Analysis of catalyst surface wetting: the early stage of epitaxial germanium nanowire growth

• Owen C. Ernst,
• Felix Lange,
• David Uebel,
• Thomas Teubner and
• Torsten Boeck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1371–1380, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.121

• rates of 0.005 nm·s−1. Since the solubility of germanium in gold is high, a supersaturated mixture will form. To reduce the supersaturation, germanium precipitates at the bottom of the gold droplet. This way, germanium nanowires may grow. This process is known as vapour–liquid–solid process (VLS

Role of redox-active axial ligands of metal porphyrins adsorbed at solid–liquid interfaces in a liquid-STM setup

• Thomas Habets,
• Sylvia Speller and
• Johannes A. A. W. Elemans

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1264–1271, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.110

• cause the difference in observed current between solutions of MnTUPCl in 1-phenyloctane and n-tetradecane are: (i) a better solubility of chloride ions and/or Mn(II)TUP species in 1-phenyloctane compared to n-tetradecane, and (ii) a difference in dielectric constants of the used solvents, which are 2.26

• likely. An enhanced solubility of the ions in the aromatic solvent 1-phenyloctane may be the result of attractive anion–π interactions [24]. Conclusion MnTUPCl dissolved in 1-phenyloctane and placed in a tunnel junction yields high additional currents. We attribute them to Faradaic currents and put

Photothermally active nanoparticles as a promising tool for eliminating bacteria and biofilms

• Mykola Borzenkov,
• Piersandro Pallavicini,
• Angelo Taglietti,
• Laura D’Alfonso,
• Maddalena Collini and
• Giuseppe Chirico

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1134–1146, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.98

• have advantages over other NPs, such as controlled and sustained release, enhanced solubility and biocompatibility [30][31][32]. Within the wide variety of existing nanomaterials with antibacterial properties, photothermally active nanoparticles, with absorption in the visible–near-infrared (NIR

Straightforward synthesis of gold nanoparticles by adding water to an engineered small dendrimer

• Sébastien Gottis,
• Régis Laurent,
• Vincent Collière and
• Anne-Marie Caminade

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1110–1118, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.95

• the solubility in water; and iv) stabilize the nanoparticles once they are formed. In this context, specifically designed dendrimers could meet all these requirements. Among all the dendrimers that have been synthesized, those incorporating P=N–P=S linkages are of particular interest in the field of

• trimethylammonium chloride), used as a terminal function in dendrimers, can induce dendrimer solubility in water, allowing the colloidal stability of nanolatex covered by such a function and also the formation of structured hydrogels [43][44]. Hydrazine is a well-known reductant, which has been used for the seeded

• favoring the gold atoms to self-assemble, promoting growth and stabilization of the NPs in particular through the sulfur atoms present on the dendrimers. The dendrimer also ensures the solubility of the nanoparticles in water, forming colloidal suspensions. Each dendrimer can act as a bridge at the surface

A few-layer graphene/chlorin e6 hybrid nanomaterial and its application in photodynamic therapy against Candida albicans

• Selene Acosta,
• Carlos Moreno-Aguilar,
• Dania Hernández-Sánchez,
• Beatriz Morales-Cruzado,
• Erick Sarmiento-Gomez,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Luis Octavio Sánchez-Vargas and
• Mildred Quintana

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1054–1061, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.90

• , such as the exfoliation of graphene assisted by molecules that display amphiphilic properties [34][35]. These molecules are intercalated between the graphene sheets, conferring stability and solubility in media in which graphene by itself is not soluble. In 2016, Hernández et al. [36] reported the

Uniform Fe₃O₄/Gd₂O₃-DHCA nanocubes for dual-mode magnetic resonance imaging

• Miao Qin,
• Yueyou Peng,
• Mengjie Xu,
• Hui Yan,
• Yizhu Cheng,
• Xiumei Zhang,
• Di Huang,
• Weiyi Chen and
• Yanfeng Meng

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1000–1009, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.84

• comparison to other modifiers. Moreover, it increases water solubility, which can increase the stability of the nanocubes during in vivo applications [27][28]. In vitro and in vivo tests demonstrated the nontoxicity of the DHCA-coated nanocubes. MRI was performed in vivo, and it showed that the nanocubes

A 3D-polyphenylalanine network inside porous alumina: Synthesis and characterization of an inorganic–organic composite membrane

• Jonathan Stott and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 938–951, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.78

