Biotechnological applications of the sepiolite interactions with bacteria: Bacterial transformation and DNA extraction
International audience; Among the various clay minerals, sepiolite, which is a natural nanofibrous silicate that exhibit a poor cell toxicity, is a potential promising nanocarrier for the non-viral and stable transfer of plasmid DNA into bacteria, mammalian and human cells. We first show here that sepiolite binds to bacteria, which can be useful in decontamination protocols. In a previous research we have shown that is possible to modulate the efficiency of the absorption of different types of DNA molecules onto sepiolite, and that the DNA previously adsorbed could be recovered preserving the DNA structure and biological activity. Taking advantage of both, the sepiolite/bacteria and sepioli…
Multicomponent bionanocomposites based on clay nanoarchitectures for electrochemical devices
[EN] Based on the unique ability of defibrillated sepiolite (SEP) to form stable and homogeneous colloidal dispersions of diverse types of nanoparticles in aqueous media under ultrasonication, multicomponent conductive nanoarchitectured materials integrating halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and chitosan (CHI) have been developed. The resulting nanohybrid suspensions could be easily formed into films or foams, where each individual component plays a critical role in the biocomposite: HNTs act as nanocontainers for bioactive species, GNPs provide electrical conductivity (enhanced by doping with MWCNTs) and, the CHI polymer matrix introduces mechanical and membrane pr…
Functional biohybrid materials based on halloysite, sepiolite and cellulose nanofibers for health applications
Biohybrid materials were prepared by co-assembling the three following components: nanotubular halloysite, microfibrous sepiolite, and cellulose nanofibers dispersed in water, in order to exploit the most salient features of each individual component and to render homogeneous, flexible, yet strong films. Indeed, the incorporation of halloysite improves the mechanical performance of the resulting hybrid nanopapers and the assembly of the three components modifies the surface features concerning wetting properties compared to pristine materials, so that the main characteristics of the resulting materials become tunable with regard to certain properties. Owing to their hierarchical porosity to…
Sepiolite-Hydrogels: Synthesis by Ultrasound Irradiation and Their Use for the Preparation of Functional Clay-Based Nanoarchitectured Materials.
International audience; Sepiolite and palygorskite fibrous clay minerals are 1D silicates featuring unique textural and structural characteristics useful in diverse applications, and in particular as rheological additives. Here we report on the ability of grinded sepiolite to generate highly viscous and stable hydrogels by sonomechanical irradiation (ultrasounds). Adequate drying of such hydrogels leads to low-density xerogels that show extensive fiber disaggregation compared to the starting sepiolite-whose fibers are agglomerated as bundles. Upon re-dispersion in water under high-speed shear, these xerogels show comparable rheological properties to commercially available defibrillated sepi…