Materials Horizons Blog

Self-Assembly of Aligned Rutile@Anatase TiO2 Nanorod@CdS Quantum Dots Ternary Core-Shell Heterostructure: Cascade Electron-Transfer by Interfacial Design
Fang-Xing Xiao, Jianwei Miao and Bin Liu

A novel self-assembly approach based on electrostatic interaction has been developed for the synthesis of rutile@anatase TiO2 nanorod (NR)@CdS quantum dots (QDs) ternary core-shell heterostructure, for which in-situ formed monodispersed anatase TiO2 layer was intimately sandwiched between rutile TiO2 NRs and CdS QDs. It has been demonstrated that the well-defined bilayer interface significantly improves the photocatalytic performance of the ternary heterostructure (i.e. rutile@anatase TiO2 NR@CdS QDs), owing predominantly to the appropriate band alignment of constituting semiconductors, thus facilitating photogenerated electron-hole separation and charge collection under simulated solar light irradiation.

 
Mater. Horiz., 2013, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00097d, Accepted Manuscript

Supramolecular host–guest polymeric materials for biomedical applications
Xian Jun Loh

The bottom–up synthesis of highly complex functional materials from simple modular blocks is an intriguing area of research. Driven by the chemistry of supramolecular assembly, modules which self-assemble into intricate structures have been described. These hierarchically assembled systems extend beyond the individual molecule and rely on non-covalent interactions in a directed self-assembly process. The intrinsic properties of the materials can be modified by exploiting the dynamic and specific uni-directional interactions among the building. This also allows the building of novel supramolecular structures such as hydrogels, micelles and vesicles. These aqueous supramolecular networks belong to a novel category of soft biomaterials exhibiting attractive properties such as stimuli-responsiveness and self-healing properties derived from their dynamic behavior. These are important for a wide variety of emerging applications. In this review, the latest literature describing the formation of dynamic polymeric networks through host–guest complex formation will be summarised. These approaches carried out in the aqueous medium have unlocked a versatile toolbox for the design and fine-tuning of supramolecular self-assembled materials.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00057e, Advanced Article

Protein coronas suppress the hemolytic activity of hydrophilic and hydrophobic nanoparticles
Krishendu Saha, Daniel Moyano and Vincent M Rotello

The role of nanoparticle surface hydrophobicity on its hemolytic property is established in the absence and the presence of plasma proteins. Significantly, the formation of plasma protein corona on NP surface protects red blood cells from both hydrophilic and hydrophobic NP-mediated hemolysis.

Mater. Horiz., 2013, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00075c, Accepted Manuscript

Dendrimer-linked, renewable and magnetic carbon nanotube aerogels
Xuetong Zhang, Liang Chen, Tianyu Yuan, Huan Huang, Zhuyin Sui, Ran Du, Xin Li, Yun Lua and Qingwen Lib

Magnetic carbon nanotube aerogels with a repeated aerogel–sol–hydrogel–aerogel transition have been acquired by the special drying of gel-precursors made via assembling individual nanotubes with dendritic poly(amido amine) molecules in the presence of Fe3O4 nanoparticles, which has inspired us to synthesize renewable 3D porosints composed of organic, inorganic and their hybrid building blocks.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00076a, Advanced Article

Taking Orders from light: progress in photochromic bio-materials
Junji Zhang, Jiaxing Wang and He Tian

Photochromic materials are a family of compounds which undergo photo-reversible transformations between two different isomers with distinct physical and chemical properties. Most smart photochromic materials have been exploited in research areas such as electro-optical functional materials, while recently their applications have extended to novel bio-materials. Biological systems, such as tissue/cellular imaging, nucleotides, peptides, ion channels, etc., have emerged as a revolutionary research frontier for photochromic materials since both covalent coupling and non-covalent interactions with bio-molecules have been achieved. This review commences with a brief description of exciting progress in this field, and describes strategies for using photochromic functional molecules from bio-sensing and cell imaging to optical manipulation of bio-macromolecules (nucleotides, peptides, ion channels, GFP, etc.). Further development of these photo-switches as well as remaining challenges are also discussed and put in prospect.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00031a, Advance Article

Reactive self-assembled monolayers: from surface functionalization to gradient formation
Carlo Nicosia and Jurriaan Huskens

This review describes the progress of the development of surface chemical reactions for the modification of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and the fabrication of surface chemical gradients. Various chemical reactions can be carried out on SAMs to introduce new functionalities. “Click” reactions, which are highly efficient and selective, have largely contributed to the development and implementation of surface chemical reactions in the fields of biotechnology, drug discovery, materials science, polymer synthesis, and surface science. Besides full homogeneous functionalization, SAMs can be modified to exhibit a gradual variation of physicochemical properties in space. Surface-confined chemical reactions can be used for the fabrication of surface chemical gradients making the preparation of exceptionally versatile interfaces accessible.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00046j, Advance Article