• solubility of the formed polyphenylalanine chains with an increase of the volume fraction of DCM during polymerization. Kricheldorf et al. have demonstrated that certain parameters such as solvent, the kind of initiator and monomer/initiator ratio directly affect the molecular weight and secondary structure

Exfoliation in a low boiling point solvent and electrochemical applications of MoO₃

• Matangi Sricharan,
• Bikesh Gupta,
• Sreejesh Moolayadukkam and
• H. S. S. Ramakrishna Matte

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 662–670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.52

• some applications. To alleviate this, LPE has been carried out in organic solvents taking into account the Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs) [9]. To exfoliate MoO3 in organic solvents without any additives, Coleman et al. have found that N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), N-cyclohexyl-2-pyrrolidone, and

Soybean-derived blue photoluminescent carbon dots

• Shanshan Wang,
• Wei Sun,
• Dong-sheng Yang and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 606–619, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.48

• quantum dots, which are referred to as carbon dots (CDs) [1] and are less-toxic and ecologically friendly [2][3], have attracted great interest due to their unique properties, such as high water solubility [4], high chemical stability [5], high photostability [6], tunable excitation and emission

• synthesizing CDs, including oxidation and reduction [13][14][15], laser ablation [16], microwave irradiation [9], pyrolysis [17], and hydrothermal treatment [18]. Some of these methods are tedious and time consuming and use strong acids and/or surface treatment to improve their water solubility and

Luminescent gold nanoclusters for bioimaging applications

• Nonappa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 533–546, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.42

• biomolecules [7]. Antibodies conjugated to low molecular weight fluorescent dyes have been used for various bioimaging applications [8]. Despite their cost-effectiveness, and water solubility, organic dyes display a small Stokes shift, low photochemical stability and they undergo photobleaching [9][10

• photostability, and the PL can be tuned from the visible to the NIR region [29]. Similar to SCQDs, SQDs undergo oxidation at room temperature and have limited water solubility. Recently, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with tunable size and shape-specific physicochemical properties have emerged as attractive

Nanoparticles based on the zwitterionic pillar[5]arene and Ag⁺: synthesis, self-assembly and cytotoxicity in the human lung cancer cell line A549

• Dmitriy N. Shurpik,
• Denis A. Sevastyanov,
• Pavel V. Zelenikhin,
• Pavel L. Padnya,
• Vladimir G. Evtugyn,
• Yuriy N. Osin and
• Ivan I. Stoikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 421–431, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.33

• biomedical properties of the resulting nanoscale particles that do not contain Ag–Ag bonds [14]. However, the main problem is the fact that macrocyclic hosts have low solubility in water, which significantly narrows their application [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Therefore, we propose to use water-soluble

• derivatives of decasubstituted pillar[5]arenes containing sulfobetaine fragments in their structure as target structures. It was shown that the introduction of such zwitterionic fragments into the structure leads to toxicity reduction [21], an increase in the solubility of substances in water [22] and ensures

• studied (Figure 1). The study of self-association of macrocycles 2–4 was carried out in water using the dynamic light scattering (DLS) method. It turned out that the decaamine 2, due to its poor solubility in water, does not form any self-associates across the entire range of concentrations studied (10−3

Brome mosaic virus-like particles as siRNA nanocarriers for biomedical purposes

• Alfredo Nuñez-Rivera,
• Pierrick G. J. Fournier,
• Danna L. Arellano,
• Ana G. Rodriguez-Hernandez,
• Rafael Vazquez-Duhalt and
• Ruben D. Cadena-Nava

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 372–382, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.28

• . Nanoparticles offer several advantages such as their size and a surface area that could be functionalized with specific ligands in order to be targeted to specific tissues [10]. Additionally, they can be used to increase the overall solubility of drugs and to modulate their circulation half-life [11][12][13

Rational design of block copolymer self-assemblies in photodynamic therapy

• Maxime Demazeau,
• Laure Gibot,
• Anne-Françoise Mingotaud,
• Patricia Vicendo,
• Clément Roux and
• Barbara Lonetti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 180–212, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.15

• reactive amine bonds. Not all of the lysine units should be modified to guarantee water solubility and enzymatic activation [83]. PEGylation could also improve solubility, but it was also proved to be detrimental regarding quenching [84]. More recently, polysaccharides based on chitosan or heparin have

• [104]). Efforts have been made in order to increase the solubility of fluorinated polymers by using charged poly(ethylene imine) stars (around 2 mg·mL−1 in [60]), for example. Another approach is to use random copolymers allowing for higher polymer concentrations (3 mg·mL−1 and up to 10 mg·mL−1 in [97

