Jimenez, Andrew M.; Krauskopf, Alejandro A.; Pérez-Camargo, Ricardo A.; Zhao, Dan; Pribyl, Julia; Jestin, Jacques; Benicewicz, Brian C.; Müller, Alejandro J.; Kumar, Sanat K.
Effects of Hairy Nanoparticles on Polymer Crystallization Kinetics
We previously showed that nanoparticles (NPs) could be ordered into structures by using the growth rate of polymer crystals as the control variable. In particular, for slow enough spherulitic growth fronts, the NPs grafted with amorphous polymer chains are selectively moved into the interlamellar, interfibrillar, and interspherulitic zones of a…
Short and Soft: Multidomain Organization, Tunable Dynamics, and Jamming in Suspensions of Grafted Colloidal Cylinders with a Small Aspect Ratio
Parisi, Daniele; Ruan, Yingbo; Ochbaum, Guy; Silmore, Kevin S.; Cullari, Lucas L.; Liu, Chen-Yang; Bitton, Ronit; Regev, Oren; Swan, James W.; Loppinet, Benoit; Vlassopoulos, Dimitris
The yet virtually unexplored class of soft colloidal rods with a small aspect ratio is investigated and shown to exhibit a very rich phase and dynamic behavior, spanning from liquid to nearly melt state. Instead of the nematic order, these short and soft nanocylinders alter their organization with increasing concentration…
Revisiting the Dissolution of Cellulose in NaOH as “Seen” by X-rays
Martin-Bertelsen, Birte; Andersson, Erika; Köhnke, Tobias; Hedlund, Artur; Stigsson, Lars; Olsson, Ulf
Cotton production is reaching a global limit, leading to a growing demand for bio-based textile fibers produced by other means. Textile fibers based on regenerated cellulose from wood holds great potential, but in order to produce fibers, the components need to be dissolved in suitable solvents. Furthermore, the dissolution process…
OrderOrder Phase Transitions Induced by Supercritical Carbon Dioxide in Triblock Copolymer Thin Films
Abate, Anabella A.; Vu, Giang Thi; Piqueras, Cristian M.; del Barrio, María Cecilia; Gómez, Leopoldo R.; Catalini, Gabriel; Schmid, Friederike; Vega, Daniel A.
We study the influence of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) on the phase behavior of a cylinder-forming polystyrene-block-polybutadiene-b-polystyrene triblock copolymer thin film. Solvent annealing with scCO2 can produce patterns with long-range order but these structures become unstable for thin films with small thicknesses. These results are in good agreement with self-consistent…
Highly Crystalline Near-Infrared Acceptor Enabling Simultaneous Efficiency and Photostability Boosting in High-Performance Ternary Organic Solar Cells
Yin, Hang; Zhang, Chujun; Hu, Hanlin; Karuthedath, Safakath; Gao, Yajun; Tang, Hua; Yan, Cenqi; Cui, Li; Fong, Patrick W. K.; Zhang, Zhuoqiong; Gao, Yaxin; Yang, Junliang; Xiao, Zuo; Ding, Liming; Laquai, Frédéric; So, Shu Kong; Li, Gang
The near-infrared (NIR) absorbing fused-ring electron acceptor, COi8DFIC, has demonstrated very good photovoltaic performance when combined with PTB7-Th as a donor in binary organic solar cells (OSCs). In this work, the NIR acceptor was added to state-of-the-art PBDBT-2F:IT4F-based solar cells as a third component, leading to (i) an efficiency increase…
Mechanical Properties and Failure Behavior of Physically Assembled Triblock Copolymer Gels with Varying Midblock Length
Mishra, Satish; Prado, Rosa M. Badani; Zhang, Song; Lacy, Thomas E.; Gu, Xiaodan; Kundu, Santanu
Mechanical properties including the failure behavior of physically assembled gels or physical gels are governed by their network structure. To investigate such behavior, we consider a physical gel system consisting of poly(styrene)-poly(isoprene)-poly(styrene) in mineral oil. In these gels, the endblock (PS) molecular weights are not significantly different, whereas, the midblock…
A solvent-free porous liquid comprising hollow nanorodpolymer surfactant conjugates
Kumar, Raj; Dhasaiyan, Prabhu; Naveenkumar, Parinamipura M.; Sharma, Kamendra P.
Liquids having permanent porosity can offer significant processing advantages over their solid counterparts. This has recently led to tremendous activity towards the design and development of intrinsic pores in the liquid phase, predominantly for studies involving gas sequestration. We show here the development of a solvent-free mesoporous liquid material based…
Enhancing the accessibility to basic sites of as-synthesized silicas applied in catalytic transesterification
Zapelini, Iago W.; Silva, Laura L.; Oliveira, Cristiano L. P.; Cardoso, Dilson
Heterogeneous catalysis for biodiesel production is a current challenge due to the low activity of solid catalysts, especially caused by diffusional resistances. Hybrid silicas, containing SiO?CTA+ provide high conversions in the transesterification of oils and model molecules, but this activity is limited to the external surface area. The generation of…
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
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…