Appl. Nano, Volume 2, Issue 4 (December 2021) – 6 articles

In the context of a full-potential orbital-free approach for the modeling of multi-atomic systems we investigated the dependence of the cohesive energies and bulk elastic modules of the large nanosystems Cn (n is up to 4096 atoms), Aln (n is up to 23,328 atoms) and tin (n is up to 2160 atoms). It was shown that the cohesive energies and elastic modules tend towards bulk crystal values at n ≈ 3000 for Cn systems, at n ≈ 1500 for Tin and at n ≈ 20,000 for Aln. The execution time for one energy iteration for Ti₂₃₃₂₈ was only 23 min. Full article

The massive use of petroleum and its possible exhaustion are driving the current research trend to study alternative raw materials from biomass for organic reactions. In this context, the present article presents a study of the catalytic esterification of levulinic acid, a platform molecule, with ethanol. Metal-organic framework (MOF) type compounds UiO-66-NH₂ have been synthesized. Zirconium was incorporated, using zirconium chloride as a metal precursor, together with 2-aminoterephthalic acid as an organic binding agent. An alternative route of synthesis was proposed using more favorable conditions from an economic and environmental point of view, replacing dimethylformamide by 50 and 75% acetone as substitute solvent. The physicochemical properties of the materials were evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Infrared Spectrometry with Fourier Transform (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), microwave plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (MP-AES) and N₂ adsorption to understand their morphology, crystalline, chemical and pore structure. The progress of the reaction was followed by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy. The catalytic activity result of MOF_25% in autoclave reactor, showed 100% of selectivity to ethyl levulinate and a turnover number (TON) of 66.18 moles of product/moles of Zr. This good catalytic performance obtained by partial solvent replacement in the synthetic material provides a more economical and eco-friendly process for ethyl levulinate generation. Full article

NMR is a powerful characterization tool and we propose to study the surface of silica or bismuth nanoparticles dedicated to medical applications in order to evidence the covalent grafting of organic molecules on their surface. For that aim, DOSY experiments are particularly useful and allow for the discrimination of molecules interacting strongly with the nanoparticle surface from molecules simply weakly adsorbed at the surface. We were able to characterize thoroughly the surface of different silica and bismuth nanoparticles. Full article

We report here the feasibility study of anti-counterfeiting low-cost nanostructured flexible security tags for the tracking of large-scale fabrication products, such as pharmaceuticals or original equipment manufacturers. The fabrication process makes use of the mature nanotechnology called Template Synthesis to shape thin track-etched polymer film into covert laser readable tags, combining random self-organized structures with organized patterns. Techniques are developed to drastically limit the number of fabrication steps and keep fabrication costs low, while opening to numerous adjustment parameters. A dedicated, simple optical setup is presented, to capture speckle images of such tags lightened up by light emitting diodes or laser beams. Speckle images are analyzed in terms of encoding parameters, found here quite numerous to ensure a large coding range of large-scale production batches. We particularly highlight ultra-dark areas in speckle images, where nanowire structures completely inhibit speckle patterns. This unique, high-contrast optical feature addresses these low-cost nanostructured thin films to provide a very promising solution for large-scale security tags. Full article

Nitrogen doping in carbon materials can modify the employed carbon material’s electronic and structural properties, which helps in creating a stronger metal-support interaction. In this study, the role of nitrogen doping in improving the durability of Pt catalysts supported on a three-dimensional vertically aligned carbon nanofiber (VACNF) array towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was explored. The nitrogen moieties present in the N-VACNF enhanced the metal-support interaction and contributed to a reduction in the Pt particle size from 3.1 nm to 2.3 nm. The Pt/N-VACNF catalyst showed better durability when compared to Pt/VACNF and Pt/C catalysts with similar Pt loading. DFT calculations validated the increase in the durability of the Pt NPs with an increase in pyridinic N and corroborated the molecular ORR pathway for Pt/N-VACNF. Moreover, the Pt/N-VACNF catalyst was found to have excellent tolerance towards methanol crossover. Full article

Organ-on-a-chip technology is a 3D cell culture breakthrough of the last decade. This rapidly developing field of bioengineering intertwined with microfluidics provides new insights into disease development and preclinical drug screening. So far, optical and fluorescence microscopy are the most widely used methods to monitor and extract information from these models. Meanwhile transmission electron microscopy (TEM), despite its wide use for the characterization of nanomaterials and biological samples, remains unexplored in this area. In our work we propose a TEM sample preparation method, that allows to process a microfluidic chip without its prior deconstruction, into TEM-compatible specimens. We demonstrated preparation of tumor blood vessel-on-a-chip model and consecutive steps to preserve the endothelial cells lining microfluidic channel, for the chip’s further transformation into ultrathin sections. This approach allowed us to obtain cross-sections of the microchannel with cells cultured inside, and to observe cell adaptation to the channel geometry, as well as the characteristic for endothelial cells tight junctions. The proposed sample preparation method facilitates the electron microscopy ultrastructural characterization of biological samples cultured in organ-on-a-chip device. Full article