Search results for " Nanomaterials"

Nanodiamond Theranostic for Light-Controlled Intracellular Heating and Nanoscale Temperature Sensing

2021

Temperature is an essential parameter in all biological systems, but information about the actual temperature in living cells is limited. Especially, in photothermal therapy, local intracellular temperature changes induce cell death but the local temperature gradients are not known. Highly sensitive nanothermometers would be required to measure and report local temperature changes independent of the intracellular environment, including pH or ions. Fluorescent nanodiamonds (ND) enable temperature sensing at the nanoscale independent of external conditions. Herein, we prepare ND nanothermometers coated with a nanogel shell and the photothermal agent indocyanine green serves as a heat generato…

Influence of bacterial physiology on processing of selenite, biogenesis of nanomaterials and their thermodynamic stability

2019

We explored how Ochrobactrum sp. MPV1 can convert up to 2.5 mM selenite within 120 h, surviving the challenge posed by high oxyanion concentrations. The data show that thiol-based biotic chemical reaction(s) occur upon bacterial exposure to low selenite concentrations, whereas enzymatic systems account for oxyanion removal when 2 mM oxyanion is exceeded. The selenite bioprocessing produces selenium nanomaterials, whose size and morphology depend on the bacterial physiology. Selenium nanoparticles were always produced by MPV1 cells, featuring an average diameter ranging between 90 and 140 nm, which we conclude constitutes the thermodynamic stability range for these nanostructures. Alternativ…

IS CALORIMETRY A CRUCIAL TECHNIQUE FOR STUDYING INNOVATIVE NANOMATERIALS?

2012

It is well known that calorimetry is a powerful technique to determine the complete energetics of interaction processes. Unfortunately, over the years the calorimetry has been applied to restricted fields so that it has been underemployed in studying smart nanomaterials (polypseudorotaxanes, polymeric aggregates, surface functionalized nanoparticles, nanocomposites, etc.) to which a tremendous scientific interest has been recently addressed. Within this topic some relevant recent results from our laboratory will be described in the following. As concerns the supramolecular chemistry field, we exploited strategies to design stable and stimuli responsive polypseudorotaxanes based on cyclodext…

DNA Sensors for the Detection of Biomolecules and Biochemical Conditions

2017

Atomically Precise Distorted Nanographenes: The Effect of Different Edge Functionalization on the Photophysical Properties down to the Femtosecond Sc…

2023

Nanographenes (NGs) have been attracting widespread interest since they combine peculiar properties of graphene with molecular features, such as bright visible photoluminescence. However, our understanding of the fundamental properties of NGs is still hampered by the high degree of heterogeneity usually characterizing most of these materials. In this context, NGs obtained by atomically precise synthesis routes represent optimal benchmarks to unambiguously relate their properties to well-defined structures. Here we investigate in deep detail the optical response of three curved hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene (HBC) derivatives obtained by atomically precise synthesis routes. They are constituted…

Nanotechnology for Conservation: The Case of Archaeological Sites

2006

L'articolo espone le principali problematiche conservative dei siti archeologici e analizza la possibilità di applicazione dei nuovi nanomateriali, derivanti dalle nanotecnologie come soluzioni innovative per affrontare problematiche irrisolte con i prodotti tradizionali. The article presents the main conservation problems of archaeological sites and analyzes the possibility of new nanomaterials application, deriving from nanotechnologies as innovative solutions to address unresolved problems with traditional products.

Elemental and microbiota content in indoor and outdoor air using recuperation unit filters

2021

Detection and quantification of engineered nanomaterials in environmental systems require precise knowledge of the elemental composition, association, and ratios in homologous natural nanomaterials (NNMs). Here, we characterized soil NNMs at the single particle level using single particle-inductively coupled plasma-time of flight-mass spectrometer (SP-ICP-TOF-MS) in order to identify the elemental purity, composition, associations, and ratios within NNMs. Elements naturally present as a major constituent in NNMs such as Ti, and Fe occurred predominantly as pure/single metals, whereas elements naturally present at trace levels in NNMs occurred predominantly as impure/multi-metal NNMs such as…

Temperature-responsive hybrid nanomaterials based on modified halloysite nanotubes uploaded with silver nanoparticles

2022

New temperature-responsive hybrid nanomaterials based on modified halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) containing grafted polymer brushes with silver nanoparticles have been successfully fabricated. We used a three steps process including synthesis of the initiating coatings onto HNTs surface, fabrication of the POEGMA – poly(oligo(ethylene glycol)ethyl ether methacrylate) grafted brushes and synthesis of the silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The synthesis and properties of hybrid nanomaterials were studied by FT-IR, TGA and DLS methods. It is shown that the introduction of AgNPs, formed from 0.005 M AgNO3 solution leads to a significant reduction of low critical solution temperature (LCST) of the polym…