Molecular simulation of zwitterionic polypeptides on protecting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

Owing to their anti-fouling properties, zwitterionic polypeptides demonstrate great advantage on protecting protein drugs. When conjugated to glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a drug for type-II diabetes, zwitterionic polypeptides confer better pharmacokinetics than uncharged counterparts. However, its microscopic mechanism is still unclear due to the complicated conformational space. To address this challenge, this work explored the interaction modes of GLP-1 with the unconnected repeat units, instead of the full-length polypeptides. The three repeat units are two zwitterionic pentapeptides VPKEG and VPREG, and one uncharged control VPGAG. Our molecular simulations revealed that the helical conformation of GLP-1 was stabilized by adding 40 polypeptides. Both VPGAG and VPREG formed dense packing shells around GLP-1, but the driving forces were hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions, respectively. In contrast, the packing shell composed of VPKEG was most loose, while could still stabilize GLP-1. The moderate electrostatic interactions endowed VPKEG an anti-fouling property, thereby avoiding non-specific interaction with other amino acids. The strong electrostatic interactions exerted by arginine promoted atomic contacts between VPREG and other residues, making it as "hydrophobic" as VPGAG. In summary, the combination of hydrophobic and moderate electrostatic interactions in VPKEG brings about a subtle balance between stabilizing GLP-1 and avoiding non-specific interaction.

Photoelectrochemical immunosensor based on CdSe@BiVO4 Co-sensitized TiO2 for carcinoembryonic antigen.

The fast and accurate detection of Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) plays an important role in clinical cancer treatment and therapy. An ultrasensitive photoelectrochemical (PEC) immunosensor for the detection of CEA was constructed using CdSe@BiVO4 co-sensitized TiO2 nanorods as photoactive materials. TiO2 nanorods were assembled on the FTO modified electrode to immobilize capture antibodies. With a sandwich immunoassay format, CEA and signal antibodies labelled CdSe@BiVO4 were introduced in sequence via specific immunoreaction, and the ultrahigh sensitivity of this immunoassay results from the following three aspects. Firstly, the co-sensitization of BiVO4 and CdSe extends the absorption range of TiO2 from ultraviolet region to visible light region, which can adequately utilize the light energy; Secondly, the effective matching of energy levels among TiO2, CdSe and BiVO4 accelerates the separation and transfer of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and significantly improves the PEC performance; Finally, the introduced Au evidently expedites the interfacial electron transfer from TiO2 to FTO electrode, further resulting in noticeably increased photocurrent. Based on multiple signal amplification strategy, a largely linear detection range from 0.01 ng mL-1 to 50 ng mL-1 with a low detection limit (0.5 pg mL-1) were obtained. In addition, the prepared immunosensor with attractive properties provides a promising platform for PEC detection.

Notable Enhancement of Phase Transition Performance and Luminous Transmittance in VO2 Films via Simple Method of Ar/O Plasma Post-Treatment.

Ar/O plasma irradiation is proposed for post-treatment of vanadium dioxide (VO2) films. Oxidation and surface migration were observed in the VO2 films following irradiation. This combined effect leads to an effective stoichiometry refinement and microstructure reconstruction in the interfacial area. A notable improvement in luminous transmittance and an enhancement in phase transition performance of the treated VO2 films were achieved. Compared with that of as-deposited VO2 films, the electrical phase transition amplitude of treated films increased more than two-fold. The relative improvement in luminous transmittance (380⁻780 nm) is 47.4% (from 25.1% to 37%) and the increase in solar transmittance is 66.9% (from 29.9% to 49.9%), which is comparable to or better than the previous work using anti-reflection (AR) coatings or doping methods. The interfacial boundary state proved to be crucial and Ar/O plasma irradiation offers an effective approach for further refinement of thermochromic VO2 films.

Enhanced visible transmittance and reduced transition temperature for VO2 thin films modulated by index-tunable SiO2 anti-reflection coatings.

The low visible transmission is one of the bottleneck problems for the application of vanadium dioxide films since the high refractive index (RI) of VO2 films results in strong reflection in the visible wavelength. To address this problem, in this paper, high-purity VO2 films were deposited on fused silica by DC reactive magnetron sputtering at low temperature of 320 °C. Silica sol-gel coatings with tunable refractive index (RI) coated onto VO2 films have been fabricated to enhance visible transmittance with the potential application in the field of smart windows. SiO2 coatings with tunable RI (1.16-1.42 at λ = 700 nm) were prepared by sol-gel dip-coating technique. The double structure SiO2/VO2 films were characterized through several techniques, including X-ray diffraction, UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometry and scanning electron microscopy. Compared with the single-layer VO2 film (ΔT sol of 6.25% and T lum of 38.58%), the three kinds of SiO2/VO2 bilayer films had higher T lum (41.93-50.44%) and larger ΔT sol (8.15-8.51%) simultaneously due to significantly decreased reflectance. Moreover, the crystallization properties of VO2 films are essentially unchanged by applying a SiO2 top layer, while the phase transition temperature and thermal hysteresis width of sample S116 are lower than those of pure VO2 film. The presented RI-tunable SiO2 coatings, can regulate optical properties continuously for various VO2 substrates, paving the way for practical applications of VO2 films in the field of smart windows or others.

