Block copolymers for designing nanostructured porous coatings

• Roberto Nisticò

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2332–2344, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.218

• ). Therefore, an extended discussion around the exploitation of block copolymers is proposed here in this review, using polystyrene-block-polyethylene oxide (PS-b-PEO) as the model substrate, and critical points are highlighted. Keywords: block copolymers; coatings; materials science; porous materials; self

• functionalities, reactivity). Since the scientific literature describing the properties of BCs is extremely vast, this review will only consider (and analyze in detail) the works and the technical discussion relevant for this review. Moreover, for simplicity, only the scientific literature describing polystyrene

Electrospun one-dimensional nanostructures: a new horizon for gas sensing materials

• Muhammad Imran,
• Nunzio Motta and
• Mahnaz Shafiei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2128–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.202

• inside a stainless steel needle. The electrospinning setup and resulting hollow fibers are shown in Figure 5. Choi et al. [75] synthesized macroporous WO3 NTs using coaxial electrospinning combined with sacrificial templating. A porous structure using colloidal polystyrene (PS) particles in a solution

Nanoconjugates of a calixresorcinarene derivative with methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) fragments for drug encapsulation

• Alina M. Ermakova,
• Julia E. Morozova,
• Yana V. Shalaeva,
• Victor V. Syakaev,
• Aidar T. Gubaidullin,
• Alexandra D. Voloshina,
• Vladimir V. Zobov,
• Irek R. Nizameev,
• Olga B. Bazanova,
• Igor S. Antipin and
• Alexander I. Konovalov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2057–2070, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.195

• ] software packages. DLS, SLS, and zeta-potential measurements were carried out by employing a Zetasizer nano ZS with Dispersion Technology Software 5.00. The measurements were carried out at 25 °C in polystyrene cells, for temperature-dependent DLS measurements (25–65 °C) and SLS measurement, a glass

Recent highlights in nanoscale and mesoscale friction

• Andrea Vanossi,
• Dirk Dietzel,
• Andre Schirmeisen,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Rémy Pawlak,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Marcin Kisiel,
• Shigeki Kawai and
• Nicola Manini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1995–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.190

• probing what each mobile particle in the sliding layer is doing instant after instant at the interface. In short, charged polystyrene spheres in aqueous solution repel each other, forming, under confinement, a 2D hexagonal crystal [158][159][160][161][162][163]. This crystal is driven across an either

Self-assembled quasi-hexagonal arrays of gold nanoparticles with small gaps for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

• Emre Gürdal,
• Simon Dickreuter,
• Fatima Noureddine,
• Pascal Bieschke,
• Dieter P. Kern and
• Monika Fleischer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1977–1985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.188

• cleaned with acetone in an ultrasonic bath for two minutes. Then they were rinsed with isopropanol, and finally dried with nitrogen gas. A symmetric diblock copolymer (polystyrene-block-poly-2-vinylpyridine, PS(133000)-block-P2VP(132000), polymer source) was dissolved in toluene at a concentration of 1 mg

Preparation of micro/nanopatterned gelatins crosslinked with genipin for biocompatible dental implants

• Reika Makita,
• Tsukasa Akasaka,
• Seiichi Tamagawa,
• Yasuhiro Yoshida,
• Saori Miyata,
• Hirofumi Miyaji and
• Tsutomu Sugaya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1735–1754, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.165

• , which indicated the presence of live cells on the crosslinked gelatin, was similar to the high ratio of green-stained cells on a tissue cultured polystyrene (TCPS), which was used as a control for a high-viability surface after 1 day or 7 days of culturing. The number of red-stained cells was few

Closed polymer containers based on phenylboronic esters of resorcinarenes

• Tatiana Yu. Sergeeva,
• Rezeda K. Mukhitova,
• Irek R. Nizameev,
• Marsil K. Kadirov,
• Polina D. Klypina,
• Albina Y. Ziganshina and
• Alexander I. Konovalov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1594–1601, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.151

• C–C and C–H bonds at 1191, 1048 and 533 cm−1 are present in the IR spectrum of p(SRA-B) (see Supporting Information File 1, Figure S3). In the 13C and 1H NMR spectra of p(SRA-B), the signals of SRA, BA ester and polystyrene are present (see Supporting Information File 1, Figure S4 and Figure S5

• ). The integrals of proton signals in the 1H NMR spectrum at 1.0–4.5 ppm indicate that p(SRA-B) contains one polystyrene unit per one SRA fragment, i.e., the polystyrene fraction is about 11 wt % of p(SRA-B). According to differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data, p(SRA-B) is thermally more stable

Interaction-tailored organization of large-area colloidal assemblies

• Silvia Rizzato,
• Elisabetta Primiceri,
• Anna Grazia Monteduro,
• Adriano Colombelli,
• Angelo Leo,
• Maria Grazia Manera,
• Roberto Rella and
• Giuseppe Maruccio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1582–1593, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.150

• absorption of polystyrene spheres onto a substrate and discuss the effect of particle–substrate and particle–particle interactions on their organization. Depending on the nature and the strength of the interactions acting in the colloidal film formation, two different strategies were developed in order to

• polystyrene nanoparticles) are self-assembled onto a substrate to form a 2D crystal used as a lithographic (positive or negative) mask. The size, shape and interspacing can be controlled on the nanoscale by changing the particle diameter as well as the conditions of film deposition. Indeed, the colloidal

• obtain good surface coverage, we exploited electrostatic interactions between negatively charged, polystyrene, spherical, nanoscale materials and a functionalized, positively charged surface. In the case of small spheres (diameter of 80 nm), the interparticle distance and the number of randomly adsorbed

Optical near-field mapping of plasmonic nanostructures prepared by nanosphere lithography

• Gitanjali Kolhatkar,
• Alexandre Merlen,
• Jiawei Zhang,
• Chahinez Dab,
• Gregory Q. Wallace,
• François Lagugné-Labarthet and
• Andreas Ruediger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1536–1543, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.144

• measurements can be easily performed without heavy experimental devices or complicated posttreatment analysis. Methods Sample preparation The samples were fabricated by nanosphere lithography. A solution of 1 µm diameter polystyrene microsphere mixed with ethanol was deposited on a dry, clean microscope glass

• coverslip and distributed homogeneously. After the sample dried, 3 nm of Ti followed by 30 nm of Au were deposited using electron beam evaporation. The sample was then sonicated in ethanol for 1 min to remove the polystyrene particles. A pattern of gold plasmonic nanotriangles (side length ≈350 nm

Cr(VI) remediation from aqueous environment through modified-TiO₂-mediated photocatalytic reduction

• Rashmi Acharya,
• Brundabana Naik and
• Kulamani Parida

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1448–1470, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.137

Imaging of viscoelastic soft matter with small indentation using higher eigenmodes in single-eigenmode amplitude-modulation atomic force microscopy

• Miead Nikfarjam,
• Enrique A. López-Guerra,
• Santiago D. Solares and
• Babak Eslami

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1116–1122, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.103

• described in previous studies [29] and details can be found in the computational code provided in [26]. Experimental results Polystyrene thin film height measurements were performed using the same imaging modes as in the numerical simulations. All three measurements were performed with a single cantilever

• having f1 ≈ 45 kHz and k1 ≈ 5.80 N/m. Polystyrene with 33 kDa molecular weight diluted to 2.5 wt % in THF was used, which was spin-coated onto a silicon wafer at 1400 rpm for 60 s. We have selected a polystyrene of low molecular weight to prepare a sample that displays time-dependent behavior within the

• deformational timescale in our studies (previous studies have quantified the dependence of characteristic times on the molecular weight for polystyrene [30]). In order to ensure a homogenous surface, the relative humidity was controlled to be approximately 30% during the spin-coating process. A portion of the

P3HT:PCBM blend films phase diagram on the base of variable-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry

• Barbara Hajduk,
• Henryk Bednarski,
• Bożena Jarząbek,
• Henryk Janeczek and
• Paweł Nitschke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1108–1115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.102

• coefficient, which can be detected as change in the slope of d(T) plots [26]. Variable-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry has been applied to study thin films of polymers such as polystyrene (PS) [27][28][29][30][31], poly(α-methylstyrene) [32], poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [33][34] and polyester [35

Review on nanoparticles and nanostructured materials: history, sources, toxicity and regulations

• Jaison Jeevanandam,
• Ahmed Barhoum,
• Yen S. Chan,
• Alain Dufresne and
• Michael K. Danquah

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1050–1074, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.98

Automated image segmentation-assisted flattening of atomic force microscopy images

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li and
• Huimin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 975–985, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.91

• spin coating a thin film of polystyrene (PS) on a silicon (100) substrate at a speed of 500 rpm. Prior to spin coating, the silicon substrate was sequentially cleaned in a sonic bath of piranha solution, acetone and water for 30 minutes. The PS solution was obtained by dissolving PS particles

Comparative study of antibacterial properties of polystyrene films with TiO_x and Cu nanoparticles fabricated using cluster beam technique

• Vladimir N. Popok,
• Cesarino M. Jeppesen,
• Peter Fojan,
• Anna Kuzminova,
• Jan Hanuš and
• Ondřej Kylián

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 861–869, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.80

• describes a novel approach for the formation of bactericidal polymer thin films (polystyrene in this case), produced by spin-coating, with Ti and Cu NPs deposited from cluster beams. Ti NPs are treated in three different ways in order to study different approaches for oxidation and, thus, efficiency in

• formation of the particles with semiconducting properties required for the catalytic formation of reactive oxygen species. Cu NPs are used as deposited. Partial NP embedding into polystyrene is realised in a controllable manner using thermal annealing in order to improve surface adhesion and make the

• [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In the current work, both Ti and Cu clusters are produced using magnetron sputtering in special cluster sources and deposited on substrates coated by a thin layer of polystyrene (PS). The focus is on the optimization of the nanocomposite formation using the cluster beam

Facile phase transfer of gold nanorods and nanospheres stabilized with block copolymers

• Yaroslav I. Derikov,
• Georgiy A. Shandryuk,
• Raisa V. Talroze,
• Alexander A. Ezhov and
• Yaroslav V. Kudryavtsev

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 616–627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.58

• presented in Figure 3. For the sodium D-line, the refractive index of CTAB equals 1.4350 [48], which is close to 1.4440 for chloroform [49], but markedly different from 1.3333 for water [43], 1.4956 for benzene [44], 1.4920 for toluene [44], 1.5915 for polystyrene [50] and 1.622 for poly(2-vinylpyridine) at

• the PS-b-P2VP block copolymer, the presence of polystyrene blocks in the surface layer of nanorods can effectively increase the refractive index of that layer and bring it close to the refractive index of the dispersion medium, benzene. If so, the modeled extinction cross section for a bare nanorod

Single-step process to improve the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube yarn

• Maria Cecilia Evora,
• Xinyi Lu,
• Nitilaksha Hiremath,
• Nam-Goo Kang,
• Kunlun Hong,
• Roberto Uribe,
• Gajanan Bhat and
• Jimmy Mays

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 545–554, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.52

• 100 °C for more than 6 h. They found some improvement in mechanical properties of CNT yarn infiltrated with polymers [43]. Hiremath et al. also concluded the same when they investigated the effect of toluene and polystyrene infiltrated in the microstructure of carbon nanotube yarns [44]. The results

Lyapunov estimation for high-speed demodulation in multifrequency atomic force microscopy

• David M. Harcombe,
• Michael G. Ruppert,
• Michael R. P. Ragazzon and
• Andrew J. Fleming

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 490–498, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.47

• have fundamental resonance frequencies of 168.8 kHz and 46.1 kHz, respectively. The samples used are a z-calibration grating (NT-MDT TGZ3) with periodic height features of approx. 500 nm and a blend of polystyrene (PS) and polyolefin elastomer (LDPE) available from Bruker (PS-LDPE-12M). Due to the

Engineering of oriented carbon nanotubes in composite materials

• Razieh Beigmoradi,
• Abdolreza Samimi and
• Davod Mohebbi-Kalhori

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 415–435, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.41

• (PU) or polystyrene (PS), is stretched too far. Fracture occurs and the oriented CNTs are formed in the fracture gap as shown in Figure 4. Since CNTs have the desired electronic properties and the method is easy to perform, this technique might be suitable for making CNT electronic devices such as

• the fractured part of the composite. Reproduced with permission from [33], copyright 2009 Versita Warsaw. SEM images of a polystyrene (PS) composite film containing 25 wt % CNTs. (a) Random networked CNTs on the film surface and (b) oriented CNTs by fracturing, reproduced with permission from [37

Nanoparticle delivery to metastatic breast cancer cells by nanoengineered mesenchymal stem cells

• Liga Saulite,
• Karlis Pleiko,
• Ineta Popena,
• Dominyka Dapkute,
• Ricardas Rotomskis and
• Una Riekstina

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 321–332, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.32

• experiments. Human breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231 (ATCC HTB-26™) and MCF7 (ATCC HTB-22™) were propagated in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and penicillin/streptomycin (100 U/mL and 100 μg/mL, respectively) (complete cancer cell medium). The cells were cultured in 25 cm2 polystyrene tissue culture flasks

• -hydroxethyl methacrylate) (polyHEMA) coating was prepared as described elsewhere [50]. In brief, the PolyHEMA solution was poured into the wells of a 24-well tissue culture polystyrene plate to cover the surface. The plate was then air dried in a laminar airflow chamber overnight. The MSCs, MDA-MB-231 and

• for uptake experiments, 5 × 104 MSCs were allowed to adhere to 6-well tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS) plates and cultured in the presence of QDs of 2 nM to 32 nM concentration for 6 h in complete or serum-free medium. The cells were then harvested by trypsinisation and resuspended in 200 μL PBS for

Al₂O₃/TiO₂ inverse opals from electrosprayed self-assembled templates

• Arnau Coll,
• Sandra Bermejo,
• David Hernández and
• Luís Castañer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 216–223, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.23

• of recent literature shows that opals made of polystyrene or poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] nanoparticles can be orderly assembled in larger areas and thicknesses, however, such materials do not achieve the same optical performance as inverse opals, due to

• has a lower refractive index than TiO2 deposited at >200 °C. In previous works [37][38][39][40] we have shown how an electrospray process of nanofluids can be used to deposit in a very short time very well ordered and with few defects layers (colloidal crystals) of polystyrene (of good quality and

• deposition capacity and mechanical properties [41][42]. The main purpose of this article is to apply this technique to the fabrication of inverse opals using the 3D polystyrene nanoparticle template which enables the creation of large scale, large thickness, self-assembled structures with minimum fabrication

A robust AFM-based method for locally measuring the elasticity of samples

• Alexandre Bubendorf,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Thomas Schimmel and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1–10, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.1

• relation exists when measuring in contact mode with a certain load FN and propose a new method for determining the elastic modulus of samples from this relation. The measurements were performed in non-dry air at ambient temperature on three different polymers (polystyrene, polypropylene and linear low

• first flexural modes of the cantilever in contact were excited with the amplitudes A1 = 22 mV and A2 = 5 mV for all samples. Samples and measurement conditions Three different polymers (polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)) and a self-assembled monolayer (SAM

Electro-optical characteristics of a liquid crystal cell with graphene electrodes

• Nune H. Hakobyan,
• Hakob L. Margaryan,
• Valeri K. Abrahamyan,
• Vladimir M. Aroutiounian,
• Arpi S. Dilanchian Gharghani,
• Amalya B. Kostanyan,
• Timothy D. Wilkinson and
• Nelson Tabirian

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2802–2806, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.279

• precleaned glass substrate by using a polymer support layer of polystyrene (PS, Mw 35k, 2% w/w in toluene) and an etchant acid (FeCl3 aq, 0.5 M) to remove the Cu, as described elsewhere [15]. This was followed by a wash in a warm ethyl acetate bath to dissolve the supporting polymer layer. Device fabrication

Material discrimination and mixture ratio estimation in nanocomposites via harmonic atomic force microscopy

• Weijie Zhang,
• Yuhang Chen,
• Xicheng Xia and
• Jiaru Chu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2771–2780, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.276

• signals were investigated systematically on a polymer blend composed of polystyrene (PS) and low-density polyehtylene (LDPE). We focused on the influence of feedback amplitude set-point, drive frequency and laser spot position along the cantilever beam. Based on these fundamental studies, harmonic AFM

The role of ligands in coinage-metal nanoparticles for electronics

• Ioannis Kanelidis and
• Tobias Kraus

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2625–2639, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.263

• case of polymethacrylic acid due to its potential to carry negative charge [94]. Que et al. reported that the size of the polystyrene block affected the stability of gold nanoparticles coated with a poly(ethylene glycol)-b-polystyrene diblock copolymer in water. A shorter polystyrene chain length led