Comprehensive step-by-step procedure to setup a molecular communication through liquid experiment.

Molecular communication allows information to be exchanged in environments where electromagnetic waves are prohibited. It employs the exchange of information particles travelling through fluids. The transmitter releases several chemical messengers inside the communication channel, encoding the message it intends to send in an appropriate way. These messengers will be propagated in the communication channel according to the laws that determine their movement in the environment, until they reach the receiver, which then captures their presence and decodes their content. To set up an experiment of molecular communication through liquid, the following are required:•The simulation of the experiment by means of numerical resolution of the differential equations governing the process, in order to select the proper modulation technique.•The synthesis of the carbon nanoparticles to serve as the information nanoparticles.•The arrangement of the bench prototype for the experiments.

Carbon dots surface chemistry drives fluorescent properties: New tools to distinguish isobaric peptides.

The possibility to design rational carbon dots surface functionalization for specific analytical and bioanalytical applications is hindered by the lack of a full knowledge of the surface chemical features driving fluorescent properties. In this model study, we have synthesized four different peptides, three of which are isobaric and not distinguishable by common MSMS experiments. After having characterized the peptides conformations by CD analyses, we have covalently bonded all four peptides to carbon dots by using different experimental procedures, which produce different functional groups on the carbon dots surface. The peptide orientations obtained on the differently functionalized surface of the nanoparticles were different and produced different fluorescent responses. The reported results indicate the possibility to design amino and carboxyl enriched surface carbon dots to answer specific chemical requirements, paving the way for the use of these nanoparticles as a versatile and useful new chemical and biochemical tool.