Advance articles are now going online for our upcoming themed issues on Advanced Hybrid Materials and Modelling of Materials. Three ‘hot’ articles from these issues have recently been published online and will be free to access for the next four weeks.
To be included in the themed issue on Advanced Hybrid Materials:
Nano-gold biosynthesis by silica-encapsulated micro-algae: a “living” bio-hybrid material
Clémence Sicard, Roberta Brayner, Jérémie Margueritat, Miryana Hémadi, Alain Couté, Claude Yéprémian, Chakib Djediat, Jean Aubard, Fernand Fiévet, Jacques Livage and Thibaud Coradin*
J. Mater. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM01735C, Paper
Some photosynthetic organisms have the ability to form metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, it is one of the most promising route to “green” nanomaterials. Thibaud Coradin and co-workers in France took algal cells which exhibit the ability to form gold nano-particles in solution and encapsulated them in silica gels in order to stabilise them for use as a bio-hybrid material. Entrapped algae maintained their ability to form gold colloids, and, for the first time, it was possible to use Raman spectroscopy imaging for the in situ study of encapsulated cells, opening the route to the design of novel cell-based biosensors
Min-Rui Gao, Shuang Liu, Jun Jiang, Chun-Hua Cui, Wei-Tang Yao and Shu-Hong Yu*
J. Mater. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM01547D, Paper
Platinum-based electrocatalysts are state-of-the-art materials for the O2 reduction reaction (ORR) in proton exchange membrance fuel cells. However, due to the expense of platinum and the sluggish ORR kinetics the search is on for next generation ORR electrocatalysts. Shu-Hong Yu and colleagues in China have demonstrated that a new nanocomposite electrocatalyst, magnetite nanocrystals/CoSe2 hybrid nanobelts can be easily synthesized by in situ decorating Fe3O4 nanoparticles on CoSe2-DETA nanobelts through a simple thermal reduction process in polyol solution. The resulting functionalized nanobelts present superparamagnetic properties and enhancement for ORR.
To be included in the themed issue on Modelling of Materials:
Biomimetic chemical signaling across synthetic microcapsule arrays
Amitabh Bhattacharya and Anna C. Balazs
J. Mater. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM01682A, Paper
Using theory and simulation, Amitabh Bhattacharaya and Anna C. Balazs have designed a system of interacting microcapsules that effectively act like a relay: receiving a chemical signal from one capsule and transmitting this signal to another, so that a “message” is propagated over macroscopic distances. These configurations have the potential to be used to design biomimetic chemical devices, including chemical oscillators, sensors and waveguides.
Interested in reading more? Read the full texts online by clicking on their title or visiting the Journal of Materials Chemistry.
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