Polymers, Volume 4, Issue 1

Polyester dendrimers have been comprehensively reviewed starting from their first synthesis in the early 1990s by Hawker and Fréchet. Polyester dendrimers have attracted and continue to attract extensive interest because they are comparatively easy t...

The assembled complex, Fe(NCBH3)2(bpa)2, enclathrating biphenyl has been synthesized, the skeleton of which is a 1D chain. Several 1D chains gather together to form 1D chain sheet. The 1D chain sheet is stacked spirally to form novel spiral assembly....

Biocatalysis is propagating into practically every area of organic chemistry, amongst them radical polymerizations. A review of the recent developments of this dynamic and quickly evolving area of research is presented together with a critical evalua...

Human β-defensins (HBD) are a family of small antimicrobial peptides that play important roles in the innate and adaptive immune defenses against microbial infection. In this study, we predicted the mature sequences and assessed the antibacterial pro...

Four hydrophobic amino acids (Leu, Tyr, Phe, Trp) were oligomerized by the protease papain in homo-oligomerization, binary co-oligomerization and ternary co-oligomerization. After 24 h, solid polydisperse reaction products of the homo-oligomerization...

To model the rates of interfacial polycondensations, the rates of reaction of benzoyl chloride and methyl chloroformate with various aliphatic monoamines in acetonitrile were determined at 25 °C. Buffering with picric acid slowed these extremely fast...

As components of the innate immune system, antimicrobial peptides in the form of human defensins play an important role in host defense by serving as the epithelial layer’s biochemical barrier against local infections. Recent studies have shown these...

In this paper, we detail how microantennae dedicated to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can benefit from the advantages offered by polymer substrates, especially flexibility and dielectric properties. We present a monolithic and wireless design base...

Potato phosphorylase is able to synthesize linear polyglucans from maltoheptaose primers. By coupling maltoheptaose to butane diamine, tris(2-aminoethyl)amine and amine functionalized amine functionalized poly ethyleneglycol (PEG), new primer molecul...

We present the functionalized Cahn-Hilliard (FCH) energy, a continuum characterization of interfacial energy whose minimizers describe the network morphology of solvated functionalized polymer membranes. With a small set of parameters the FCH charact...

A new esterase from Thermobifida halotolerans (Thh_Est) was cloned and expressed in E. coli and investigated for surface hydrolysis of polylactic acid (PLA) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Thh_Est is a member of the serine hydrolases superfamil...

Dendrimers are highly branched, open, covalent assemblies of branch cells (monomers) radially attached to a core in successive layers or generations. Major types of dendrimers include polyamidoamine, polypropylenimine, multiple antigen peptide, chira...

Antimicrobial peptides (APs) are an important part of the innate immune system in epithelial and non-epithelial surfaces. So far, many different antimicrobial peptides from various families have been discovered in non-vertebrates and vertebrates. The...

Pegylation using heterotelechelic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) offers many possibilities to create high-performance molecules and materials. A versatile route is proposed to synthesize heterobifunctional PEG containing diverse combinations of azide, a...

This study investigates the mechanical reinforcement of chitosan with TiO₂ and Ag nanoparticles, as well as their water vapour transmission rates and water resistance behaviour. The mechanical properties of chitosan were improved by addition of TiO₂...

The sphere-shaped fullerene has attracted considerable interest not least due to the peculiar electronic properties of this carbon allotrope and the fascinating materials emanating from fullerene-derived structures. The rapid development and tremendo...

Magnetic hybrid liquid crystalline composites have been obtained either by thermal decomposition of a cobalt precursor in a solution containing a liquid crystal polymer or by dispersing preformed cobalt nanorods in a liquid crystal polymer matrix. Th...

Dendrimers have been widely used as nanostructured carriers for guest species in a variety of applications in medicine, catalysis, and environmental remediation. Theory and simulation methods are an important complement to experimental approaches tha...