Catalyst-free room temperature self-healing elastomers based on aromatic disulfide metathesis
Alaitz Rekondo, Roberto Martin, Alaitz Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Germán Cabañero, Hans J. Grande and Ibon Odriozola

Aromatic disulfide metathesis has been reported as one of the very few dynamic covalent chemistries undergone at room-temperature. Here, bis(4-aminophenyl) disulfide is effectively used as a dynamic crosslinker for the design of self-healing poly(urea–urethane) elastomers, which show quantitative healing efficiency at room-temperature, without the need for any catalyst or external intervention.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00061c, Advance Article

Novel features of multiferroic and magnetoelectric ferrites and chromites exhibiting magnetically driven ferroelectricity

Rana Saha, A. Sundaresan and C. N. R. Rao

A few oxides such as YMnO3, TbMnO3, YMn2O5 and BiFeO3 constituted the small family of well-characterized multiferroics until recently, but this area of research has been enlarged significantly due to the advent of a novel class of oxides exhibiting interesting multiferroic and magnetoelectric properties arising from magnetically induced ferroelectricity. Interestingly, these materials are simple transition metal oxides, most of them possessing the perovskite structure. In this review article, we present the significant features of multiferroic and magnetoelectric ferrites and chromites which owe their ferroelectricity to magnetic interactions. Some of the important systems discussed are BiFeO3 whose properties are affected by magnetic and electric fields, rare-earth orthoferrites LnFeO3 (Ln = Dy, Gd and Sm) and rare-earth orthochromites LnCrO3, where exchange-striction plays a significant role. Perovskite oxides of the type Y(A1−xBx)O3 (A, B = Fe, Cr, Mn) exhibit multiferroic properties, although the existence of these properties in YFeO3 and YCrO3 is in doubt. Such oxides with a non-magnetic rare-earth cation at the A site and two transition metal ions in the B-site permit tuning the transition temperatures by varying the B site ions and their relative proportions or the Ln ion. Multiferroic properties of simple ferrites such as Al(Ga)FeO3 where cation disorder appears to play a role are also discussed. Problems and challenges in this area of research are indicated.

Mater. Horiz., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/c3mh00073g, Advance Article

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A paper from Materials Horizons has been featured in Chemistry World.  This feature has in turn been picked up by both United Press International,the Daily Mail newspaper and Fox News.  In this paper, bis(4-aminophenyl) disulfide is used as a dynamic cross-linker for the design of self-healing poly(urea-urethane) elastomers which can heal at room temperature by placing the sections together without any catalyst or other external intervension.  

Catalyst-free room-temperature self-healing elastomers based on aromatic disulfide metathesis
Alaitz Rekondo, Roberto Martin, Alaitz Ruiz de Luzuriaga, German Cabanero, Hans J. Grande and Ibon Odriozola

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Want to know what Daniel Nocera thinks about wirelessly beaming energy from space? Over the coming weekend, the BBC World Service will be broadcasting an episode of The Forum, which was recorded at the RSC’s ISACS12 conference last week entitled “Challenges in Chemical Renewable Energy”.

Quentin Cooper hosts the programme in which Daniel Nocera of Harvard University, Clare Grey of the University of Cambridge, Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz of the State University of Campinas and Jim Watson of the UK Energy Research Council discuss the work in their areas of expertise and future challenges for renewable energy as a whole.

The programme will be broadcast at 23.06 GMT on Saturday 14^th September, 10.06 GMT on Sunday 15^th September and 2.06 GMT on Monday 16^th September. Find out when this is in your local time at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmeguide/.

– Written by Yuandi Li, RSC Science Executive

Scientists in China have developed a polymer scaffold for functional nanoparticles that can be folded and mangled but will reform into its original shape if it is placed in water.

Materials often exhibit very different properties when shrunk down to the nanoscale. Exciting new devices can be designed when nanoscale characteristics are brought together in synergy with macroscale materials, but bespoke production processes are often needed for each new nano-composite material.

Shu-Hong Yu and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China have developed a simple shape memory polymer scaffold from chitosan that can be used as a host for a wide range of different functional nanoparticles, combining benefits from the macro- and nanoscale.

Conducting polymer nanoparticles enhance membrane permeability and but repel protein molecules

There is usually a trade-off between selectivity and liquid permeability when making an ultrafiltration membrane but new research from scientists in the US suggests this doesn’t have to be the case.

