Naturally Extracted Hydrophobic Solvent and Self-Assembly in Interfacial Polymerization

The role of solvent fluctuations in hydrophobic assembly.

We use a coarse-grained solvent model to study the self-assembly of two nanoscale hydrophobic particles in water. We show how solvent degrees of freedom are involved in the process. By using tools of transition path sampling, we elucidate the reaction coordinates describing the assembly. In accord with earlier expectations, we find that fluctuations of the liquid-vapor-like interface surroundin...

Interfacial Chemistry in Solvent

Hydrophobic interactions modulate self-assembly of nanoparticles.

Hydrophobic interactions constitute one of the most important types of nonspecific interactions in biological systems, which emerge when water molecules rearrange as two hydrophobic species come close to each other. The prediction of hydrophobic interactions at the level of nanoparticles (Brownian objects) remains challenging because of uncontrolled diffusive motion of the particles. We describ...

Interfacial self-assembly of a bacterial hydrophobin.

The majority of bacteria in the natural environment live within the confines of a biofilm. The Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis forms biofilms that exhibit a characteristic wrinkled morphology and a highly hydrophobic surface. A critical component in generating these properties is the protein BslA, which forms a coat across the surface of the sessile community. We recently reported the...

Influence of Hierarchical Interfacial Assembly on Lipase Stability and Performance in Deep Eutectic Solvent.

Hierarchical systems that integrate nano- and macroscale structural elements can offer enhanced enzyme stability over traditional immobilization methods. Microparticles were synthesized using interfacial assembly of lipase B from Candida antarctica with (CLMP-N) and without (CLMP) nanoparticles around a cross-linked polymeric core, to characterize the influence of the hierarchical assembly on l...