Identification of physicochemical properties that modulate nanoparticle aggregation in blood

• Ludovica Soddu,
• Duong N. Trinh,
• Eimear Dunne,
• Dermot Kenny,
• Giorgia Bernardini,
• Ida Kokalari,
• Arianna Marucco,
• Marco P. Monopoli and
• Ivana Fenoglio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 550–567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.44

• ], while platelet aggregation was observed for amorphous CNPs but not for the small-sized fullerenes [10]. Note however that limited information relating to the physicochemical properties of the materials was given in these studies, making a critical analysis of the results difficult. Moreover, while CNTs

High-performance asymmetric supercapacitor made of NiMoO₄ nanorods@Co₃O₄ on a cellulose-based carbon aerogel

• Meixia Wang,
• Jing Zhang,
• Xibin Yi,
• Benxue Liu,
• Xinfu Zhao and
• Xiaochan Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 240–251, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.18

• amorphous carbon. The five well-defined diffraction peaks appearing at 2θ values of 14.3, 25.3, 28.9, 33.7 and 53.9° are indexed to the (110), (112), (220), (222) and (422) crystal planes of NiMoO4, respectively, which well correspond to the standard pattern (JCPDS No. 45-0142). In addition to the

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

• ]. Cristallinity Albertsson’s team published a study comparing semi-crystalline to amorphous vectors based on ε-caprolactone (CL), ʟ-lactide (LA) or ε-decalactone (DL) copolymers. All polymers formed micelles ranging from 25 to 60 nm but only those incorporating DL were amorphous. The study showed that the

• critical aggregation concentration was higher for amorphous systems and that the loading of aniline pentamer was better in the amorphous vector [132][133]. A similar loading improvement in amorphous vectors for indomethacin was described by Alexander and co-workers [134]. Morphology/size Morphology

Synthesis of amorphous and graphitized porous nitrogen-doped carbon spheres as oxygen reduction reaction catalysts

• Maximilian Wassner,
• Markus Eckardt,
• Andreas Reyer,
• Thomas Diemant,
• Michael S. Elsaesser,
• R. Jürgen Behm and
• Nicola Hüsing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1–15, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.1

• Abstract Amorphous and graphitized nitrogen-doped (N-doped) carbon spheres are investigated as structurally well-defined model systems to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between synthesis, structure, and their activity in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). N-doped carbon spheres were

• temperatures. The overall nitrogen content of the graphitized N-doped carbon spheres is lower than that of the amorphous carbon spheres, however, also the microporosity decreases strongly with graphitization. Comparison with the electrocatalytic behavior in the ORR shows that in addition to the N-doping, the

• microporosity of the materials is critical for an efficient ORR. Keywords: amorphous carbon; graphitized carbon; hydrothermal carbonization; nitridation; nitrogen doping; oxygen reduction reaction (ORR); porosity; Introduction Fuel cells and metal–air batteries are important renewable energy technologies

Abrupt elastic-to-plastic transition in pentagonal nanowires under bending

• Sergei Vlassov,
• Magnus Mets,
• Boris Polyakov,
• Jianjun Bian,
• Leonid Dorogin and
• Vahur Zadin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2468–2476, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.237

• approximately 15 nN, and the dislocations continue to nucleate in the region close to the fixed end. Besides the existing twin boundaries, a deformation twin could also be observed (Figure 8iii). The interaction of continuously nucleated dislocations will form an amorphous layer, similar to a grain boundary

• . With the increased concentration of the deformations surface necking occurs, which will lead to the ductile fracture of the NW. Upon unloading, some dislocations may retract and annihilate at the free surface, which is promoted by the existing twin boundaries [31] and the amorphous atomic layer and

Self-assembly of a terbium(III) 1D coordination polymer on mica

• Quentin Evrard,
• Giuseppe Cucinotta,
• Felix Houard,
• Guillaume Calvez,
• Yan Suffren,
• Carole Daiguebonne,
• Olivier Guillou,
• Andrea Caneschi,
• Matteo Mannini and
• Kevin Bernot

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2440–2448, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.234