When designing a membrane to filter proteins from a liquid the aim is to increase the permeability of the membrane and to reduce the energy and time needed to achieve separation without forfeiting the selectivity of the membrane. Another goal is to eliminate the need to clean or replace the membrane by finding a way to prevent proteins from blocking the membrane’s pores and hindering its permeability.

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Welcome to Materials Horizons, a new materials journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. In this Editorial we hope to provide some insight in to the ideas that led to the creation of the journal, a vision of what it could be, and what we expect will distinguish it from other journals. It is worth stating explicitly at the outset that while the Royal Society of Chemistry is a society with the mission to advance excellence in the chemical sciences, the launch of Materials Horizons is not an attempt to create a “chemo-centric” journal. Rather, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s decision to create Materials Horizons was made with a keen recognition that materials research is intrinsically highly multi-disciplinary, and having an extremely high quality society-based journal that embraces this multi-disciplinary nature can be of significant value to our community.

Below we outline some of the principles and values that will drive editorial policy, and describe what we hope the journal will be. Armed with such knowledge, we hope that researchers within the community will develop an understanding and appreciation of the editorial decisions that will lead to acceptance and rejection of papers, and to decisions about which papers may not be sent out for peer review as they don’t fit the goals of the journal (in some such cases, they can be rapidly forwarded to another journal in the Royal Society of Chemistry portfolio for further consideration). Scientific Editors, who are all active researchers in the field, will work closely with the Editorial team to ensure articles meet the stringent criteria required for publication in the journal.

• Materials Horizons is committed to having an editorial process that is fair, transparent and free of bias, while preserving the integrity of the anonymity of the peer review process.

• Materials Horizons will maintain the highest scientific standards in terms of ensuring the materials within the journal are well characterized, that all conclusions are rigorously supported by data that has been collected and whose reproducibility and degree of error have been demonstrated.

• Materials Horizons seeks to strongly emphasize first reports of observations that provide new conceptual insights in the science of materials. In this regard, the scope of Materials Horizons broadly covers all aspects of the field of materials, but the journal is very much focused on the conceptual advances, more than technological improvements. Thus, submissions that report new records for the performance of materials without some significant paradigm shift are not likely to be reviewed, unless the advance in properties on its own is sufficiently great to dramatically shift the field.

• Materials Horizons seeks to publish very concise papers, but recognizes that our field is intrinsically complex and multidisciplinary. For this reason our Communication guidelines call for papers to be 3 pages or less, however it is not our policy that papers must be 3 pages or less. Authors are expected to be concise and to utilize the electronic supplementary information section efficiently, but there is latitude within the editorial policy for longer Communications to be published as warranted.

• A certain amount of speculation will be considered acceptable within papers provided that it is clearly stated as such, distinguished from conclusions based upon data, and that it does not make over-reaching statements about the scientific and technological implications of the work. Put more simply, Materials Horizons seeks to minimize hype.

• The goal of the journal is to maximize its impact, which is distinct from its impact factor. In maximizing impact, we fully expect Materials Horizons will have a high impact factor, but we recognize that historically some of the most important work in science requires time to be fully absorbed and appreciated by the community, and this does not always happen in 24 months or less. Thus we encourage people to challenge the journal with papers that are “ahead of their time”.

Regardless of whether papers are submitted from academic, industrial or government laboratories, authors are strongly encouraged to think about the papers being a vehicle to educate and not simply report information to the community. Thus, we discourage conclusion sections which are simply reiterations of the key results, and require that the conclusions are used rather to detail the insights derived from the work. In a similar manner, Materials Horizons has both Mini-Reviews and Reviews, the guidelines for which can be found on the journal website. Both types of Materials Horizons reviews mean to provide insightful analysis of the work described and not merely to serve as a repository for information gathered from many places. Specifically, we seek to avoid papers that merely provide information as opposed to insight; authors are encouraged to think clearly about the “take home messages” of their papers.

In addition to Communications, Mini-Reviews and Reviews, Materials Horizons will have “Focus Articles”. These articles will largely take the form of editorials and concept pieces (typically invited), to explain or clarify topics in materials. In this regard, our goal is for Materials Horizons to be an educational resource for researchers of all levels.

We hope that we have presented a clear vision what we are trying to create with the launch of Materials Horizons. Ultimately the success and impact of this journal lie in the hands of you the authors, the readers and the reviewers. The editorial team at Materials Horizons is fully committed to make Materials Horizons the premier research and educational journal for this exciting discipline, and we look forward to working with you, and listening to you to make this vision a reality.

Seth & Liz