Nwosu, Chinomso; Coughlin, E. Bryan
Pendant side-chain sterics against electrostatic forces: Influencing short-range ordering in random polyelectrolytes
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.…
Soft cellulose II nanospheres: solgel behaviour, swelling and material synthesis
Beaumont, Marco; Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Tardy, Blaise L.; Gusenbauer, Claudia; Khakalo, Alexey; Nonappa; Opietnik, Martina; Potthast, Antje; Rojas, Orlando J.; Rosenau, Thomas
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…
Probing the Nanostructure and Arrangement of Bacterial Magnetosomes by Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering
Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Riese, Cornelius N.; Mickoleit, Frank; Schüler, Dirk; Schenk, Anna S.
Magnetosomes are membrane-enveloped single-domain ferromagnetic nanoparticles enabling the navigation of magnetotactic bacteria along magnetic field lines. Strict control over each step of biomineralization generates particles of high crystallinity, strong magnetization, and remarkable uniformity in size and shape, which is particularly interesting for many biomedical and biotechnological
Rapid synthesis of [Au25(Cys)18] nanoclusters via carbon monoxide in microfluidic liquid-liquid segmented flow system and their antimicrobial performance
Huang, He; Hwang, Gi Byoung; Wu, Gaowei; Karu, Kersti; Du Toit, Hendrik; Wu, Han; Callison, June; Parkin, Ivan P.; Gavriilidis, Asterios
Atomically precise thiolate-gold nanoclusters with well-defined structures attract attention for use in various applications. However, most of the recently reported synthetic methods rely on prolonged synthesis times (a few hours to days) in order to produce high purity materials with a single cluster size. Such extended synthesis times make these…
Bacteria-Resistant, Transparent, Free-Standing Films Prepared from Complex Coacervates
Kurtz, Irene S.; Sui, Shuo; Hao, Xi; Huang, Mengfei; Perry, Sarah L.; Schiffman, Jessica D.
We report the fabrication, properties, and bacteria-resistance of polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) coatings and free-standing films. Poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid), poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride), and salt were spin-coated into PEC films. After thermal annealing in a humid environment, highly transparent, mechanically strong, and chemically robust films were formed. Notably, we demonstrate
Two-Step Chemical Transformation of Polystyrene-block-poly(solketal acrylate) Copolymers for Increasing ?
Yu, Duk Man; Smith, Darren M.; Kim, Hyeyoung; Rzayev, Javid; Russell, Thomas P.
We investigated the two-step chemical transformation of a series of symmetric poly(styrene-b-solketal acrylate) (PS-b-PSA) copolymers with varying molecular weights from 1900 to 27?300 g/mol (13 ? N ? 194) synthesized by sequential atom transfer radical polymerization. Through acid-catalyzed hydrolysis, the PSA block is converted into poly(glycerol acrylate) (PGA), which subsequently…
Multi-scale modelling approach to homogenise the mechanical properties of polymeric closed-cell bead foams
Gebhart, Thomas M. J.; Jehnichen, Dieter; Koschichow, Roman; Müller, Michael; Göbel, Michael; Geske, Vinzenz; Stegelmann, Michael; Gude, Maik
The complex mechanical deformation behaviour of closed-cell foams is governed by morphological and physical properties such as cell structure and crystallinity. In this study, the micro-, meso- and macroscopic scale of commercially available bead foam was analysed. Statistical distribution of the cell structure including cell size, wall thickness and shape…
Dental Resin Monomer Enables Unique NbO2/Carbon Lithium-Ion Battery Negative Electrode with Exceptional Performance
Ji, Qing; Gao, Xiangwen; Zhang, Qiuju; Jin, Liyu; Wang, Da; Xia, Yonggao; Yin, Shanshan; Xia, Senlin; Hohn, Nuri; Zuo, Xiuxia; Wang, Xiaoyan; Xie, Shuang; Xu, Zhuijun; Ma, Liujia; Chen, Liang; Chen, George Z.; Zhu, Jin; Hu, Binjie; Müller?Buschbaum, Peter; Bruce, Peter G.; Cheng, Ya-Jun
Niobium dioxide (NbO2) features a high theoretical capacity and an outstanding electron conductivity, which makes it a promising alternative to the commercial graphite negative electrode. However, studies on NbO2 based lithium-ion battery negative electrodes have been rarely reported. In the present work, NbO2 nanoparticles homogeneously embedded in a carbon matrix…
Tuning Mechanical Properties of Biobased Polymers by Supramolecular Chain Entanglement
Lamm, Meghan E.; Song, Lingzhi; Wang, Zhongkai; Rahman, Md Anisur; Lamm, Benjamin; Fu, Lin; Tang, Chuanbing
A variety of biobased polymers have been derived from diverse natural resources. However, the mechanical properties of some of these polymers are inferior due to low chain entanglement. We report a facile strategy termed supramolecular chain entanglement, which utilizes supramolecular interactions to create physical cross-linking and entanglements for polymers with…
Investigation of the internal structure of thermoresponsive diblock poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline)-b-poly[N-(2,2-difluoroethyl)acrylamide] copolymer nanoparticles
Babuka, David; Kolouchova, Kristyna; Hruby, Martin; Groborz, Ondrej; Tosner, Zdenek; Zhigunov, Alexander; Stepanek, Petr
The poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline)-b-poly self-assembled nanoparticles show great potential in biological applications as, e.g., 19F MRI tumour diagnostic agents. As such their internal structure needs to be thoroughly investigated while the results also help to understand temperature-dependent self-assembly behaviour of copolymers comprised of the hydrophilic and