content of chlorinated benzodithiophene-4,8-dione (T1-Cl) via a random copolymerization approach.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Helicobacter pylori metabolites exacerbate gastritis through C-type lectin receptors.

J Exp Med

January 2021

Department of Molecular Immunology, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.

Article Synopsis
  • Helicobacter pylori causes gastritis by promoting specific T cells during infection, but how the immune system detects it isn’t completely clear since the bacteria can evade TLR detection.
  • Recent research reveals that metabolites from H. pylori, modified from host cholesterol, worsen gastritis by interacting with C-type lectin receptors.
  • Mice lacking Mincle showed reduced T cell responses and gastritis, while a mutant strain of H. pylori unable to produce certain cholesterol derivatives had a lower capacity to induce inflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Author Correction: Self-assembled poly-catenanes from supramolecular toroidal building blocks.

Nature

October 2020

Department of Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.

Article Synopsis
  • An amendment to the paper has been published.
  • The amendment can be accessed through a link provided at the top of the original paper.
  • Readers should check the link for updated information related to the paper.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sub-lethal effects of permethrin exposure on a passerine: implications for managing ectoparasites in wild bird nests.

Conserv Physiol

September 2020

Charles Darwin Research Station, Charles Darwin Foundation, Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.

Permethrin is increasingly used for parasite control in bird nests, including nests of threatened passerines. We present the first formal evaluation of the effects of continued permethrin exposure on the reproductive success and liver function of a passerine, the zebra finch (), for two generations. We experimentally treated all nest material with a 1% permethrin solution or a water control and provided the material to breeding finches for nest building.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) using X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) is a technique that helps in determining the structures of membrane proteins and observing changes over time, but traditional methods waste a lot of sample material.* -
  • The European XFEL produces rapid femtosecond X-ray pulses, but conventional liquid delivery methods result in over 99% sample wastage due to timing differences between pulse delivery.* -
  • A new microfluidic device that delivers protein crystal-laden droplets segmented by oil reduces sample waste by about 60%, allowing for the successful determination of a specific enzyme structure with previously unreported features.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A series of ammonium monosubstituted H-phosphonate salts were synthesized by combining H-phosphonate diesters with amines in the absence of solvent at 80 °C. Variation of the ester substituent and amine produced a range of ionic liquids with low melting points. The products and by-products were analyzed by spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques in order to get a better mechanistic picture of the dealkylation and formal dearylation observed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Density functional theory calculations using the PBE0-D3BJ hybrid functional have been employed to investigate the complexation of main-group metal-cations with [2.2.2]cyclophane and deltaphane.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cesium lead halide perovskite nanocrystals exhibit high photoluminescence quantum efficiencies and tunability across the visible spectrum. This makes these crystals ideal candidates for solar panels, light-emitting diodes, lasers, and especially nanolasers. Due to the versatility of cation substitution in perovskite nanocrystals, they can be grown on amine-functionalized silicon dioxide nanoparticles, where the amine linker replaces the standard cation structure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Design of superatomic systems: exploiting favourable conditions for the delocalisation of d-electron density in transition metal doped clusters.

Phys Chem Chem Phys

September 2020

The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand.

The incorporation of transition metals into superatomic species has led to the proposal of highly tailorable systems, with the transition metal atoms typically acting as magnetic dopants. However, the extent to which d-electrons are able to delocalise from their ionic cores has not been fully recognised. In this work a variety of systems have been explored using a range of exchange-correlation functionals commonly used to explore cluster species, to test the extent of d-electron delocalisation under favourable conditions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unifying the synthesis of nucleoside analogs.

Science

August 2020

Lennard-Jones Laboratory, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chiral covalent organic frameworks: design, synthesis and property.

Chem Soc Rev

September 2020

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules and State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, P. R. China.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are constructed using reticular chemistry with the building blocks being connected via covalent bonds and have emerged as a new series of porous materials for multitudinous applications. Most COFs reported to date are achiral, and only a small fraction of COFs with chiral nature are reported. This review covers the recent advances in the field of chiral COFs (CCOFs), including their design principles and synthetic strategies, structural studies, and potential applications in asymmetric catalysis, enantioselective separation, and chiral recognition.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The evolution of sexually dimorphic cuticular hydrocarbons in blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae).

J Evol Biol

October 2020

Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.

Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are organic compounds found on the cuticles of all insects which can act as close-contact pheromones, while also providing a hydrophobic barrier to water loss. Given their widespread importance in sexual behaviour and survival, CHCs have likely contributed heavily to the adaptation and speciation of insects. Despite this, the patterns and mechanisms of their diversification have been studied in very few taxa.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Major Transitions in Cuticular Hydrocarbon Expression Coincide with Sexual Maturity in a Blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae).

J Chem Ecol

July 2020

Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia.

In many animals, there is a prolonged pre-reproductive period prior to sexual maturity. To avoid premature mating attempts, it is common for phenotypic changes to occur during this period that signal the onset of reproductive viability. Among the insects, pre-reproductive phases can last for up to 50% of the adult lifespan, but little is known about the accompanying phenotypic changes that signal sexual maturity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Self-assembled poly-catenanes from supramolecular toroidal building blocks.

Nature

July 2020

Department of Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.

Mechanical interlocking of molecules (catenation) is a nontrivial challenge in modern synthetic chemistry and materials science. One strategy to achieve catenation is the design of pre-annular molecules that are capable of both efficient cyclization and of pre-organizing another precursor to engage in subsequent interlocking. This task is particularly difficult when the annular target is composed of a large ensemble of molecules, that is, when it is a supramolecular assembly.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Global natural products social (GNPS) molecular networking is a useful tool to categorize chemical space within samples and streamline the discovery of new natural products. Here, we demonstrate its use in chemically profiling the extract of the marine tunicate comprised of many previously reported rubrolides, for new chemical entities. Within the rubrolide cluster, two masses that did not correspond to previously reported congeners were detected, and, following MS-guided fractionation, led to the isolation of new methylated rubrolides T () and (/)-U ().

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The interactions of dietary carotenoids, and particularly the xanthophylls in the macula, with singlet oxygen and three different oxy-radicals, (hydroxyl radical, nitrogen dioxide and the superoxide radical anion) are compared using pulsed laser and γ-techniques. The results give possible molecular mechanisms for the switch from anti-oxidant (protection) by carotenoids to pro-oxidant (damage) by carotenoids. The participation of oxygen in radical mechanisms in the presence of different carotenoids is compared for the different radicals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Directed self-assembly of peptide-diketopyrrolopyrrole conjugates - a platform for bio-organic thin film preparation.

Soft Matter

July 2020

School of Chemical Sciences, The University of Auckland, 23 Symonds St., Auckland 1010, New Zealand. and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Auckland, 3A Symonds St., Auckland 1010, New Zealand and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, New Zealand and Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery, The University of Auckland, 3A Symonds St., Auckland 1010, New Zealand.

Increased water solubility and long-range intermolecular ordering have been introduced into the fluorescent organic molecule thiophene-diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP) via its conjugation to the octapeptide HEFISTAH, which is derived from the protein-protein β-interface of the homo-tetramer protein diaminopimelate decarboxylase. The octapeptide, and its TDPP mono- and cross-linked conjugates were synthesised using 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) based solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). Unlike the unmodified peptide, the resulting mono-linked and cross-linked peptides showed a fibrous morphology and formed hydrogels at 4 wt% in water at neutral pH, but failed to assemble at pH 2 and pH 9.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Novel doping agents and doping strategies are continually entering the market, placing a burden on analytical methods to detect, adapt, and respond to subtle changes in the composition of biological samples. Therefore, there is a growing interest in rapid, adaptable, and ideally confirmatory analytical methods for the fight against doping. Nanostructured silicon (nano-Si)-based surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (SALDI-MS) can effectively address this need, allowing fast and sensitive detection of prohibited compounds used in sport doping.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A Series of Manganese(III) Salen Complexes as a Result of Team-Based Inquiry in a Transnational Education Programme.

Chempluschem

June 2020

The Lennard Jones Laboratories, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Keele University, Keele, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom.

The development of a team-based approach to research-led transnational practical chemistry teaching is described in which a team of five Chinese students on an articulated transnational degree programme, supported by a team of academic and technical staff, carried out a study examining the structural chemistry of a series of manganese(III) salen complexes. A series of four crystallographically characterized manganese(III) salen complexes with ancillary carboxylate ligands are reported here. The carboxylate coordination modes range from the bridging syn-anti μ -κO : κO' mode observed in the predominant cyclohexanoate and isobutyrate species, to a capping terminal monodentate mode for the adamantanoate species, and an unusual mixture of bridging and terminal coordination modes observed in a second minor phase of the cyclohexanoate species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Experimental and computational investigations on the anti-corrosive and adsorption behavior of 7-N,N'-dialkyaminomethyl-8-Hydroxyquinolines on C40E steel surface in acidic medium.

J Colloid Interface Sci

September 2020

Laboratory of Materials, Nanotechnology and Environment, Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed V University, Av. IbnBattouta, P.O. Box. 1014, Agdal-Rabat, Morocco. Electronic address:

Two new 7-N,N'-dialkylaminomethyl-8-Hydroxyquinolines, namely 7-N,N'-dipropylaminomethyl-8-Hydroxyquinoline (DPQ) and 7-N,N'-dimethylaminomethyl-8-Hydroxyquinoline (DMQ), were synthesized and characterized using H/C NMR and Elemental analysis methods. Corrosion inhibition effect of DMP and DPQ for C40E steel in 1 M HCl was evaluated at different concentrations (10 to 10M) and temperatures (298 to 328 K) using several experimental and computational approaches. Weight loss and electrochemical studies showed that protection efficiencies (η) of DPQ and DMQ increase with increase in concentrations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Balancing connectivity with function in silver(i) networks of pyridyltriazole (tzpa) ligands results in the formation of a metallogel.

Dalton Trans

June 2020

School of Chemistry and Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, The University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. and The AMBER (Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research) Centre, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

A new flexible and divergent 1,2,3-triazol-4-yl-picolinamide (tzpa) ligand 2 and the half-equivalent model ligand 1, both functionalised with pendant 3-pyridyl groups, are reported and their coordination behaviour with silver(i) ions is explored, both in the crystalline phase and through the formation of a supramolecular metallogel. The self-assembly of tzpa ligand 1 with AgCF3SO3 resulted in the formation of a 1D coordination polymer, binding in a bidentate fashion through the pyridyl and triazole nitrogen atoms of the tzpa binding site and a pendant pyridyl nitrogen atom of an adjacent ligand. Doubling the number of metal binding sites in ligand 2, while retaining the same metal binding domain, gives rise to the formation of a supramolecular metallogel on reaction with AgBF4 at 5 wt% in MeCN, possessing self-healing properties.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF