Search results for "Surfaces"
showing 10 items of 2837 documents
Multiarm cyclam-grafted mesoporous silica: a strategy to improve the chemical stability of silica materials functionalized with amine ligands
2009
We have explored in this work the stability and the reactivity of multiarm cyclam-grafted mesoporous silica samples in aqueous solution. A series of hybrid materials have been prepared by grafting silylated cyclam molecules bearing one, two, or four silyl groups onto both amorphous silica gel (K60) and ordered mesoporous silica (SBA15). Under these conditions, cyclam moieties are attached to the silica walls via one, two, or four arms. Various physicochemical techniques have been applied to characterize the functionalized solids (elemental analysis, 1H-29Si and 1H-13C CPMAS NMR, and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms). The interest in two and four arms for improving the chemical stability i…
Protein delivery based on uncoated and chitosan-coated mesoporous silicon microparticles
2011
Mesoporous silicon is a biocompatible, biodegradable material that is receiving increased attention for pharmaceutical applications due to its extensive specific surface. This feature enables to load a variety of drugs in mesoporous silicon devices by simple adsorption-based procedures. In this work, we have addressed the fabrication and characterization of two new mesoporous silicon devices prepared by electrochemistry and intended for protein delivery, namely: (i) mesoporous silicon microparticles and (ii) chitosan-coated mesoporous silicon microparticles. Both carriers were investigated for their capacity to load a therapeutic protein (insulin) and a model antigen (bovine serum albumin) …
Surface preparation influence on the initial stages of MOCVD growth of TiO2 thin films
2006
In situ chemical surface analyses using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), completed by ex situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyses, were performed in order to compare the initial stages of MOCVD growth of TiO 2 thin films on two different surface types. The first type was a silicon native oxide free hydrogen terminated surface and the second one was a silicon dioxide surface corresponding to a thin layer of 3.5 nm thick in situ thermally grown on silicon substrate. Si(100) was used as substrate, and the growths of TiO 2 thin films were achieved with titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) as precursor under a temperature of 675 °C, a pressure of 0.3 Pa and a deposition time of 1 h. Whate…
Bimodal Acidity at the Amorphous Silica/Water Interface
2015
International audience; Understanding the microscopic origin of the acid base behavior of mineral surfaces in contact with water is still a challenging task, for both the experimental and the theoretical communities. Even for a relatively simple material, such as silica, the origin of the bimodal acidity behavior is still a debated topic. In this contribution we calculate the acidity of single sites on the humid silica surface represented by a model for the hydroxylated amorphous surface. Using a thermodynamic integration approach based on ab initio molecular dynamics, we identify two different acidity values. In particular, some convex geminals and some type of vicinals are very acidic (pK…
Theory of the growth mode for a thin metallic film on an insulating substrate
2002
We have developed a novel theory predicting the growth mode of a thin metallic film on an insulating substrate. This combines ab initio electronic structure calculations for several ordered metal/insulator interfaces (varying both coverage and substrate lattice constant), with a thermodynamic approach based on microscopic calculations. We illustrate this approach for Ag film deposited on MgO(0 0 1) substrate. Ab initio calculations predict high mobility of adsorbed silver atoms on the perfect magnesia surface even at low temperatures. Our theoretical analysis clearly demonstrates that the growth of metallic islands is predominant at the initial stage of silver deposition, which agrees with …
Bioprospective of Sorbus aucuparia leaf extract in development of silver and gold nanocolloids
2010
At the present time the bioprospective field is a dynamic area of research. The rapid biosynthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles without using toxic chemicals is reported here. Sorbus aucuparia is omnipresent in Europe. The aqueous leaves extract of the plant were used as reducing agent for the synthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles from their salt solutions. The synthesized nanoparticles were spherical, triangular and hexagonal in shape with an average size of 16 and 18nm for silver and gold, respectively. Different extract quantities, metal concentrations, temperatures and contact times were investigated to find their effect on nanoparticles synthesis. The resulting silver and gold…
Laser-Ablation-Induced Synthesis of SiO2-Capped Noble Metal Nanoparticles in a Single Step
2010
Here we describe a simple, powerful technique based on the laser ablation of a target immersed in a water solution of a metal salt. With this method, nanoparticles of different metals and alloys can be processed very quickly. Both the target and the salt solution can be chosen to produce metal nanoparticles of different sizes, surface-oxidized nanoparticles (silica-silver, for example), or even more complex structures to be defined by the researcher on one or more steps because the technique combines the advantages of both physical and chemical methods. We have applied this technique to the fabrication of inert silica-metal (silver, gold, and silver-gold) nanoparticles with a strong surface…
Switchable Bactericidal Effects from Novel Silica-Coated Silver Nanoparticles Mediated by Light Irradiation
2011
Here we report on the triggering of antibacterial activity by a new type of silver nanoparticle coated with porous silica, Ag@silica, irradiated at their surface plasmon resonant frequency. The nanoparticles are able to bind readily to the surface of bacterial cells, although this does not affect bacterial growth since the silica shell largely attenuates the intrinsic toxicity of silver. However, upon simultaneous exposure to light corresponding to the absorption band of the nanoparticles, bacterial death is enhanced selectively on the irradiated zone. Because of the low power density used for the treatments, we discard thermal effects as the cause of cell killing. Instead, we propose that …
Computing the Arrangement of Circles on a Sphere, with Applications in Structural Biology
2009
International audience; Balls and spheres are the simplest modeling primitives after affine ones, which accounts for their ubiquitousness in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. Amongst the many applications, we may cite their prevalence when it comes to modeling our ambient 3D space, or to handle molecular shapes using Van der Waals models. If most of the applications developed so far are based upon simple geometric tests between balls, in particular the intersection test, a number of applications would obviously benefit from finer pieces of information. Consider a sphere $S_0$ and a list of circles on it, each such circle stemming from the intersection between $S_0$ and another spher…
Dibenzocycloheptatriene as end-group of Thiele and tetrabenzo-Chichibabin hydrocarbons
2020
The authors are grateful for the financial support from: MICIU/FEDER/AEI, Spain (PG2018-101181-B-I00, PGC2018-095808B-I00, MAT2016-80826-R, FIP-2018-HECTIC-PTM, Prometeo2019/076 and the "Severo Ochoa" Programme for Centres of Excellence in R & D; SEV-2015-0496), the European Research Council (ERC) (677023), DGR (Catalunya) (2017-SGR-918), and SNSF (Switzerland, TS., PZ00P2_174175). We thank the CSIRC-Alhambra and SciCore (Basel, Switzerland) for supercomputing facilities and the Servei de RMN, UAB, for instrument time.