• . Initially, amorphous structures appeared on the surface that can be attributed to the gradual evaporation of solvent and moisture (Figure 2a). More interesting is the morphology observed after the aging of the samples under controlled moisture conditions. Needle-like objects (Figure 2b) with lengths of

• tetragonal Si/Al atoms present on the (001) mica surface. Some disordered objects that are roughly 1.5 nm high are also present on the surface, which could be due to residual amorphous [Tb(hfac)3·2H2O] formed by a less controlled evaporation of the solvent in these areas. Under elevated moisture conditions

Coating of upconversion nanoparticles with silica nanoshells of 5–250 nm thickness

• Cynthia Kembuan,
• Maysoon Saleh,
• Bastian Rühle,
• Ute Resch-Genger and
• Christina Graf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2410–2421, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.231

• . Accordingly, the broad signal of the amorphous silica at 2θ = 20–25° becomes more dominant with increasing thickness of the silica shell. These data indicate that the crystal structure of the UCNP cores is not changed during the silica shell formation process. Figure 3 shows the upconversion luminescence (UCL

Semitransparent Sb₂S₃ thin film solar cells by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis for use in solar windows

• Jako S. Eensalu,
• Atanas Katerski,
• Erki Kärber,
• Lothar Weinhardt,
• Monika Blum,
• Clemens Heske,
• Wanli Yang,
• Ilona Oja Acik and
• Malle Krunks

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2396–2409, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.230

• demonstrated that by adapting a two-step sequence, whereby amorphous Sb2S3 layers are first deposited by USP and then crystallized by thermal annealing, compact Sb2S3 thin films with uniform thickness can be fabricated [46]. Similarly, a two-step procedure to grow compact Sb2S3 thin films has become common

• and back contact is needed to attain an AVT in excess of 20% for the complete solar cell. As-deposited Sb2S3 layers on glass/ITO/TiO2 substrate were amorphous (Figure 1d), as only signals of anatase-TiO2 and In2O3 from the substrate were detected by X-ray diffraction (XRD). In contrast, the XRD

• pattern of the vacuum-annealed sample matched orthorhombic Sb2S3 (ICDD PDF 01-075-4012). The Raman spectrum of the as-deposited Sb2S3 layer contains two broad bands (Figure 1e), which are characteristic of amorphous Sb2S3 [28][46]. After vacuum annealing, characteristic narrower bands of Sb2S3 are

Design and facile synthesis of defect-rich C-MoS₂/rGO nanosheets for enhanced lithium–sulfur battery performance

• Chengxiang Tian,
• Juwei Wu,
• Zheng Ma,
• Bo Li,
• Pengcheng Li,
• Xiaotao Zu and
• Xia Xiang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2251–2260, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.217

• composite with both large surface area and high porosity for the use as advanced electrode material in lithium–sulfur batteries. Double modified defect-rich MoS2 nanosheets are successfully prepared by introducing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and amorphous carbon. The conductibility of the cathodes can be

• improved through the combination of amorphous carbon and rGO, which could also limit the dissolution of polysulfides. After annealing at different temperatures, it is found that the C-MoS2/rGO-6-S composite annealed at 600 °C yields a noticeably enhanced performance of lithium–sulfur batteries, with a high

• adsorption of polysulfides [23][24]. However, the low conductivity of MoS2 often results in incomplete conversion of polysulfides. Thus, MoS2 is usually combined with carbon materials and annealing treatment is also considered [25][26]. Hence, double modification of defect-rich MoS2 nanosheets with amorphous

Targeted therapeutic effect against the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 with a CuFe₂O₄/silica/cisplatin nanocomposite formulation

• B. Rabindran Jermy,
• Vijaya Ravinayagam,
• Widyan A. Alamoudi,
• Dana Almohazey,
• Hatim Dafalla,
• Lina Hussain Allehaibi,
• Abdulhadi Baykal,
• Muhammet S. Toprak and
• Thirunavukkarasu Somanathan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2217–2228, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.214

• < 0.001; **** p < 0.0001 versus control. N.S. indicates non-significant. Results and Discussion Figure 1 shows the PXRD patterns of 30 wt % CuFe2O4 loaded onto HYPS using the dry impregnation technique. The presence of broad peaks due to the amorphous nature of the siliceous framework of HYPS was observed

