Sodium lignosulfonate as a renewable stabilizing agent for aqueous alumina suspensions.

The macromolecule sodium lignosulfonate (SL) has been investigated as dispersing agent for aqueous alumina colloids as a renewable alternative to usual petrochemical stabilizing agents. Optimization of the SL concentration necessary to stabilize the alumina suspension at different pH values was determined by viscometer. The results showed that addition of 250 ppm of the total suspension mass led to about 70% viscosity reduction of the suspension, whereas zeta potential analysis revealed negative values for the SL suspensions throughout the pH range investigated, suggesting that the alumina particles were covered by negatively charged SL molecules. Particle size investigation informed that the average particle diameter of the SL suspensions was smaller compared to that of the pristine particles. Sedimentation time for the SL suspensions was dramatically longer than that for the pristine one. The reported data strongly corroborated that SL is a suitable renewable dispersing agent for aqueous alumina colloids.

Lignin as immobilization matrix for HIV p17 peptide used in immunosensing.

Immunosensors based on electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) are increasingly being used as a fast and potentially low cost method for clinical diagnostics. In this work we fabricated immunosensors by depositing layer-by-layer (LbL) films made with an antigenic peptide (p17-1) sequence (H2N-LSGGELDRWEKIRLRPGG-OH) and lignin on interdigitated gold electrodes, which could detect anti-p17 (HIV, human immune deficiency virus) antibodies (Ab) in phosphate buffered solutions (PBS). The molecular recognition interaction between the peptide (p17-1) and the specific Ab (anti-p17) yielded substantial changes in morphology of the with LbL films, with increased roughness according to atomic force microscopy data. This interaction is behind the high sensitivity of the immunosensor. Indeed, from the EIS results, we noted that the capacitance increased significantly with the specific Ab concentration, before getting close to saturation of available peptide sites at high concentrations. Concentrations of specific antibodies as low as 0.1 ng/mL could be detected and the immunosensors had their activity preserved for two months at least. The selectivity of the immunosensor was confirmed with two types of control experiments. First, no changes in impedance were observed when the lignin/peptide LbL immunosensor was immersed into a PBS solution containing the non-specific Ab (anti-HCV for Hepatitis C) antibodies. Furthermore, for sensing units made LbL films of lignin only, the electrical response was not affected by adding specific antibodies into the PBS buffer. The successful immunosensing for HIV with antigenic peptides in a lignin matrix is also relevant for valorization of lignin, which is an important biomass component in the sugar and ethanol industry, and brings the prospect for all-organic, biocompatible sensors if implantation is ever required.