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

This paper describes a procedure that makes it possible to design and fabricate (including sealing) microfluidic systems in an elastomeric materialpoly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)in less than 24 h. A network of microfluidic channels (with width >20 μm) is designed in a CAD program. This design is converted into a transparency by a high-resolution printer; this transparency is used as a mask in photolithography to create a master in positive relief photoresist. PDMS cast against the master yields a polymeric replica containing a network of channels. The surface of this replica, and that of a flat slab of PDMS, are oxidized in an oxygen plasma. These oxidized surfaces seal tightly and irreversibly when brought into conformal contact. Oxidized PDMS also seals irreversibly to other materials used in microfluidic systems, such as glass, silicon, silicon oxide, and oxidized polystyrene; a number of substrates for devices are, therefore, practical options. Oxidation of the PDMS has the additional advantage that it ...

Rapid prototyping of microfluidic systems in poly(dimethylsiloxane)

The halogen bond occurs when there is evidence of a net attractive interaction between an electrophilic region associated with a halogen atom in a molecular entity and a nucleophilic region in another, or the same, molecular entity. In this fairly extensive review, after a brief history of the interaction, we will provide the reader with a snapshot of where the research on the halogen bond is now, and, perhaps, where it is going. The specific advantages brought up by a design based on the use of the halogen bond will be demonstrated in quite different fields spanning from material sciences to biomolecular recognition and drug design.

The Halogen Bond

Molecularly imprinted polymers and their use in biomimetic sensors.

Molecular imprinting technology (MIT), often described as a method of making a molecular lock to match a molecular key, is a technique for the creation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with tailor-made binding sites complementary to the template molecules in shape, size and functional groups. Owing to their unique features of structure predictability, recognition specificity and application universality, MIPs have found a wide range of applications in various fields. Herein, we propose to comprehensively review the recent advances in molecular imprinting including versatile perspectives and applications, concerning novel preparation technologies and strategies of MIT, and highlight the applications of MIPs. The fundamentals of MIPs involving essential elements, preparation procedures and characterization methods are briefly outlined. Smart MIT for MIPs is especially highlighted including ingenious MIT (surface imprinting, nanoimprinting, etc.), special strategies of MIT (dummy imprinting, segment imprinting, etc.) and stimuli-responsive MIT (single/dual/multi-responsive technology). By virtue of smart MIT, new formatted MIPs gain popularity for versatile applications, including sample pretreatment/chromatographic separation (solid phase extraction, monolithic column chromatography, etc.) and chemical/biological sensing (electrochemical sensing, fluorescence sensing, etc.). Finally, we propose the remaining challenges and future perspectives to accelerate the development of MIT, and to utilize it for further developing versatile MIPs with a wide range of applications (650 references).

http://ir.yic.ac.cn/bitstream/133337/17045/1/Molecular%20imprinting%20perspectives%20and%20applications.pdf

Molecular imprinting: perspectives and applications

Separation and sensing based on molecular recognition using molecularly imprinted polymers

The inhibition of lipid peroxidation and radical scavenging effects were studied to evaluate the antioxidant activity for extracts of 17 species of seaweed The antioxidant effect was evaluated by determination of lipoxygenase activity and by α, α-diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) decolorization Lipoxygenase activity was depressed in the presence of aqueous and ethanol extracts of 4 algal species; Sargassum species had the highest antioxidant activity of all the species examined The ethanol extracts of one Sargassum species showed competitive inhibition with the substrate The same species also showed radical scavenging activity in the DPPH decolorization test Comparison of these results shows no relationship between enzyme inhibition and radical scavenging activity

A comparison of screening methods for antioxidant activity in seaweeds

Tolerance of microalgae to high CO2 and high temperature

A synthetic polymer selective for atrazine was prepared by a molecular imprinting technique, and the binding characteristics of the atrazine-imprinted polymer were evaluated. Scatchard analysis showed that at least two classes of binding sites were formed in the imprinted polymer, and a dissociation constant of the higher affinity binding sites was estimated to be 12 μM. The induced affinity and selectivity by atrazine imprinting were examined chromatographically. The polymer gave more than 60 times longer retention for atrazine than the nonimprinted polymer with the same chemical composition. The selectivity was evaluated by capacity factors of atrazine and other pesticides, and atrazine showed the longest retention time among the tested compounds with 1,3,5-triazine-based structure. Other herbicides and pesticides with unrelated structures were retained 1% or less, as compared to atrazine. Because the optimal binding performance was exhibited in organic solvents, the synthetic polymer receptor is expected to be a good material in lipophilic herbicide analysis.

A molecularly imprinted synthetic polymer receptor selective for atrazine

As new separation media, continuous rods of molecularly imprinted polymers were prepared by an in situ method. The preparation procedure was simple and easy to perform: a template compound, a functional monomer which interacts with the template molecules, and a cross-linker were placed in a stainless steel column and heated for polymerization. In this study, diaminonaphthalene and phenylalanine anilide were used as model template molecules. The molecular recognition capabilities of the prepared molecular-imprinted polymer rods were evaluated by separating positional isomers of diaminonaphtalene and resolving enantiomers of phenylalanine anilide. The results showed that the original template compounds were more strongly retained than their isomers

Toshifumi Takeuchi

Papers

Separation and sensing based on molecular recognition using molecularly imprinted polymers

A comparison of screening methods for antioxidant activity in seaweeds

Tolerance of microalgae to high CO2 and high temperature

A molecularly imprinted synthetic polymer receptor selective for atrazine

Molecular recognition in continuous polymer rods prepared by a molecular imprinting technique