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

• used without further purification. Preparative column chromatography was performed using silica gel 60 with particle size 0.063–0.200 mm (70–230 mesh, Flash). Analytical thin-layer chromatography (TLC) was carried out employing silica gel 60 F254 plates (Merck, Darmstadt). Nuclear magnetic resonance

• mL) and extracted with H2O (20 mL). The combined organic layers were washed with saturated brine, dried over anhydrous Na2SO4, filtered, which was purified by silica gel chromatography (PE/EtOAc 4:1) to give the desired product (348 mg, 38%) as a white solid. TLC: Rf = 0.54 (PE/EtOAc 2:1). 1H NMR

Facile synthesis of carbon nanotube-supported NiO//Fe₂O₃ for all-solid-state supercapacitors

• Shengming Zhang,
• Xuhui Wang,
• Yan Li,
• Xuemei Mu,
• Yaxiong Zhang,
• Jingwei Du,
• Guo Liu,
• Xiaohui Hua,
• Yingzhuo Sheng,
• Erqing Xie and
• Zhenxing Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1923–1932, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.188

• . All-solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor An all-solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) was constructed with CC-CNT@Fe2O3 as the negative electrode, CC-CNT@NiO as the positive electrode, potassium hydroxide/polyvinyl alcohol gel (KOH/PVA, 1:1 mass ratio) as the electrolyte, and a cellulose

• electrode, CC-CNT@Fe2O3 as the negative electrode, and PVA/KOH gel as the electrolyte delivered a high energy density of 63.3 Wh·kg−1 at 1.6 kW·kg−1. Moreover, the device exhibits superior cycling stability with 83% retention of initial capacitance after 5000 cycles. The outstanding electrochemical

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

• properties The rheological properties of hydrogels are key evaluation indicators for a variety of applications [50][51]. It is typically challenging for hydrogels based on linear peptides to maintain their original gel state for a long time or under shear force. Driven by a thermodynamic process, they tend

Lipid nanostructures for antioxidant delivery: a comparative preformulation study

• Elisabetta Esposito,
• Maddalena Sguizzato,
• Markus Drechsler,
• Paolo Mariani,
• Federica Carducci,
• Claudio Nastruzzi,
• Giuseppe Valacchi and
• Rita Cortesi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1789–1801, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.174

• 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel (SDS-PAGE) and then transferred onto nitrocellulose membranes. Blots were blocked in PBS containing 0.5% Tween 20 and 5% not-fat milk (BioRad). The membranes were incubated overnight at 4 °C with the appropriate primary antibody HO-1 (Abcam, Cambridge, UK

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-order structures. This finding indicates that small-molecule additives provide control over the self-assembly of crystalline oligosaccharides for the creation of hierarchically structured materials with high robustness in a simple manner. Keywords: cellulose oligomer; gel; nanoarchitectonics

• oligomerization system in mixtures of an aqueous buffer solution and appropriate organic solvents was found to result in nanoribbon network structures for gel formation (Figure 1). It was suggested that the precipitation of the nanosheets was prevented effectively via solvation with the organic solvents through

• % DMSO and 10 vol % EtOH were found to be in gel states after the reaction (Figure 2, photographs with yellow background). The apparent turbidity of the reaction mixtures decreased with increasing organic solvent concentrations for each organic solvent species (Figure 2). The observations were simply due

The impact of crystal size and temperature on the adsorption-induced flexibility of the Zr-based metal–organic framework DUT-98

• Simon Krause,
• Volodymyr Bon,
• Hongchu Du,
• Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski,
• Ulrich Stoeck,
• Irena Senkovska and
• Stefan Kaskel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1737–1744, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.169

• -density monolithic structures (similar to aerogels recently reported for gel-like Zr MOFs [34][35]), were obtained. The SEM analysis shows a rod-like crystal morphology with crystal length in the range of 120 µm for DUT-98(1), 10 µm for DUT-98(2), 500 nm for DUT-98(3), and 50 nm for DUT-98(4) (Supporting

Layered double hydroxide/sepiolite hybrid nanoarchitectures for the controlled release of herbicides

• Ediana Paula Rebitski,
• Margarita Darder and
• Pilar Aranda

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1679–1690, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.163

• formed gel was poured with a burette into a 5% CaCl2 solution to form the bionanocomposite beads, which were kept under constant stirring for 15 min. At the end of the process, the beads were washed with deionized water to remove residual Ca2+ ions and finally dried at 40 °C overnight. In this way, 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

• if the diffused rutin molecules are replaced in the dermal formulation by faster or slower dissolution. In vitro skin penetration studies showed an even higher increase in penetration when a gel with smartPearls was compared to a gel with rutin powder (pig skin penetration test, tape stripping [24

Chiral nanostructures self-assembled from nitrocinnamic amide amphiphiles: substituent and solvent effects

• Hejin Jiang,
• Huahua Fan,
• Yuqian Jiang,
• Li Zhang and
• Minghua Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1608–1617, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.156

• , as shown in Figure 3b. A negative Cotton effect at around 355 nm was observed for the 2NCLG gel, while a positive Cotton effect at about 300 nm and 370 nm appeared for the 3NCLG assembly. As for the 4NCLG system, a positive Cotton effect was detected at 371 nm and a negative one at 333 nm with a

• characterized on a Bruker AVANCE III HD 500 machine. The gel and precipitate were cast onto single-crystal silica plates and then coated with a thin layer of Pt after drying to increase the contrast. After that, the morphology was observed with a Hitachi S-4800 FE-SEM operating at an accelerating voltage of 10

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

• of ITO in various applications increases when the electrical properties are improved. Various deposition techniques have been used to obtain TCO thin films, such as: vacuum thermal evaporation [15][16], chemical vapor deposition [17], sol–gel [18], pyrolysis spray techniques [5][19], magnetron

BiOCl/TiO₂/diatomite composites with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B

• Minlin Ao,
• Kun Liu,
• Xuekun Tang,
• Zishun Li,
• Qian Peng and
• Jing Huang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1412–1422, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.139

• Abstract A BiOCl/TiO2/diatomite (BTD) composite was synthesized via a modified sol–gel method and precipitation/calcination method for application as a photocatalyst and shows promise for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater upon visible-light irradiation. In the composite, diatomite was used as

• Yingkou, China, and used after removing impurities by acid leaching. Preparation of TiO2/diatomite composite In a typical synthesis, we prepared the TiO2/diatomite composite via a modified sol–gel method: Firstly, we added 12 mL of tetrabutyl titanate to 20 mL ethanol under stirring, which was recorded as

• −, OH and holes, have strong redox ability, and as a result, RhB can be degraded into small molecules to complete the photocatalytic process. Conclusion In summary, a BiOCl/TiO2/diatomite (BTD) composite was synthesized by a modified sol–gel method and precipitation/calcination method. The prepared BTD

Gas sensing properties of individual SnO₂ nanowires and SnO₂ sol–gel nanocomposites

• Alexey V. Shaposhnik,
• Dmitry A. Shaposhnik,
• Sergey Yu. Turishchev,
• Olga A. Chuvenkova,
• Stanislav V. Ryabtsev,
• Alexey A. Vasiliev,
• Xavier Vilanova,
• Francisco Hernandez-Ramirez and
• Joan R. Morante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1380–1390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.136

• selectivity to target gases. The aim of this work is the comparison of gas sensing properties of tin dioxide in the form of individual nanowires and nanopowders obtained by sol–gel synthesis. This comparison is necessary because the traditional synthesis procedures of small particle, metal oxide materials

• was used for the fabrication of well-faceted wire-like crystals with diameters ranging between 15–100 nm. The sol–gel method allowed us to obtain fragile gels from powders with grain sizes of about 5 nm. By means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) it was proven that the nanowires contain

• ; gas transport method; nanowires; quasi-one-dimensional materials; sol–gel synthesis; tin dioxide; X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES); X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS); Introduction Semiconductor sensor functionality relies on heterogeneous catalytic chemical processes, which makes the

Highly ordered mesoporous silica film nanocomposites containing gold nanoparticles for the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

• Mohamad Azani Jalani,
• Leny Yuliati,
• Siew Ling Lee and
• Hendrik O. Lintang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1368–1379, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.135

• Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia 10.3762/bjnano.10.135 Abstract We report that transparent mesostructured silica/gold nanocomposite materials with an interpore distance of 4.1 nm, as-synthesized from a templated sol–gel

• from gold(III) chloride trihydrate (HAuCl4) solution have been used as a precursor for post-synthetic grafting upon mixing with mesoporous silica [20]. Another method is to utilize the co-condensation reaction by the mixing solution of HAuCl4 with surfactants and silica sources during the sol–gel

• external AuNPs was suggested due to the sintering effect as reported by others [29]. As the source of the AuNPs, the organic functional groups are arranged inside the silica channels using a template sol–gel synthesis of mesoporous silica with a functional surfactant [22][23][24][25]. Due to the heat

Multicomponent bionanocomposites based on clay nanoarchitectures for electrochemical devices

• Giulia Lo Dico,
• Bernd Wicklein,
• Lorenzo Lisuzzo,
• Giuseppe Lazzara,
• Pilar Aranda and
• Eduardo Ruiz-Hitzky

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1303–1315, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.129

• immobilized in mesopores of Al2O3 membranes (10–30 mM) [63], sol–gel-derived composite films (14 mM) [64], and similar devices based on graphene and carbon nanotubes (4–15 mM) [65][66]. The low Km value is indicative of an excellent performance attributed to strong substrate binding and high enzymatic

Green fabrication of lanthanide-doped hydroxide-based phosphors: Y(OH)₃:Eu³⁺ nanoparticles for white light generation

• Tugrul Guner,
• Anilcan Kus,
• Mehmet Ozcan,
• Aziz Genc,
• Hasan Sahin and
• Mustafa M. Demir

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1200–1210, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.119

• methods have been widely used such as sol–gel, hydrothermal, combustion, emulsion, and precipitation methods [31][32][33][34]. Among those, the sol–gel and co-precipitation methods are, in general, slow and usually involve additional steps. On the other hand, there is a huge waste of organic solvents

A highly efficient porous rod-like Ce-doped ZnO photocatalyst for the degradation of dye contaminants in water

• Binjing Hu,
• Qiang Sun,
• Chengyi Zuo,
• Yunxin Pei,
• Siwei Yang,
• Hui Zheng and
• Fangming Liu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1157–1165, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.115

• decarboxylation. Generally, zinc oxide materials can be synthesized via a hydrothermal process [18], sol–gel method [19], microemulsion method [20], among others. Due to its narrow band, the application of zinc oxide is limited, thus it is common to modify ZnO using rare-earth ions [9]. Koao et al. [21

• affects the formation of ZIF-8. More specifically, it undergoes three main stages: gel formation, nucleation and crystallization [23]. According to Mahmoud’s [35] report, the Ce element which is doped into the lattice of Zn seeds may lower the surface energy, thus leading to a new morphology. Labhane et

Photoactive nanoarchitectures based on clays incorporating TiO₂ and ZnO nanoparticles

• Eduardo Ruiz-Hitzky,
• Pilar Aranda,
• Marwa Akkari,
• Nithima Khaorapapong and
• Makoto Ogawa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1140–1156, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.114

• nanostructured materials prepared by in situ formation of NPs can be achieved by applying various procedures such as impregnation by precipitation, sol–gel, solvothermal and microwave-assisted reactions. As already indicated, clay-based nanoarchitectures containing TiO2 NPs (anatase phase) are currently the most

• kaolinite surface through sol–gel methods as, for instance, one based on the controlled hydrolysis titanium(IV)-n-butoxide in ethanol, resulting in heterocoagulation with kaolinite in aqueous suspensions [96]. However, kaolinite can be expanded by the intercalation of polar molecules such as urea, dimethyl

• distributed on the surface of sepiolite or palygorskite [109][111][118]. Figure 3 also shows TEM images of TiO2 produced in a controlled sol–gel process on the external surface of sepiolite modified with cetyltrimethylammonium ions. A coverage of the silicate surface by small NPs (4–8 nm diameter) suitable

Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles as a saturable absorber for giant chirped pulse generation

• Ji-Shu Liu,
• Xiao-Hui Li,
• Abdul Qyyum,
• Yi-Xuan Guo,
• Tong Chai,
• Hua Xu and
• Jie Jiang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1065–1072, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.107

• analyzer (Rohde & Schwarz FSC6) is used to measure the signal-to-noise ratio of the pulse. There are many methods that can be employed for the synthesis of NPs, such as sol–gel, sol–hydrothermal, co-precipitate, or dry methods. Due to the homogeneity and the versatility of the product, a sol–hydrothermal

Enhanced inhibition of influenza virus infection by peptide–noble-metal nanoparticle conjugates

• Zaid K. Alghrair,
• David G. Fernig and
• Bahram Ebrahimi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1038–1047, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.104

• then further separated from excess ligands by applying them (100 µL) to a 5 mL Sephadex G25 gel filtration column with PBS as a mobile phase. Ion-exchange chromatography Ion-exchange chromatography was performed on custom-made mini columns of diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) and carboxymethyl (CM) Sepharose

• (GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences AB, Sweden). The gel slurry was packed into a white pipette tip (200 µL) using half the filter as a frit and equilibrated in PBS. Capped nanoparticles were concentrated and exchanged into the appropriate buffer using a 10 kDa cut-off Nanosep centrifugal filter. The

Serum type and concentration both affect the protein-corona composition of PLGA nanoparticles

• Katrin Partikel,
• Robin Korte,
• Dennis Mulac,
• Hans-Ulrich Humpf and
• Klaus Langer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1002–1015, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.101

• around poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) NPs at different serum concentrations using two substantially different serum types, namely fetal bovine serum (FBS) and human serum. The corona was characterized by means of sodium dodecylsulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), Bradford protein

• complexes from excess serum proteins we used sodium dodecylsulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), zeta potential measurements, and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) to study the composition of adsorbed proteins in detail. A quantitative analysis of corona

• evolution trend for the two biological incubation fluids. The electrophoresis was carried out in triplicate. The protein pattern was reproducible and one gel for the incubation of PLGA NPs with increasing amounts of FBS is presented exemplarily in Figure 3A. The positive control is dominated by one major

Rapid, ultraviolet-induced, reversibly switchable wettability of superhydrophobic/superhydrophilic surfaces

• Yunlu Pan,
• Wenting Kong,
• Bharat Bhushan and
• Xuezeng Zhao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 866–873, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.87

• vinyltrimethoxysilane sol–gel where the WCA changed from about 180° to 108° in under 50 min upon UV illumination and then further reduced to 20° after another 30 min. Thus the total transition time from superhydrophobic to superhydrophilic was about 80 min. Petroffe et al. [29] modified TiO2 with 11-(4-(phenylazo

An efficient electrode material for high performance solid-state hybrid supercapacitors based on a Cu/CuO/porous carbon nanofiber/TiO₂ hybrid composite

• Mamta Sham Lal,
• Thirugnanam Lavanya and
• Sundara Ramaprabhu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 781–793, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.78

• . For the two-electrode configuration, a symmetric solid-state hybrid supercapacitor (SSHSC) was fabricated using the Cu/CuO/PCNF/TiO2 composite as an active electrode material coated on a carbon cloth (2 × 2 cm2), PVA/H2SO4 polymer gel electrolyte, separator of polypropylene sheet. The preparation of

• PVA/H2SO4 polymer gel electrolyte and the fabrication of SSHSC is given in Supporting Information File 1. Then, the assembly was placed between two Perspex sheets, along with stainless-steel plates as current collectors. An optical image showing different parts of the fabricated supercapacitors is

• supercapacitor (SSHSC) based on the Cu/CuO/PCNF/TiO2 composite, and electrochemical studies were performed in a PVA/H2SO4 polymer gel electrolyte. Figure 11a shows the CV profile of the SSHSC at different scan rates of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 mV s−1 in the voltage range from 0 to 0.8 V. The fabricated SSHSC shows

An iridescent film of porous anodic aluminum oxide with alternatingly electrodeposited Cu and SiO₂ nanoparticles

• Menglei Chang,
• Huawen Hu,
• Haiyan Quan,
• Hongyang Wei,
• Zhangyi Xiong,
• Jiacong Lu,
• Pin Luo,
• Yaoheng Liang,
• Jianzhen Ou and
• Dongchu Chen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 735–745, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.73

• angles led to a variation of the structural color from red to blue-purple, and the SiO2 particle size was also found to have an influence on the film color [14]. Furthermore, an AAO template was firstly prepared in an electrolyte with an alkaline silica gel and phosphate, onto which a layer of an Au film

Outstanding chain-extension effect and high UV resistance of polybutylene succinate containing amino-acid-modified layered double hydroxides

• Adam A. Marek,
• Vincent Verney,
• Christine Taviot-Gueho,
• Grazia Totaro,
• Laura Sisti,
• Annamaria Celli and
• Fabrice Leroux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 684–695, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.68

• underlining once again the outstanding effect of the filler in networking PBS chains. This occurs without a transition to a gel-like structure, which would be deleterious for the PBS processability. Table 3 reports quasi-exhaustive data related to the effect of organo-modified LDHs on the chain extension for

• rather than a gel-like transition, this may indicate the presence of a jamming structure due to mobility hindrance of PBS chains as observed for other LDH composites with polystyrene [27] rather that a possible covalent or hydrogen-type bonding between tethered PHE and PBS. The worst behaviour in terms

Topochemical engineering of composite hybrid fibers using layered double hydroxides and abietic acid

• Liji Sobhana,
• Lokesh Kesavan,
• Jan Gustafsson and
• Pedro Fardim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 589–605, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.60

• ) reveal wrinkled surfaces or gel-like structures for all samples except C-F, which shows a very thick, smooth, and shiny coating of AA (Figure S3b, Supporting Information File 1). C-HF has a thick sticky glue-like coating of AA on the surface (Figure S3d–f, Supporting Information File 1). UBKPR: REF