Internalization mechanisms of cell-penetrating peptides

• Ivana Ruseska and
• Andreas Zimmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 101–123, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.10

• lysine, derived from the nuclear localization sequence (NLS) of SV-40 large T antigen, necessary for improving the solubility and the intracellular localization of the peptide and (iii) a spacer domain, which improves the flexibility. It has been reported by Deshayes et al. [29] that the internalization

Mobility of charge carriers in self-assembled monolayers

• Zhihua Fu,
• Tatjana Ladnorg,
• Hartmut Gliemann,
• Alexander Welle,
• Asif Bashir,
• Michael Rohwerder,
• Qiang Zhang,
• Björn Schüpbach,
• Andreas Terfort and
• Christof Wöll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2449–2458, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.235

• g copper(I) iodide (20 mol %), and 0.262 g Pd(dppf)Cl2 (5 mol %) in 30 mL of triethylamine were stirred under strict exclusion of air at room temperature for 16 h. To improve the solubility of the reactants, 40 mL of dry THF were added and the mixture heated for a short period of time. After another

pH-Controlled fluorescence switching in water-dispersed polymer brushes grafted to modified boron nitride nanotubes for cellular imaging

• Saban Kalay,
• Yurij Stetsyshyn,
• Volodymyr Donchak,
• Khrystyna Harhay,
• Ostap Lishchynskyi,
• Halyna Ohar,
• Yuriy Panchenko,
• Stanislav Voronov and
• Mustafa Çulha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2428–2439, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.233

• commonly used labels is fluorescein [37][38][39][40][41][42]. In biomedical applications, fluorescein has several advantages over other dyes such as nontoxicity, high water solubility, and pH responsivity. Fluorescein demonstrates a high fluorescence efficiency at basic pH values but becomes nonfluorescent

Air oxidation of sulfur mustard gas simulants using a pyrene-based metal–organic framework photocatalyst

• Ghada Ayoub,
• Mihails Arhangelskis,
• Xuan Zhang,
• Florencia Son,
• Timur Islamoglu,
• Tomislav Friščić and
• Omar K. Farha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2422–2427, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.232

• selection of solvent choices since solubility of the chromophore does not need to be considered, and lower probability of photobleaching [24][25]. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), porous crystalline materials comprised of metal nodes and organic linkers, have attracted tremendous attention in heterogeneous

Polyvinylpyrrolidone as additive for perovskite solar cells with water and isopropanol as solvents

• Chen Du,
• Shuo Wang,
• Xu Miao,
• Wenhai Sun,
• Yu Zhu,
• Chengyan Wang and
• Ruixin Ma

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2374–2382, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.228

• organic polymers. As a non-ionic polymer compound, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) shows excellent solubility and physiological compatibility and is extensively applied in medicine, food, and cosmetics, which are closely related to the health of people [29]. PVP is commonly integrated in PSCs, which is

Design of a nanostructured mucoadhesive system containing curcumin for buccal application: from physicochemical to biological aspects

• Sabrina Barbosa de Souza Ferreira,
• Gustavo Braga,
• Évelin Lemos Oliveira,
• Jéssica Bassi da Silva,
• Hélen Cássia Rosseto,
• Lidiane Vizioli de Castro Hoshino,
• Mauro Luciano Baesso,
• Wilker Caetano,
• Craig Murdoch,
• Helen Elizabeth Colley and
• Marcos Luciano Bruschi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2304–2328, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.222

• can be useful as adjuvant in cancer treatment, after surgical procedure, or in combination with chemotherapy [35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Despite its broad therapeutic potential, CUR has limited stability to light and pH, as well as poor solubility. CUR is also susceptible to degradation due to the

• formation of phenylate anions and high production of CUR radicals, since this polyphenol has demonstrated high lipophilicity (log P 3.29) and low solubility in aqueous solutions and under alkaline conditions (pH > 7) [30][31][42]. These physicochemical characteristics hinder the bioavailability and

• therapeutic efficacy of this drug. Consequently, there is a need to associate CUR with carriers to ensure the delivery to the target site and thereby protect the drug from degradation, increase the solubility and provide controlled release as well as permeation, while maintaining biological activity [31][43

Microfluidics as tool to prepare size-tunable PLGA nanoparticles with high curcumin encapsulation for efficient mucus penetration