Methyl epoxyricinoleate was prepared in high yield by the lipase-catalyzed epoxidation of methyl ricinoleate with H₂O₂. A high molecular weight polyepoxyricinoleate (PER) with a maximum weight average molecular weight (M_w) of 272,000 was enzymaticall...

The synthesis, structure and electronic properties of polysilane dendrimers, a relatively new class of highly branched and silicon-rich molecular architectures is reviewed. After a detailed discussion of main synthetic strategies to well-defined sing...

¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR spectrometry (1-dimensional and 2-dimensional) have been used to assign chemical resonances and determine the degrees of branching for polyesters synthesized by the Lewis acid (dibutyltin(IV)oxide)-catalyzed polycondensation of gly...

Dendronization is a synthetic methodology that offers important advantages. The resulting products, which are called dendronized materials, present new and specific properties. This review shows numerous examples in which individual dendrons are used...

The molecular weight of a polymer determines key optoelectronic device characteristics, such as internal morphology and charge transport. Therefore, it is important to ensure that polymer deposition techniques do not significantly alter the native po...

A novel strategy to graft functional groups at the surface of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is discussed. Aiming at grafting nitrogen containing groups, and more specifically primary amine covalent functionalization, CNTs were exposed under atomic nitrogen...

Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) exhibit a number of remarkable physical effects, including a uniquely high-stroke reversible mechanical actuation triggered by external stimuli. Fundamentally, all such stimuli affect the degree of liquid crystall...

Advances in functionality and reliability of carbon nanotube (CNT) composite materials require careful formulation of processing methods to ultimately realize the desired properties. To date, controlled dispersion of CNTs in a solution or a composite...

The adsorption of polymethylmethacrylate polymer of different molecular weight at the aerosil/ethyleneglycol- or 1,3 butanediol-dimethacrylate interfaces was determined to provide microstructured networks. Their structural characteristics were determ...

This review exposes the current poor understanding of the internal segmental chain dynamics of dendrimers in solution probed by monitoring the process of excimer formation between pyrene labels covalently attached to the chain ends of dendrimers. The...

We report results from Brownian dynamics computer simulations of systems comprised by two terminally charged hyperbranched molecules preferentially branched in the periphery, with an oppositely charged linear chain of varying length. Comparison of th...

This study demonstrated a method for toughening a highly crosslinked anhydride cured DGEBA epoxy using rubbery block copolymer grafted SiO₂ nanoparticles. The particles were synthesized by a sequential reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer...

The control of microbial infections is a very important issue in modern society. In general there are two ways to stop microbes from infecting humans or deteriorating materials—disinfection and antimicrobial surfaces. The first is usually realized by...

Hyperbranched polymers show an outstanding potential for applications ranging from chemistry over nanotechnology to pharmacy. In order to take advantage of this potential, the underlying phase behaviour must be known. From the thermodynamic point of...

This paper reviews preparation and applications of amylose supramolecules by means of phosphorylase-catalyzed enzymatic polymerization. When the enzymatic polymerization of α-d-glucose 1-phosphate (G-1-P) as a monomer was carried out in the presence...

Photonic materials (PMs) that are capable of manipulating and controlling light in systems have immense potential for the computing and communications industries. These materials are formed by assembling components of differing refractive indices in...

Photocontrol of molecular alignment is an exceptionally-intelligent and useful strategy. It enables us to control optical coefficients, peripheral molecular alignments, surface relief structure, and actuation of substances by means of photoirradiatio...

Water-soluble copolymers of N-acryloyl-N′-ethylpiperazine (AcrNEP) with methyl methacrylate (MMA) were synthesized to high conversion by free-radical solution polymerization. The composition of the copolymers was determined using Fourier Transform In...

The four first generations of dendrigraft poly-L-lysine have been studied in dimethylformamide (aprotic solvent) and in 0.2 M NaCl aqueous solutions by isothermal translation diffusion, ¹H NMR and viscometry methods. The relationships between diffusi...

In this mini-review we report on current developments of hybrid materials based on semiconductor nanocrystals integrated into polymer matrices for direct light conversion, their present limitations, as well as their high potential for future applicat...