Efficient electron-induced removal of oxalate ions and formation of copper nanoparticles from copper(II) oxalate precursor layers

• Kai Rückriem,
• Sarah Grotheer,
• Henning Vieker,
• Paul Penner,
• André Beyer,
• Armin Gölzhäuser and
• Petra Swiderek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 852–861, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.77

• intensity of this band does not correlate directly with that of the other vibrational signals and its position and shape vary depending on the preparation conditions and water content. In fact, the bending mode of water that may be present as crystal water in copper(II) oxalate falls in the same spectral

3D solid supported inter-polyelectrolyte complexes obtained by the alternate deposition of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) and poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate)

• Eduardo Guzmán,
• Armando Maestro,
• Sara Llamas,
• Jesús Álvarez-Rodríguez,
• Francisco Ortega,
• Ángel Maroto-Valiente and
• Ramón G. Rubio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 197–208, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.18

• strength increases the viscoelastic character of the films, which is correlated to the formation of layers with more swollen chains [19]. It is expected that these swollen chains trap higher amounts of water, which leads to the most important plastifying effects [19]. We have calculated the water content

• using QCM-D and ellipsometry data following the method proposed by Vöros [19][38][39][40][41]. Figure 3 shows the water weight fraction, Xw, for (PDADMAC + PSS)N films. The water content decreases as N increases, which agrees with the behavior reported for other films [42][43]. This behavior is due to

• results in Figure 3 point out that Xw slightly increases with ionic strength, as expected from the adsorption of more hydrated chains at higher values of ionic strength. Multilayers with high N present always average values of water content around the 20–60% of the total weight of the multilayer. Figure

Nanofibers for drug delivery – incorporation and release of model molecules, influence of molecular weight and polymer structure

• Jakub Hrib,
• Jakub Sirc,
• Radka Hobzova,
• Zuzana Hampejsova,
• Zuzana Bosakova,
• Marcela Munzarova and
• Jiri Michalek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1939–1945, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.198

• variable water content between nanofibers, which is the result of their variable swelling. The release experiments revealed two trends – the release rate depends on the molecular weight of model PEGs as well as on the type of nanofibrous carrier. Although we expected that long molecules will be anchored in

• room temperature (RT) for 3 days. The water content was determined using the Karl-Fischer method and was reduced from ca. 6000 ppm (not dried) to ca. 400 ppm (dried). The derivatization reaction scheme is shown in Figure 1. Ten grams of PEG was dissolved in 80 mL of dry dioxane, and a 5% excess of the

Nanomechanical humidity detection through porous alumina cantilevers

• Olga Boytsova,
• Alexey Klimenko,
• Vasiliy Lebedev,
• Alexey Lukashin and
• Andrey Eliseev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1332–1337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.137

• -frequency region are observed for the porous cantilever as well for the Si cantilever. For comparison we also studied the effect of the water content on the vibration of the cantilever from the AAO membrane obtained at 40 V in 0.3 M oxalic acid. Figure 3 shows the experimental results using a cantilever

Materials and characterization techniques for high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

• Roswitha Zeis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 68–83, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.8

• the water content is a delicate task for LT-PEMFCs. In comparison, HT-PEMFCs are far more forgiving regarding the water management. Acid-based PBI-type membranes exhibit a high proton conductivity even in an anhydrous state. Therefore, additional humidification of the gas feeds is not needed

Ionic liquid-assisted formation of cellulose/calcium phosphate hybrid materials

• Ahmed Salama,
• Mike Neumann,
• Christina Günter and
• Andreas Taubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1553–1568, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.167

• source for ZnO formation [46]. This study revealed significant differences between the two carbohydrates studied, cellulose and starch. While starch was soluble in the water/IL mixture, cellulose was, due to the high water content in the reaction mixture, not. As a result, while the mineralization of

• approach towards cellulose/calcium phosphate hybrid materials. Experimental Materials. [Bmim][Cl] (≥95%, Aldrich) was freeze-dried from water. The final water content was below 0.3%, as determined by volumetric Karl Fischer titration. After freeze-drying the IL was stored under argon until use

• . Microcrystalline cellulose (extra pure, average particle size 90 µm, Acros), calcium chloride dihydrate CaCl2·2H2O (extra pure, Merck), dibasic potassium phosphate K2HPO4 (≥98%, Sigma-Aldrich), sodium dihydrogen phosphate dihydrate NaH2PO4·2H2O (≥98%, Roth), and glacial acetic acid (100%, p.a., water content below

Influence of the PDMS substrate stiffness on the adhesion of Acanthamoeba castellanii

• Sören B. Gutekunst,
• Carsten Grabosch,
• Alexander Kovalev,
• Stanislav N. Gorb and
• Christine Selhuber-Unkel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1393–1398, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.152

