International Journal of Nanoscience

The design of the lithium polymer battery with excellent performance needs proper exploration of the materials. Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)-hosted solid nanocomposite polymer electrolyte systems are prepared by solvent-casting technique. A fixed amount of propylene carbonate (PC) is used as a plasticizer, barium titanate (BaTiO${}_3)$ as a nanofiller and lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF${}_6)$ as a dopant salt. The characterization of nanocomposite solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) was carried out using scanning electron microscope (SEM), and the outcome revealed the formation of a three-dimensional network with dispersed nanofillers. The dielectric constants and ionic conductivities for different wt.% of nanofiller with different temperature ranges are measured by impedance analyzer. It is observed that for 15wt.% of nanofiller-mixed electrolyte sample, a highest dielectric constant of 5166 and a maximum ionic conductivity of $3.9\times 10^{-4}$ S$\cdot$cm${}^{-1}$ are achieved.

This study is aimed at the preparation and evaluation of atorvastatin (AN)-loaded chitosan (CS) nanoparticles to achieve improved bioavailability of atorvastatin as its bioavailability is very poor. Chitosan is a popular choice in the application as a drug delivery carrier due to its biocompatibility, chemical versatility, aqueous solubility and low cost. Hence, a total of nine formulations (AN1–AN9) were prepared to study the effects of CS:tripolyphosphate (TPP) ratio and the amount of drug. The best formulation was selected by calculating the overall desirability (OD) factor. Among all, AN9 was found to possess the maximum percentage yield, loading efficiency and percentage (%) drug release compared to other formulations due to the incorporation of more amount of polymer compared to other formulations. SEM microphotographs and zeta-sizer reports indicated that atorvastatin-loaded chitosan nanoparticles were in the nanometric range and were spherical, discrete and uniform in size. The selected polymer chitosan was found to possess good compatibility with atorvastatin, without any mutual interaction, based on the results of DSC and FTIR analyses. The nanoparticles were found to have good flow properties. The in vivo results proved that the best formulation has shown significant difference in the reduction of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and no significant change in high density lipids (HDL) cholesterol levels in blood when compared with the marketed formulation. Better regenerative changes were observed during histopathological evaluation of liver in a group treated with atorvastatin nanoparticles than those of other groups, that confirmed the improved hypolipidemic action. Thus, from all the above observations, it was concluded that AN9 formulation has shown the highest in vitro drug release and loading efficiency than other formulations, which might be due to increased entrapment of drug and the surface area through decreased particle size which further confirmed the improved in vitro bioavailability and in vivo performance than those of marketed atorvastatin tablet. This study strongly suggests the use of chitosan nanoparticles as drug delivery system to improve the bioavailability of atorvastatin.

Using trirutile-structure layered tantalum–tungsten acid as the layered host, $n$-propylamin as the pre-swelling agent and aqueous solution of [Fe₃(CH₃COO)₇(OH)(H₂O)]NO₃ as the pillaring solution, oligomeric polyhydroxyacetato-Fe(III) species-intercalated layered HTaWO₆ was synthesized by a stepwise ion-exchange way at room temperature. Upon calcining at 673K in air atmosphere, iron oxide-pillared layered HTaWO₆with nanoscale interlayer distance (denoted as Fe₂O₃-HTaWO${}_6)$ was obtained. A series of Fe₂O₃-HTaWO₆ samples with various Fe contents were prepared by using different volume of Fe(III)-pillaring solution. The layered intermediates obtained at each stage of the ions-exchange process and the final layered products were characterized by powder XRD, FT-IR, DR UV-Vis and SEM techniques. The photocatalytic performance of the Fe₂O₃-pillared layered HTaWO₆ samples for degradation of rhodamine B was investigated. Compared with un-pillared layered HTaWO₆, the Fe₂O₃-pillared layered HTaWO₆ exhibited a significantly-improved photo-absorption performance and an enhanced photocatalytic activity. The Fe₂O₃-HTaWO₆ sample with 5.8% (wt) iron showed the best catalytic performance in the photodegradation reaction of rhodamine B.

ZnTe semiconductor nanoparticles have been prepared by soft chemical route using mercaptoethanol as capping agent to arrest the agglomeration. The structural investigations performed by X-ray diffraction technique show that the prepared samples have cubic structure. Average crystallite sizes of the prepared nanomaterial are estimated by Debye–Scherrer’s equation. The particle size of the synthesized material is estimated by transmission electron microscope (TEM). UV-visible absorption spectra gives the idea of the band gap of the sample using Tauc plot. The Raman spectroscopy measurements are performed to know the different vibrational modes of ZnTe. The impedance spectroscopy is applied to investigate the room temperature dielectric relaxation of the prepared samples in the frequency range from 100Hz to 1.1MHz.

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs), which is related to magnetic nanomaterials’ have promising applications due to their unique structural and chemical properties. The easy tunability of cationic metals without changing the LDH structure as well as anion exchange features of LDH interlayer make them potential applications in supercapacitors, batteries, catalysis, water splitting, etc. Moreover, due to the high dispersion of active compounds in the matrix of LDH layers, LDHs have been used to construct various nanostructures such as nanoparticles, 2D monolayer nanosheets and 3D hierarchical’ which are valued in wide nanotechnological applications. Magnetic nanomaterials are an important research area because they have been applied to a wide range of disciplines such as biotechnology, data storage, magnetic fluids, magnetic resonance imaging, environmental remediation and catalysis. LDHs as starting materials including Ni, Fe or/and Co, can be used as magnetic nanomaterials. The combination between LDHs and magnetic nanostructures has improved the magnetic properties of those materials, hence can be used in more applications.