• Nashrawan Lababidi,
• Valentin Sigal,
• Aljoscha Koenneke,
• Konrad Schwarzkopf,
• Andreas Manz and
• Marc Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2280–2293, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.220

• improved solubility and bioavailability [25]. As penetrating particulate systems also raise the question of toxicity, biocompatible systems such as poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) (a very benign material) are considered to be well-suited. PLGA NPs have been extensively studied in the pharmaceutical field

• the stability of the colloidal system is improved with higher stabilizer concentrations. Therefore, 1% Pluronic F68 might be the most suitable system. Effect of solvent nature and solvent mixture Drug solubility relies fundamentally on the solvent used. Therefore, assessing the influence of the nature

• but the Hildebrand solubility parameter (Table 1) correlates with the formation of small NPs [50]. When DMSO was used as solvent, the NP size was reduced from 120 to 40 nm at a 0.05 flow rate ratio in comparison to acetone and acetonitrile (ACN), as can be seen in Figure 6. This data illustrates that

Adsorption and desorption of self-assembled L-cysteine monolayers on nanoporous gold monitored by in situ resistometry

• Elisabeth Hengge,
• Eva-Maria Steyskal,
• Rupert Bachler,
• Alexander Dennig,
• Bernd Nidetzky and
• Roland Würschum

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2275–2279, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.219

• -/desorption of SAMs on nanoporous gold (npAu), based on our experience on in situ resistometry as a highly sensitive diagnosis tool for ad-/desorption processes [9]. The selected SAM material for this study is cysteine, due to its beneficial properties such as the short carbon backbone, the solubility in

Mannosylated brush copolymers based on poly(ethylene glycol) and poly(ε-caprolactone) as multivalent lectin-binding nanomaterials

• Stefania Ordanini,
• Wanda Celentano,
• Anna Bernardi and
• Francesco Cellesi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2192–2206, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.212

• critical solubility temperature (Tables S1–S4) [35]. For our purposes, this could be an advantage, since they maintain the same size under different operation conditions: storage, room and body temperature. Also the DLS distributions of the mannosylated (A4-)PEGx-PCLy-Many glycopolymers in aqueous media

BergaCare SmartLipids: commercial lipophilic active concentrates for improved performance of dermal products

• Florence Olechowski,
• Rainer H. Müller and
• Sung Min Pyo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2152–2162, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.208

• ) exhibit higher solubilities for active agents compared to solid lipids. In NLCs, the solubilities of solid and liquid lipid are approximately additive, i.e., the solubility of active agents in the NLC particle blend is increased. However, the increase comes at the expense of an accelerated reordering

• shown, according to HPLC analysis containing 0.0001% curcumin in dissolved form, corresponding to its maximum solubility. Only negligible fluorescence in the skin was detectable (Figure 8, right column). This shows that SmartLipids are an enabling technology to provide efficient skin penetration even

Synthesis and potent cytotoxic activity of a novel diosgenin derivative and its phytosomes against lung cancer cells

• Liang Xu,
• Dekang Xu,
• Ziying Li,
• Yu Gao and
• Haijun Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1933–1942, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.189

• sterol structure similarly to cholesterol, P2 phytosomes (P2Ps) were prepared to further improve the water solubility of P2. The P2Ps exhibited a particle size of 53.6 ± 0.3 nm with oval shape and a zeta potential of −4.0 ± 0.7 mV. P2Ps could inhibit the proliferation of lung cancer cells more

• by cholesterol have been substantially investigated as drug carriers for targeting, modulating drug pharmacokinetics, and decreasing drug toxicity [15][16]. Liposomes also can be used as solubilizing media to enhance solubility and bioavailability of insoluble drugs [17]. Di and our prepared

• phytosomes were expected to enhance the solubility and bioavailability of the Di derivative for clinical transformation. In this study, we first prepared several Di derivatives and screened the most potent candidate through a preliminary structure–activity relationship study. Then the liposome-like

Preservation of rutin nanosuspensions without the use of preservatives

• Pascal L. Stahr and
• Cornelia M. Keck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1902–1913, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.185

• an enhanced kinetic saturation solubility [5]. Due to their small size they possess an increased surface area, resulting in an increased dissolution rate expressed by the Noyes–Whitney equation. In addition, they also possess an increased adhesiveness and thus, represent a universal, powerful and

• well-known formulation principle to overcome poor aqueous solubility and poor bioavailability of class-II and class-VI active ingredients of the biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS) [6][7]. Nanocrystals are already used in various pharmaceutical drug products for oral use. Examples are Rapamune