• the adhesion of A. castellanii to hydrogel materials used in contact lenses [39]. We determined a very strong dependence of A. castellanii adhesion on the water content of contact lens materials, i.e., a strong increase in adhesion with increasing water content. In the study presented here, the PDMS

• material was hydrophobic and repelled water. Also according to literature, the water content of PDMS is negligible [40]. Therefore, a bias of our data by changes in the water content of the substrates can be excluded for the experiments presented here. Furthermore, in our previous study, we did not find a

Surface topography and contact mechanics of dry and wet human skin

• Alexander E. Kovalev,
• Kirstin Dening,
• Bo N. J. Persson and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1341–1348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.147

• glassy region. It is well know that the effective elastic modulus of stratum corneum may decrease by a factor of 100–1000 with increasing water content down to values of the order of E ≈ 5–10 MPa in the wet state, which is comparable to rubber in the rubbery region [3][4]. The tissues beneath stratum

Nanoporous composites prepared by a combination of SBA-15 with Mg–Al mixed oxides. Water vapor sorption properties

• Amaury Pérez-Verdejo,
• Alvaro Sampieri,
• Heriberto Pfeiffer,
• Mayra Ruiz-Reyes,
• Juana-Deisy Santamaría and
• Geolar Fetter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1226–1234, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.136

• increases with water content. This work proposes two straightforward ways to prepare nanostructured porous composites by interconnecting and combining Mg–Al hydrotalcite with SBA-15. Furthermore, the adsorption–desorption behavior of water vapor is presented to evaluate their hydrophilic character and

Large-scale atomistic and quantum-mechanical simulations of a Nafion membrane: Morphology, proton solvation and charge transport

• Pavel V. Komarov,
• Pavel G. Khalatur and
• Alexei R. Khokhlov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 567–587, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.65

• , which is largely similar to that known for a bicontinuous double-diamond structure. The characteristic size of the connected hydrophilic channels is about 25–50 Å, depending on the water content. A thermodynamic decomposition of the potential of mean force and the calculated spectral densities of the

• simulation predicts that the effect of the water content on d is well pronounced: the micro-size of channels drastically increases with hydration level, the behavior commonly observed in experimental studies. Finally, we should explain why the snapshots of the simulated systems clearly demonstrate a layered

• water content in the system. In fact, these channels represent conductive nano-wires which should be responsible for the ionic transport during the operation of a fuel cell. From a global point of view, the channels can be considered as a spatial continuous network organized in an irregular ordered

Growth behaviour and mechanical properties of PLL/HA multilayer films studied by AFM

• Cagri Üzüm,
• Johannes Hellwig,
• Narayanan Madaboosi,
• Dmitry Volodkin and
• Regine von Klitzing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 778–788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.87

• at an indentation depth δ, R is the radius of the spherical indenter and , h being the film thickness. The Poisson’s ratio was set to 0.5 for the PEM films due of their high water content, meaning that they are incompressible [37]. The above relation requires a precise determination of h and R. The

Friction and durability of virgin and damaged skin with and without skin cream treatment using atomic force microscopy

• Bharat Bhushan,
• Si Chen and
• Shirong Ge

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 731–746, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.83

• scans, because of the absorption of the skin cream and the evaporation of the water content, the cream film thickness decreases, which is responsible for the decrease in adhesive force and coefficient of friction. The skin cream finally covers the skin surface as a stable gel network (surfactant, fatty

Surface functionalization of aluminosilicate nanotubes with organic molecules

• Wei Ma,
• Weng On Yah,
• Hideyuki Otsuka and
• Atsushi Takahara

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 82–100, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.10

• water content increases and there is a risk of formation of multilayers due to the uncontrolled polymerization of the multifunctional organosilanes [17][18]. Phosphorus derivatives are much less sensitive to nucleophilic substitution than silicon derivatives are, because phosphorus has a higher

• electrophilicity compared to silicon. Consequently, P–O–C bonds are quite stable against hydrolysis, and P–O–H groups are quite stable against homocondensation. Thus, during the surface-modification process, they should form only monolayers, independent of the water content. Moreover, organophosphoric acids can

Approaches to nanostructure control and functionalizations of polymer@silica hybrid nanograss generated by biomimetic silica mineralization on a self-assembled polyamine layer

• Jian-Jun Yuan and
• Ren-Hua Jin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 760–773, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.84

• water content (LPEI starts to crystallize when the water content is more than 50 vol %). This molecular LPEI solution was charged into tube, and then the excess solution was removed at room temperature, resulting in the methanol-based LPEI film formation on the inner wall of the tube. This tube was kept