In this study, gold nanoparticles were synthesized in a single step biosynthetic method using aqueous leaves extract of thymus vulgaris L. It acts as a reducing and capping agent. The characterizations of nanoparticles were carried out using UV-Visible spectra, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and FTIR. The surface plasmon resonance of the as-prepared gold nanoparticles (GNPs) showed the surface plasmon resonance centered at 550nm. The XRD pattern showed that the strong four intense peaks indicated the crystalline nature and the face centered cubic structure of the gold nanoparticles. The average crystallite size of the AuNPs was 14.93nm. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) was used to study the morphology of the AuNPs. AuNPs exhibited a spherical shape with diameters ranging 13–53nm. The synthesized stable gold nanoparticles showed more significant anticancer activity against MCF-7 and CAL-51 cells after 48h.

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) are widely utilized in many applications due to distinct physical and chemical characteristics. There are growing concerns that abundant use of ZnO-NPs can cause harm to humans and the environment. There is a substantial problem with reproducibility in nanotoxicology research due to the inherent properties of nanoparticles. Dispersion media are used for the preparation of nanoparticles. However, the physical and biological behaviors of ZnO-NPs in aqueous dispersion media are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the effect of ZnO-NPs on the viability of SH-SY5Y cells. Our results showed that ZnO-NPs diluted from water-dispersed stock solution caused significant cell death at a much lower dose compared to their counterpart diluted from the phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)-dispersed stock solution. Electron microscopic data indicated that ZnO-NPs from the PBS-dispersed stock solution form much larger agglomerates compared to the one from the water-dispersed stock solution. From these data, we can conclude that the types of media used for particle dispersion impact the change in the physical property and cytotoxicity of ZnO-NPs.

Recently, using gelatin nanoparticles as a biocompatible carrier in drug delivery systems is growing up. Drug delivery is one of the most common applications of nanoparticles in cancer treatment in order to optimize the drug efficiency. In this study, gelatin nanoparticles were firstly synthesized and loaded with tamoxifen that subsequently characterized by SEM, TGA and FT-IR analyses. The approximate drug loading efficiency was calculated about 17.43% for tamoxifen-loaded gelatin (TG). Then, the effect of TG on apoptosis induction and cytotoxicity of MCF-7 cell line was evaluated and compared with flow cytometry and MTT assay. The MTT results showed that tamoxifen and TG nanoparticles could inhibit the proliferation of MCF-7 cells in a dose-responsive manner, with an IC${}_{50}$ of IC${}_{50}$ of 200 $\mu$g/mL and 50 $\mu$g/mL after 24h and 48h, respectively. Moreover, from flow cytometric results, it can be suggested that TG nanoparticles are more potent in inducing apoptosis and cell death through programmed cell death. Actually, TG nanoparticles primarily increased the early apoptotic cells during the 24-h incubation period Our results revealed that tamoxifen-loaded gelatin nanoparticles are more potent than tamoxifen alone. These findings support the use of tamoxifen-loaded gelatin nanoparticles in target-specific therapy for cancer treatment.

Plasma-chemical synthesis of nanopowders based on copper oxide and metal-organic framework structures was carried out using low-pressure arc discharge plasma. The study of the obtained material was carried out by several methods (XRD, FTIR, TEM, TGA and EIS). TEM showed that the obtained powder is highly agglomerated particles with an average particle size of 13 nm, and the crystalline ordering of nanoparticles with a large (about 2 nm) lattice parameter is clearly visible. XRD showed the presence of four crystalline phases corresponding to [Cu₃ (BTC)₂], Cu, Cu₂O and CuO. XRD results are in good agreement with FTIR studies. The DTA curve demonstrates a continuous exothermic process associated with a number of features of plasma-chemical synthesis and the morphology of the obtained nanoparticles. The study of the electrochemical properties of the materials obtained by the method of impedance spectroscopy revealed an anomalous accumulation of electrical charges around the electrodes due to electrochemical reactions for [Cu₃ (BTC)₂], which are associated with various reactions involving copper species in the organic framework.

A portable Hg${}^{2+}$nanosensor was developed based on the colorimetric reaction by using the unmodified Ag nanowires (Ag NWs). Ag NWs were synthesized by a solvothermal method, with the length longer than 20$\mu$m and the diameter of $130\sim 150$nm. The colorimetric assay can be affected by pH, temperature and the amount of Ag NWs, with the optimum parameters being 5, $4^{\circ }$C and 100$\mu$L, respectively. The developed nanosensor presents excellent selectivity for Hg${}^{2+}$. The dynamic detection range is 25$\sim$5000 ppb, and the limit of detection (LOD) for Hg${}^{2+}$ is 19.9ppb. The developed Hg${}^{2+}$ sensor shows great potentials in environmental monitoring and onsite analysis of Hg${}^{2+}$.