Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

The outside front cover features an article on Solution phase synthesis of carbon quantum dots as sensitizers for nanocrystalline TiO₂ solar cells by Peter Mirtchev, Eric J. Henderson, Navid Soheilnia, Christopher M. Yip and Geoffrey A. Ozin.

Issue 4 contains the following Highlight and Feature articles:

• Low-temperature, solution-processed metal oxide thin film transistors
• Controlling physical features of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) for emerging applications
• Polymer encapsulated conjugated polymer nanoparticles for fluorescence bioimaging

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US scientists have developed a separator gel that can form a permanent barrier between blood components when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, to keep cells and plasma apart for medical analysis.

(a) The gel is placed at the bottom of a tube. (b) A blood sample is added. The tube is then placed in a centrifuge, where the gel is liquefied. Owing to its density, the liquefied gel flows to a position between the blood cells and plasma. (c) When centrifugation is stopped, the network is re-established and the gel recovers its solid character, forming a weak barrier between the blood layers. (d) The gel layer is irradiated with a UV lamp, converting the material into a hard, chemically crosslinked network, resulting in a rigid and permanent barrier

Blood tests typically only use the cell-free fraction of whole blood (serum or plasma), and it is common practice within blood sample tubes for these liquids to be separated from the blood cells by a separator gel. Separator gels are designed to reversibly liquefy during centrifugation. They have a density between that of the cells and solution components, so that they separate the components by flowing to a position between the layers during centrifugation. Following centrifugation, the gels stop flowing and remain as a soft barrier between the layers. However, the soft barrier can cause contamination, and leaks between the components and the gel can occur during sample transportation and storage. Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…

A new method for centrifugal separation of blood components: Creating a rigid barrier between density-stratified layers using a UV-curable thixotropic gel
Kunshan Sun, Hyuntaek Oh, Jane F. Emerson and Srinivasa R. Raghavan
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2JM14818H

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Congratulations to Tom White for winning a Journal of Materials Chemistry presentation prize at Nanostructured Surfaces.

His winning talk was titled “Development of Organic Spacer Layers for the Electronic Decoupling of Molecules from Metallic Substrates”.

Left to right: Philip Moriarty, Tom White, Christopher Baddeley

Tom White is a PhD student at the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, UK, working in Giovanni Costantini’s research group. Nanostructured Surfaces was organised by the RSC Solid Surfaces Group and held in Burlington House, London, UK, on 9th December 2011.

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The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.

The outside front cover features a Feature article on Recent progress of double-structural and functional materials with special wettability by Yabin Zhang, Yu Chen, Lei Shi, Jing Li and Zhiguang Guo.

Issue 3 contains the following Feature articles:

• Carbon-based nanostructured materials and their composites as supercapacitor electrodes
• Solution-processed organic nano- and micro-materials: design strategy, growth mechanism and applications 

Fancy submitting an article to Journal of Materials Chemistry? Then why not submit to us today!

To keep up-to-date with all the latest research, sign up for the journal’s e-alerts or RSS feeds or follow Journal of Materials Chemistry on Twitter.