Borro, Bruno C.; Toussaint, Marie S.; Bucciarelli, Saskia; Malmsten, Martin
Effects of charge contrast and composition on microgel formation and interactions with bacteria-mimicking liposomes
Microgels offer opportunities for improved delivery of antimicrobial peptides (AMP). To contribute to a foundation for rational design of such systems, we here study the effects of electrostatics on the generation of peptide-carrying microgels. For this, alginate microgels loaded with polymyxin B and cross-linked by Ca2+, were formed by electrostatic…
Disentangling the role of solvent polarity and protein solvation in folding and self-assembly of ?-lactalbumin
Bucciarelli, Saskia; Sayedi, Edres Sayed; Osella, Silvio; Trzaskowski, Bartosz; Vissing, Karina Juul; Vestergaard, Bente; Foderà, Vito
Protein (mis)folding, stability and aggregation are of interest in numerous fields, such as food sciences, biotechnology, and health sciences, and efforts are directed towards the elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms. Through an integrative approach, we show that a subtle balance between hydrogen bond formation and hydrophobic interactions defines protein…
Crystallization-driven microstructure changes during microphase separation for environment-friendly thermoplastic triblock copolymer elastomers
Ding, Shuangshuang; Fang, Chu; Wang, Xuehui; Wang, Zhigang
A study on the crystallization-driven microstructure changes during microphase separation for a series of high transparent semicrystalline thermoplastic triblock copolymer elastomers (TBCPEs), polylactide-b-polyisoprene-b-polylactide (PLA-b-PI-b-PLA) was conducted in this work. A series of PLA-b-PI-b-PLA TBCPEs with different molecular masses of PI midblock and same molecular mass of PLA end
Polyfluorene Copolymers as High-Performance Hole-Transport Materials for Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells
Hu, Jinlong; You, Jiang; Peng, Chang; Qiu, Shudi; He, Wenxin; Li, Chaohui; Liu, Xianhu; Mai, Yaohua; Guo, Fei
Inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that can be entirely processed at low temperatures have attracted growing attention due to their cost-effective production. Hole-transport materials (HTMs) play an essential role in achieving efficient inverted PSCs, as they determine the effectiveness of charge extraction and recombination at interfaces. Herein, three polyfluorene copolymers…
Gradient crystallinity and its influence on the poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(methyl methacrylate) membrane-derived by immersion precipitation method
Remanan, Sanjay; Ghosh, Sabyasachi; Das, Tushar Kanti; Sharma, Maya; Bose, Madhuparna; Bose, Suryasarathi; Das, Amit Kumar; Das, Narayan Chandra
Herein, phase inversion poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PVDF/PMMA) microporous membranes were prepared at various PMMA concentration by immersion precipitation method. Increment in the PMMA concentration has a significant influence in the PVDF membrane crystallinity, which is studied by differential scanning calorimeter, X-ray diffractometer, and small-angle X-ray scattering
Microstructure Induced Rigidity of Polysiloxane Yielding Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Alkyl Side Chains
Sarkar, Alok; Negi, Lalit Mohan Singh; Lewis, Kenrick M.; Vasimalai, Nagamalai; Gowd, E. Bhoje; Dasgupta, Debarshi
The influence of a backbone microstructure on the side chain crystallization of a comb-like polymer is analyzed systematically using a tailor-made random versus block siloxane copolymer system. While the side alkyl chains of the random siloxane undergo a stepwise orderdisorder (OD) transition to form well-ordered orthorhombic structure at low temperature,…
Transformation from form II to form I accelerated by oriented lamellae in Polybutene-1
Chen, Jinlong; Wang, Binghua; Sun, Taicheng; Xu, Jianwei; Chen, Jingbo; Zhang, Bin
Promoting the transformation from Form II to Form I in polybutene-1 (PB-1) is deemed to be crucial and demanded for commercial applications. The mechanism of phase transition is previously described in terms of thermal or mechanical stress applied between the crystalline and amorphous regions. Here, we find that the structural…
Continuous, high-throughput production of artemisinin-loaded supramolecular cochleates using simple off-the-shelf flow focusing device
Shuddhodana; Wong, Pooi Wen Kathy; Judeh, Zaher
Lipid cochleates are gaining increasing interest as drug-carriers. However, their preparation relies on conventional batch processes that are complex, time consuming and lack batch-to-batch reproducibility; presenting a bottleneck for clinical translation. We report an efficient continuous preparation process for artemisinin-loaded cochleates (ART-cochleates) using inexpensive off-the-shelf flow
Phase separation and performance of polyethersulfone/cellulose nanocrystals membranes
Lessan, Fatemeh; Karimi, Mohammad; Bañuelos, Jose Leobardo; Foudazi, Reza
We investigate the effect of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as a hydrophilic nanoparticle on the characteristics of polyethersulfone (PES) based membranes. The membranes are fabricated using typical nonsolvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method. We study the radius of gyration and aggregation of PES in dimethylformamide in the presence of CNC, the…
Periodic Polyethylene Sulfonates from Polyesterification: Bulk and Nanoparticle Morphologies and Ionic Conductivities
Rank, Christina; Yan, Lu; Mecking, Stefan; Winey, Karen I.
A series of polyethylene-like ionomers with periodic sulfonate groups were synthesized by polyesterification of octatetracontane-1,48-diol and tetrabutylammonium dimethyl sulfosuccinate. Optional cation exchange in aqueous dispersions replaced the NBu4+ counterions for Na+ or Cs+. The defined periodic microstructure of the polymers leads to the formation of layered structures in bulk and…