Harvesting a 3D N-Doped Carbon Network from Waste Bean Dregs by Ionothermal Carbonization as an Electrocatalyst for an Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

Three-dimensional nitrogen-doped carbon (3D-NCN) has been synthesized via the ionothermal carbonization method using waste soybean dregs (SD) as the precursor. N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms show that the as-prepared 3D-NCN formed a hierarchically porous structure with a specific BET surface area of 1093.4 m² g-1 and a total pore volume of 1.77 cm³ g-1. The TEM images clearly show that graphene-like carbon sheets were formed on the edge of the networks. The characterization of the samples collected at different temperature indicated that salt melt plays the key role in the formation of the network structure and rich pores. When 3D-NCN is as electrocatalyst for ORR, it shows an onset potential of 0.945 V with a more positive half-wave potential (0.846 V), which is comparable to that of commercial Pt/C. In addition, the long-term cycle results show that the onset potential and half-wave potential only negatively shifted by 6 mV and 8 mV after 10,000 cycles respectively, which are smaller than those values of commercial Pt/C. Due to its high ORR activity, durability, and low-cost, producing 3D-NCN from SD in molten salt medium provides a promising approach to replace the Pt-based catalysts for use in fuel cells.

Click Cross-Linking-Improved Waterborne Polymers for Environment-Friendly Coatings and Adhesives.

Waterborne polymers, including waterborne polyurethanes (WPU), polyester dispersions (PED), and polyacrylate emulsions (PAE), are employed as environmentally friendly water-based coatings and adhesives. An efficient, fast, stable, and safe cross-linking strategy is always desirable to impart waterborne polymers with improved mechanical properties and water/solvent/thermal and abrasion resistance. For the first time, click chemistry was introduced into waterborne polymer systems as a cross-linking strategy. Click cross-linking rendered waterborne polymer films with significantly improved tensile strength, hardness, adhesion strength, and water/solvent resistance compared to traditional waterborne polymer films. For example, click cross-linked WPU (WPU-click) has dramatically improved the mechanical strength (tensile strength increased from 0.43 to 6.47 MPa, and Young's modulus increased from 3 to 40 MPa), hardness (increased from 59 to 73.1 MPa), and water resistance (water absorption percentage dropped from 200% to less than 20%); click cross-linked PED (PED-click) film also possessed more than 3 times higher tensile strength (∼28 MPa) than that of normal PED (∼8 MPa). The adhesion strength of click cross-linked PAE (PAE-click) to polypropylene (PP) was also improved (from 3 to 5.5 MPa). In addition, extra click groups can be preserved after click cross-linking for further functionalization of the waterborne polymeric coatings/adhesives. In this work, we have demonstrated that click modification could serve as a convenient and powerful approach to significantly improve the performance of a variety of traditional coatings and adhesives.

Sonochemical synthesis of cobalt aluminate nanoparticles under various preparation parameters.

Cobalt aluminate (CoAl(2)O(4)) nanoparticles were synthesized using a precursor method with the aid of ultrasound irradiation under various preparation parameters. The effects of the preparation parameters, such as the sonochemical reaction time and temperature, precipitation agents, calcination temperature and time on the formation of CoAl(2)O(4) were investigated. The precursor on heating yields nanosized CoAl(2)O(4) particles and both these nanoparticles and the precursor were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The use of ultrasound irradiation during the homogeneous precipitation of the precursor reduces the duration of the precipitation reaction. The mechanism of the formation of cobalt aluminate was investigated by means of Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and EDX (energy dispersive X-ray). The thermal decomposition process and kinetics of the precursor of nanosized CoAl(2)O(4) were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry (TG). The apparent activation energy (E) and the pre-exponential constant (A) were 304.26 kJ/mol and 6.441 x 10(14)s(-1), respectively. Specific surface area was investigated by means of Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) surface area measurements.

Effect of processing conditions on sonochemical synthesis of nanosized copper aluminate powders.

Nanosized copper aluminate (CuAl(2)O(4)) spinel particles have been prepared by a precursor approach with the aid of ultrasound radiation. Mono-phasic copper aluminate with a crystallite diameter of 17nm along the (311) plane was formed when the products were synthesized using Cu(NO(3))(2) x 6H(2)O and Al(NO(3))(3) x 9H(2)O as starting materials, with urea as a precipitation agent at a concentration of 9M. The reaction was carried out under ultrasound irradiation at 80 degrees C for 4h and a calcination temperature of 900 degrees C for 6h. The synthesized copper aluminate particles and the effect of different processing conditions such as the copper source, precipitation agents, sonochemical reaction time, calcination temperature and time were analyzed and characterized by the techniques of powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR).