There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Although gold is the subject of one of the most ancient themes of investigation in science, its renaissance now leads to an exponentially increasing number of publications, especially in the context of emerging nanoscience and nanotechnology with nanoparticles and self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). We will limit the present review to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), also called gold colloids. AuNPs are the most stable metal nanoparticles, and they present fascinating aspects such as their assembly of multiple types involving materials science, the behavior of the individual particles, size-related electronic, magnetic and optical properties (quantum size effect), and their applications to catalysis and biology. Their promises are in these fields as well as in the bottom-up approach of nanotechnology, and they will be key materials and building block in the 21st century. Whereas the extraction of gold started in the 5th millennium B.C. near Varna (Bulgaria) and reached 10 tons per year in Egypt around 1200-1300 B.C. when the marvelous statue of Touthankamon was constructed, it is probable that “soluble” gold appeared around the 5th or 4th century B.C. in Egypt and China. In antiquity, materials were used in an ecological sense for both aesthetic and curative purposes. Colloidal gold was used to make ruby glass 293 Chem. Rev. 2004, 104, 293−346

Gold nanoparticles: assembly, supramolecular chemistry, quantum-size-related properties, and applications toward biology, catalysis, and nanotechnology.

Multilayer films of organic compounds on solid surfaces have been studied for more than 60 years because they allow fabrication of multicomposite molecular assemblies of tailored architecture. However, both the Langmuir-Blodgett technique and chemisorption from solution can be used only with certain classes of molecules. An alternative approach—fabrication of multilayers by consecutive adsorption of polyanions and polycations—is far more general and has been extended to other materials such as proteins or colloids. Because polymers are typically flexible molecules, the resulting superlattice architectures are somewhat fuzzy structures, but the absence of crystallinity in these films is expected to be beneficial for many potential applications.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/277/5330/1232.full.pdf

Fuzzy Nanoassemblies: Toward Layered Polymeric Multicomposites

There is intense interest in graphene in fields such as physics, chemistry, and materials science, among others. Interest in graphene's exceptional physical properties, chemical tunability, and potential for applications has generated thousands of publications and an accelerating pace of research, making review of such research timely. Here is an overview of the synthesis, properties, and applications of graphene and related materials (primarily, graphite oxide and its colloidal suspensions and materials made from them), from a materials science perspective.

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Graphene and Graphene Oxide: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) offer the possibilities to design solar cells with a large flexibility in shape, color, and transparency. DSC research groups have been established around the worl ...

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Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Polyacrylonitrile/polyaniline core/shell nanofibers were prepared via electrospinning followed by in situ polymerization of aniline. Nanofibers with different morphology were obtained by changing the polymerization temperature. When used as absorbent for Cr(VI) ions, the core/shell nanofiber mats exhibit excellent adsorption capability. The equilibrium capacity is 24.96, 37.24, and 52.00 mg g−1 for 105, 156, and 207 mg L−1 initial Cr(VI) solution, respectively, and the adsorption capacity increases with temperature. The adsorption follows a pseudo second order kinetics model and is best fit using the Langmuir isotherm model. The mats show excellent selectivity towards Cr(VI) ions in the presence of competing ions albeit a small decrease in adsorption is observed. The mats can be regenerated and reused after treatment with NaOH making them promising candidates as practical adsorbents for Cr(VI) removal.

/pdf/polyacrylonitrile-polyaniline-core-shell-nanofiber-mat-for-4xrlv3fqyv.pdf

Polyacrylonitrile/polyaniline core/shell nanofiber mat for removal of hexavalent chromium from aqueous solution: mechanism and applications

Organic fouling behavior of superhydrophilic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration membranes functionalized with surface-tailored nanoparticles: Implications for organic fouling in membrane bioreactors

Emmanuel P. Giannelis

Papers

Polyacrylonitrile/polyaniline core/shell nanofiber mat for removal of hexavalent chromium from aqueous solution: mechanism and applications

Organic fouling behavior of superhydrophilic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration membranes functionalized with surface-tailored nanoparticles: Implications for organic fouling in membrane bioreactors

Layered organosilicate nanoparticles with liquidlike behavior.

High performance hydrophilic pervaporation composite membranes for water desalination

Functionalized ZnO Nanoparticles with Liquidlike Behavior and their Photoluminescence Properties