Beaumont, Marco; Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Tardy, Blaise L.; Gusenbauer, Claudia; Khakalo, Alexey; Nonappa; Opietnik, Martina; Potthast, Antje; Rojas, Orlando J.; Rosenau, Thomas
Soft cellulose II nanospheres: solgel behaviour, swelling and material synthesis
High axial aspect crystalline nanomaterials have emerged as polymeric building blocks for the construction of supermaterials. In contrast to this form, amorphous nanospheres have remained largely untapped. This is especially peculiar in the context of material assembly, due to the wide range of opportunities they offer by virtue of their…
Pendant side-chain sterics against electrostatic forces: Influencing short-range ordering in random polyelectrolytes
Nwosu, Chinomso; Coughlin, E. Bryan
The length of pendant side chains in charged, random, comb-shaped polymers dictates the nature of their short-range ordering. Random copolymers, and terpolymer, of 4-vinylpyridine (4VP), styrene, and isoprene were synthesized and subsequently fully quaternized with 1-alkylbromides having varying number of carbons on the alkyl group ranging from 2 to 8.…
Two Growth Mechanisms of Thiol-Capped Gold Nanoparticles Controlled by Ligand Chemistry
Chen, Xuelian; Wei, Meng; Jiang, Shaohua; Förster, Stephan
Thiols play an important role in the synthesis of well-defined nanoparticles (NPs) with tailored properties, but their effects on the formation kinetics of NPs are still under investigation. Here, we used in situ small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)/UVvis spectroscopy and time-dependent transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to elucidate the role of thiols…
Nucleation and Growth Kinetics of ZnO Nanoparticles Studied by in Situ Microfluidic SAXS/WAXS/UVVis Experiments
Herbst, Maria; Hofmann, Eddie; Förster, Stephan
The synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles proceeds through a complex sequence of precursor reactions, nucleation, and growth processes. For further advancement and control of nanoparticle synthesis, a detailed understanding of the mechanisms and kinetics is essential. With the recent advancement in X-ray scattering and spectroscopy methods, in situ experiments during nanoparticle…
4D biofabrication of skeletal muscle microtissues
Apsite, Indra; Uribe, Juan Manuel; Posada, Andrés Fernando; Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Salehi, Sahar; Ionov, Leonid
Skeletal muscle is one of the most abundant tissues in the body. Although it has a relatively good regeneration capacity, it cannot heal in the case of disease or severe damage. Many current tissue engineering strategies fall short due to the complex structure of skeletal muscle. Biofabrication techniques have emerged…
Fragmentation of 1,2-Polybutadiene-block-Poly(ethylene oxide) Micelles in Imidazolium-Based Ionic Liquids
Early, Julia T.; Lodge, Timothy P.
The effect of solvent selectivity on the fragmentation kinetics of spherical micelles formed by a 1,2-polybutadiene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) BO copolymer in five 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide-based ionic liquids (ILs), (, where n = methyl, ethyl, butyl, hexyl, and octyl) was investigated by temperature-jump dynamic light scattering (T-jump DLS),
A Cross-Method Comparison of Sub-10 nm Nanoparticle Size Distribution
Yang, Ye; Liao, Suiyang; Luo, Zhi; Qi, Runzhang; Mac Fhionnlaoich, Niamh; Stellacci, Francesco; Guldin, Stefan
Accurate nanoparticle (NP) size determination is essential across research domains, with many functions in nanoscience and biomedical research being size-dependent. Although transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is capable of resolving a single NP down to the sub-nm scale, the reliable representation of entire populations is plagued by challenges in providing statistical…
Tandem catalysis in multicomponent solvent-free biofluids
Atkins, Dylan Luke; Berrocal, José Augusto; Mason, Alexander Francesco; Voets, Ilja Karina
Enzymes are widely employed to reduce the environmental impact of chemical industries as biocatalysts improve productivity and offer high selectively under mild reaction conditions in a diverse range of chemical transformations. The poor stability of biomacromolecules under reaction conditions is often a critical bottleneck to their application. Protein engineering or…
Tuning Pore Dimensions of Mesoporous Inorganic Films by Homopolymer Swelling
Reid, Barry; Alvarez-Fernandez, Alberto; Schmidt-Hansberg, Benjamin; Guldin, Stefan
The functionality and applications of mesoporous inorganic films are closely linked to their mesopore dimensions. For material architectures derived from a block copolymer (BCP) micelle coassembly, the pore size is typically manipulated by changing the molecular weight corresponding to the pore-forming block. However, bespoke BCP synthesis is often a costly…
Studying Excipient Modulated Physical Stability and Viscosity of Monoclonal Antibody Formulations Using Small-Angle Scattering
Xu, Amy Yuanyuan; Castellanos, Maria Monica; Mattison, Kevin; Krueger, Susan; Curtis, Joseph E.
Excipients are substances that are added to therapeutic products to improve stability, bioavailability, and manufacturability. Undesirable protein-protein interactions (PPI) can lead to self-association and/or high solution viscosity in concentrated protein formulations that are typically greater than 50 mg/mL. Therefore, understanding the effects of excipients on nonspecific PPI is important for