Search

An enhanced boron nitrogen decorated carbon fullerene with the formula BNC18 (BNC) was investigated for sensing the formaldehyde (FMA) pollutant. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to optimize the pure C fullerene and the BNC one to prepare a comparative study of facile detection of FMA substance through the formation of FMA@C and FMA@BNC complexes. The details of complexes were re-recognized by the additional quantum theory of atoms in molecule (QTAIM) analyses, in which the formations of both of FMA@C and FMA@BNC were confirmed. However, the BN-decoration enhancement provided a better interacting surface for the BNC fullerene towards the FMA substance in comparison with the pure C fullerene. Moreover, the electronic molecular orbitals features indicated a significant sensing function for the BNC model by improving the semiconductivity for recognizing the adsorbed substance. In this regard, the BNC fullerene was found suitable for successfully approaching two terms of “recovery time” and “conductance rate” for sensing the FMA pollutant.

The detection of indoor formaldehyde concentration attracted great attention owing to its serious harm to human bodies. Traditional semiconductor formaldehyde sensors are still suffering from high working temperature and slow response and recovery performance. In this work, a room-temperature semiconductor formaldehyde gas sensor with fast response and high selectivity were developed by exploiting the synergistic effect of Au decoration on MoO3 nanoribbons. The metallic Au nanocrystals with size lower than 10 nm were prepared by a chemical reduction method and uniformly distributed on the surface of the [1 0 0] -oriented orthorhombic MoO3 nanoribbons after the surface decoration. The results show that the surface decoration by Au nanoparticles could greatly fasten the response and recovery speed of the sensors at room temperature. Under an optimal composition with Au/Mo atomic ratio of 0.10%, the response and recovery time towards 100 ppm HCHO could be decreased to 4.5 and 3 s. The sample also exhibited high sensitivity and low limit of detection of 1 ppm. Meanwhile, the sensor exhibited highly selective HCHO response with 1–2 magnitude higher sensor response against toluene, ethanal, methanol and acetone. The performance enhancement should be attributed to synergistic effect induced by the surface Au decoration, which not only serves as the catalysts improving the gas adsorption and desorption efficiency, but also introduced additional contribution to the formaldehyde response by forming the metal–semiconductor interface states.

The stability enhancement of proanthocyanidin-loaded liposomes (PC-Lip) via surface decoration with oxidized konjac glucomannan (OKGM) was investigated. The encapsulation efficiency and drug loading capacity of OKGM-coated PC-Lip (OKGM-PC-Lip) rose significantly. The average size and PDI of OKGM-PC-Lip increased, while the zeta potential decreased compared to those of PC-Lip. PC-Lip membrane fluidity reduced after coating with OKGM. The morphology of OKGM-PC-Lip showed that OKGM "halo layer" was formed on the liposome surface. Hydrogen bonding played an indispensable role in the combination between OKGM and PC-Lip, and the phase transition temperature of PC-Lip slightly increased after coating with OKGM. The retention rate of OKGM-PC-Lip was higher than that of PC-Lip at extreme pH. In vitro release, no significant difference in cumulative release was detected between OKGM-PC-Lip and PC-Lip at gastric stage, while the cumulative release rate of OKGM-PC-Lip was remarkably lower than that of PC-Lip at intestinal stage. The antioxidant activity of OKGM-PC-Lip was notably higher than that of PC-Lip. These results suggested that the resistance of PC-Lip to external influences was fruitfully enhanced after coating with OKGM. Compared with other polysaccharides, OKGM-coated liposomes may be more promising and advantageous in functional foods due to the polysaccharide's benefits to human health., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As nanocarriers (NCs) can improve the solubility of drugs, prevent their degradation by gastrointestinal (GI) enzymes and promote their transport across the mucus gel layer and absorption membrane, the oral bioavailability of these drugs can be substantially enhanced. All these properties of NCs including self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS), solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs), nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs), liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, inorganic nanoparticles and polymeric micelles depend mainly on their surface chemistry. In particular, interaction with food, digestive enzymes, bile salts and electrolytes, diffusion behaviour across the mucus gel layer and fate on the absorption membrane are determined by their surface. Bioinert surfaces limiting interactions with gastrointestinal fluid and content as well as with mucus, adhesive surfaces providing an intimate contact with the GI mucosa and absorption enhancing surfaces can be designed. Furthermore, charge converting surfaces shifting their zeta potential from negative to positive directly at the absorption membrane and surfaces providing a targeted drug release are advantageous. In addition to these passive surfaces, even active surfaces cleaving mucus glycoproteins on their way through the mucus gel layer can be created. Within this review, we provide an overview on these different surfaces and discuss their impact on the performance of NCs in the GI tract., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Nowadays, proteins separation has attracted great attention in proteomics research. Because the proteins separation is helpful for making an early diagnosis of many diseases. Magnetic nanoparticles are an interesting and useful functional material, and have attracted extensive research interest during the past decades. Because of the excellent properties such as easy surface functionalization, tunable biocompatibility, high saturation magnetization etc, magnetic microspheres have been widely used in isolation of proteins/peptides. Notably, with the rapid development of surface decoration strategies, more and more functional magnetic adsorbents have been designed and fabricated to meet the growing demands of biological separation. In this review, we have collected recent information about magnetic adsorbents applications in selective separation of proteins/peptides. Furthermore, we present a comprehensive prospects and challenges in the field of protein separation relying on magnetic nanoparticles., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Grateloupia Livida polysaccharides-functionalized selenium nanoparticles (GLP-SeNPs) have been successfully prepared in a simple redox system of sodium selenite and ascorbic acid. The size, morphology, structure, stability and thermal behavior were analyzed by various characterization methods. These results showed that, GLP-SeNPs (particle size of 115.54 nm) prepared in optimal synthesis conditions (temperature of 45 °C, reaction time of 3 h, GLP concentration of 1.0 mg/mL and ascorbic acid concentration of 0.04 M) obtained by orthogonal experiments were uniform spherical and could be stable for 30 days at 4 °C. GLP-SeNPs exhibited significant scavenging ability on DPPH, ABTS, hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical when compared to GLP and Na 2 SeO 3 . GLP-SeNPs showed selective cytotoxicity toward various human cancer cells, but not normal cells. Besides, GLP-SeNPs exhibited low oral acute toxicity. Taken together, GLP-SeNPs might be used as potential diet nutritional supplement or anticancer agent., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)