Green and scalable synthesis of nanocrystalline kuramite

• Andrea Giaccherini,
• Giuseppe Cucinotta,
• Stefano Martinuzzi,
• Enrico Berretti,
• Werner Oberhauser,
• Alessandro Lavacchi,
• Giovanni Orazio Lepore,
• Giordano Montegrossi,
• Maurizio Romanelli,
• Antonio De Luca,
• Massimo Innocenti,
• Vanni Moggi Cecchi,
• Matteo Mannini,
• Antonella Buccianti and
• Francesco Di Benedetto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2073–2083, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.202

• main phase. A large increase of the crystalline size and defective strain is responsible for the significant line broadening of the diffraction peaks. Still, no prevalent amorphous phase can be observed in the diffractograms. On this basis, the XRD results support the mixed occupancy of the cations in

• both Cu and Sn atoms is observable only at the Sn K edge. This suggests that Sn is completely segregated in a CTS phase with a mixed occupancy at the tetrahedral sites (as suggested also by the PCA results). On the contrary, we cannot exclude that Cu may be present in an amorphous Cu(I) sulfide with Cu

High-tolerance crystalline hydrogels formed from self-assembling cyclic dipeptide

• Yongcai You,
• Ruirui Xing,
• Qianli Zou,
• Feng Shi and
• Xuehai Yan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1894–1901, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.184

• focused on the amorphous assemblies in organic solvents and ionic liquids [42][43][44][45][46]. Although these CDP gels have good mechanical properties and deceased enzymatic degradation under physiological conditions, they still have some challenging problems such as inflexibility, low biosecurity and

Fabrication and characterization of Si_1−xGe_x nanocrystals in as-grown and annealed structures: a comparative study

• Muhammad Taha Sultan,
• Adrian Valentin Maraloiu,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Jón Tómas Gudmundsson,
• Andrei Manolescu,
• Valentin Serban Teodorescu,
• Magdalena Lidia Ciurea and
• Halldór Gudfinnur Svavarsson

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1873–1882, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.182

• obtain NCs embedded in an oxide matrix is by thermal annealing of multilayer structures. Several oxide matrices have been studied already [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], of which SiO2 is the most extensively studied as it remains amorphous up to high temperatures and due to its compatibility with Si-based

• amorphous but with crystalline regions (nanoparticles) (as seen in TEM images later in Figure 5a and Figure 5c). With increased annealing temperature, peaks corresponding to the (111), (220) and (311) planes get sharper and narrower as a sign of increased crystallinity of the SiGe layer. Moreover, a small

• consists of core–shell NCs/NPs with the core being Ge-rich Si1−xGex NCs (crystallographic peak (111) position, shifts from 27.87° to 27.75° for MLs in as-grown and annealed at 800 °C states, respectively) surrounded by a shell of crystalline Si in amorphous SiGeO. This behavior can be explained by phase

Biocatalytic oligomerization-induced self-assembly of crystalline cellulose oligomers into nanoribbon networks assisted by organic solvents

• Yuuki Hata,
• Yuka Fukaya,
• Toshiki Sawada,
• Masahito Nishiura and
• Takeshi Serizawa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1778–1788, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.173

• higher than those of the products in aqueous solution [42] (Table 1). The higher crystallinity with the organic solvents was attributed to the lower polydispersity in the DP, which would decrease the amount of the amorphous-like assembled structures of the terminal residues of relatively long oligomer

• equation: where Icor is the corrected intensity, Iobs is the observed intensity, t is the X-ray transmittance through the sample, and Iblank is the intensity measured without any sample. The amorphous cellulose halo obtained previously [42] was fitted to the 1D profiles in 2θ ranges adequately selected

• from 15–20° for each profile. The χc was estimated according to the following equation: where Ic(2θ) is the diffraction intensity from the crystalline phase, and I(2θ) is the intensity from both the crystalline and amorphous phases. For ATR-FTIR absorption spectroscopy, the lyophilized products in a

Synthesis of nickel/gallium nanoalloys using a dual-source approach in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazole ionic liquids

