The goal of this research is to elucidate the mechanism of virus recognition in molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) using already utilized techniques. Our approach employs a more flexible non-covalent imprinting method which starts from a readily available polymer and utilizes an aqueous environment for both MIP synthesis and testing. Virus MIPs against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) were synthes...

The study of the noise induced effects on the dynamics of a chain molecule crossing a potential barrier, in the presence of a metastable state, is presented. A two-dimensional stochastic version of the Rouse model for a flexible polymer has been adopted to mimic the molecular dynamics and to take into account the interactions between adjacent monomers. We obtain a nonmonotonic behavior of the m...

A class of imprintable, bendable, and shape-conformable polymer electrolyte with excellent electrochemical performance in a lithium battery system is reported. The material consists of a UV-cured polymer matrix, high-boiling point liquid electrolyte, and Al2 O3 nanoparticles, formulated for use in lithium-ion batteries with 3D-structured electrodes or flexible characteristics. The unique struct...

We study flexible polymer macromolecules in a crowded (porous) environment, modeling them as self-attracting self-avoiding walks on site-diluted percolative lattices in space dimensions d=2,3 . The influence of stretching force on the polymer folding and the properties of globule-coil transitions are analyzed. Applying the pruned-enriched Rosenbluth chain-growth method, we estimate the transiti...

The need for accessible, flexible and low-cost functional optical devices and integrated optics is becoming increasingly acute as the optical communication network is expanding very fast. Polymer optical devices are expected to meet these requirements because they can be fabricated using a low-cost process with high manufacturing output. Polymer optics feature sizes down to 100 nm which could p...

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We demonstrate a projection lithography method that induces optical index changes in a flexible polymer cable that is continuously translated through the image plane. We demonstrate that a static spot pattern generates a grid of waveguides along the cable length via a continuous extrusion process. Rotations or scaling of the optical spot array can fabricate image inverters or magnifying face pl...

The thermotropic liquid crystalline behavior of a new kind of amphiphilic polymer without mesogens is reported. The existence and structure for the polymeric mesophase are confirmed and characterized by DSC, X-ray diffraction, optical polarized microscopy, and temperature-dependent FTIR. Due to strong interactions between pendent long alkyl chains, we conclude that some hydrophobic semirigid ro...

This article presents recent advancements in the development of flexible piezoresistive strain sensors based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs)–polymer composites, with particular attention to their electromechanical properties. Various fabrication approaches and material preparation CNTs–polymer composites improved performance are introduced. Moreover, working principle terms tunneling effect disconne...