• Ilka Simon,
• Julius Hornung,
• Juri Barthel,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Maik Finze,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1754–1767, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.171

• selected-area energy diffraction (SAED) are required. Presumably, due to the small size of the nanoparticles, these measurements yielded no diffractograms. Therefore, the nanoparticles can only be described as non-crystalline or amorphous. Quantification of EDX spectra from three different spots on the TEM

TiO₂/GO-coated functional separator to suppress polysulfide migration in lithium–sulfur batteries

• Ning Liu,
• Lu Wang,
• Taizhe Tan,
• Yan Zhao and
• Yongguang Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1726–1736, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.168

• typical amorphous state with two weak diffraction peaks at about 25° and 48°, and the peaks of the Al3Ti and Al phases were absent, indicating almost complete dissolution of Al and the formation of amorphous TiO2. Figure 2b shows the Raman spectra of TiO2, GO and the TiO2/GO composite. The Raman spectrum

• of as-dealloyed TiO2 is featureless due to its amorphous nature [36], and the GO alone shows the typical D- and G-bands at ≈1350 cm−1 and 1592 cm−1. Meanwhile, the composite displays the spectral characteristics of GO with two distinct peaks at ≈1343 cm−1 and 1580 cm−1. The slight shift in the

Novel hollow titanium dioxide nanospheres with antimicrobial activity against resistant bacteria

• Carol López de Dicastillo,
• Cristian Patiño,
• María José Galotto,
• Yesseny Vásquez-Martínez,
• Claudia Torrent,
• Daniela Alburquenque,
• Alejandro Pereira and
• Juan Escrig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1716–1725, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.167

•  5. SPVP diffraction patterns showed a broad band with peak at 2θ equal to 20.3° (solid line) corresponding to the amorphous nature of the PVP polymer [30][31][32][33]. Because they were independent of the samples, the peaks at approximately 11.2, 30 and 40° corresponded to the noise baseline due to

• amorphous materials, whose size varies between 1 nm and several hundreds of nanometers [42]. Figure 6 shows the I(q)–q plot (SAXS curve) of the CSTiO2 structures. Additionally, the q in the Figure 6 is the scattering vector and I(q) is the intensity of scattering, respectively. The SAXS data were analyzed

Tuning the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries by modifying the structural defects of the carbon felt electrode

• Ditty Dixon,
• Deepu Joseph Babu,
• Aiswarya Bhaskar,
• Hans-Michael Bruns,
• Joerg J. Schneider,
• Frieder Scheiba and
• Helmut Ehrenberg

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1698–1706, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.165

• the electrical conductivity, leading to performance loss. Furthermore, it has been proposed by Schweiss et al. that an increase in the amorphous content in the felt can increase the hydrogen evolution reaction [12]. In one way or the other, functionalization with heteroatoms will always reduce the

Nanoporous smartPearls for dermal application – Identification of optimal silica types and a scalable production process as prerequisites for marketed products

• David Hespeler,
• Sanaa El Nomeiri,
• Jonas Kaltenbach and
• Rainer H. Müller

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1666–1678, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.162

• particles loaded with a long-term stable, amorphous active agent in its mesopores (2–50 nm). The amorphous state of the active agent is known to increase dermal bioavailability. For use in marketed products, optimal silica types were identified from commercially available, regulatory accepted silica. In

• staying amorphous was achieved between 10% and 25% (w/w), depending on the silica type. A loading mechanism was also proposed. The most suitable processing occurred with the large-sized Syloid® XDP 3050 silica with a 50 µm particle size and a pore diameter of 25 nm, resulting in 18% (w/w) maximum loading

• . Based on a 10% (w/w) loading and the amorphous solubility of the active agent, for a 100 kg dermal formulation, about 500 g of loaded particles were required. This corresponds to production of 5 kg of loaded smartPearls for a formulation batch size of a ton. The production of 5 kg (i.e., about 25 L of

Materials nanoarchitectonics at two-dimensional liquid interfaces

• Katsuhiko Ariga,
• Michio Matsumoto,
• Taizo Mori and
• Lok Kumar Shrestha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1559–1587, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.153

• -dimensional amorphous carbon microbelts at 900 °C and their dense graphitic versions at 2000 °C. Especially the former carbon material exhibited excellent electrochemical supercapacitive performance due to the enhanced surface area and the robust mesoporous framework motifs. The hierarchical bimodal pore

High-temperature resistive gas sensors based on ZnO/SiC nanocomposites

• Vadim B. Platonov,
• Marina N. Rumyantseva,
• Alexander S. Frolov,
• Alexey D. Yapryntsev and
• Alexander M. Gaskov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1537–1547, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.151

• −1 and 1067 cm−1, corresponding to the stretching vibrations of the Si–C and Si–O bonds, respectively [23]. This indicates the formation of an amorphous SiO2 shell on the surface of SiC nanoparticles, which does not appear on the diffraction patterns of the samples. In addition to these absorption

• the O 1s spectrum is consistent with the results from IR spectroscopy. The carbon in silicon carbide is also found to be oxidized. The spectrum of the C 1s region contains four components at 283.1 (C1), 285.1 (C2), 286.5 (C3), 289.3 and (C4) eV, which correspond to carbide in SiC, amorphous carbon, C

• annealed stepwise in an argon atmosphere at 220 °C (2 h, heating rate 1 K/min), 600 °C (2 h, heating rate 1 K/min), and finally at 1150 °C (6 h, heating rate 2 K/min). The obtained amorphous SiC was additionally annealed using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) method on a Spark plasma sintering system

Rapid thermal annealing for high-quality ITO thin films deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering

• Petronela Prepelita,
• Ionel Stavarache,
• Doina Craciun,
• Florin Garoi,
• Catalin Negrila,
• Beatrice Gabriela Sbarcea and
• Valentin Craciun

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1511–1522, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.149

• composition values of the component elements were determined from the XPS spectra using the Avantage software (version 5.978). The crystalline structure of the ITO thin films on amorphous quartz substrates was investigated by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (XRD, Bruker AXS D8 Discover diffractometer

Flexible freestanding MoS₂-based composite paper for energy conversion and storage

• Florian Zoller,
• Jan Luxa,
• Thomas Bein,
• Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing,
• Daniel Bouša and
• Zdeněk Sofer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1488–1496, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.147

• as amorphous carbon [8], carbon nanofibers [7], carbon nanotubes [8] and graphene [9]) has already been demonstrated to be quite attractive. Typically, the electrodes are prepared by mixing these composites as active material with a polymeric binder, conductive carbon and an organic solvent to form a

Hierarchically structured 3D carbon nanotube electrodes for electrocatalytic applications

• Pei Wang,
• Katarzyna Kulp and
• Michael Bron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1475–1487, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.146

• H2/Ar ratio higher than 1.2 L h−1/0.5 L h−1 (and thus a higher H2/cyclohexane ratio, Supporting Information File 1, Figure S2f), while Figure S2e shows only few CNTs and large amounts of surrounding (probably amorphous) carbon obtained with a smaller H2/Ar ratio (1.0 L h−1/0.7 L h−1). It was reported

• metal catalyst in its active state and avoid catalyst passivation by excess carbon deposition, which would otherwise suppress CNT growth. We assume that with the decreasing ratio of H2/cyclohexane, exactly these processes occur, resulting in suppressed CNT growth and formation of amorphous carbon. In

• flow rate of 1.7 L h−1 yielded unsatisfactory results. As exposed in Supporting Information File 1, Figure S4, larger amounts of amorphous carbon are deposited and only few CNTs are grown, indicating the dependence of CNT growth on support and structure. Learning from the results on the growth of

Growth of lithium hydride thin films from solutions: Towards solution atomic layer deposition of lithiated films

• Ivan Kundrata,
• Karol Fröhlich,
• Lubomír Vančo,
• Matej Mičušík and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1443–1451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.142

• combination with lithium hexamethyldisilazane to deposit LIPON films [9]. The key insight was the use of a nitrogen-containing phosphorus precursor to directly create the P–N bonds. The resulting films grown by this technique at 270–330 °C were amorphous and the nitrogen concentration increased with the