The need of an inorganic gel for the preparation of microbiological media arises frequently in nutritional studies. The isolation of fastidious microorganisms, such as the nitrifying bacteria, may be facilitated by the use of solid media prepared with silica gel rather than with agar. Until recently, the procedures available for the preparation of silica gel were time-consuming and inconsistent...

Sol-gel entrapment is an efficient immobilization technique that allows preparation of robust and highly stable biocatalysts. Lipase from Candida antarctica B was immobilized by sol-gel entrapment and by sol-gel entrapment combined with adsorption on Celite 545, using a ternary silane precursor system. After optimization of the immobilization protocol, the best enzyme loading was 17.4 mg/g supp...

The colonisation of clinical and industrial surfaces with microorganisms, including antibiotic-resistant strains, has promoted increased research into the development of effective antibacterial and antifouling coatings. This study describes the preparation of metal nitrate (Ag, Cu, Zn) doped methyltriethoxysilane (MTEOS) coatings and the rapid assessment of their antibacterial activity using po...

Sol-gel methodologies are advantageous in the preparation of hybrid materials in front of the conventional addition of nanoparticles, because of the fine dispersion of the inorganic phase that can be reached in epoxy matrices. In addition, the use of organoalkoxysilanes as coupling agents allows covalent linkage between organic and inorganic phases, which is the key point in the improvement of ...

nanocrystalline complex oxides have been synthesized by combination of sol–gel auto combustion and ultrasonic irradiation techniques using copper nitrate, zinc nitrate as metallic nitrates and glycine, urea and thiourea as fuels. sol-gel combustion (combination of the chemical sol–gel process and the combustion process) as a proper synthesized technique is used to synthesize zno/cuo nanocomposi...

A multi-responsive triblock hydrogelator oligo(dl-allylglycine)-block-poly(ethylene glycol)-block-oligo(dl-allylglycine) (ODLAG-b-PEG-b-ODLAG) was synthesized facilely by ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of DLAG N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) with a diamino-terminated PEG as the macroinitiator. This system exhibited heat-induced sol-to-gel transitions and either sonication- or enzyme-induced gel-to-...

Sol-gel processing is an attractive method for large-scale surface coating due to its facile and inexpensive preparation, even with the inclusion of precision nanotopographies. These are desirable traits for metal orthopaedic prostheses where ceramic coatings are known to be osteoinductive and the effects may be amplified through nanotexturing. However there are a few concerns associated with t...

Two current technologies used in biosensor development are very promising: 1. The sol-gel process of making microporous glass at room temperature, and 2. Using a fluorescent compound that undergoes fluorescence quenching in response to a specific analyte. These technologies have been combined to produce an iron biosensor. To optimize the iron (II or III) specificity of an iron biosensor, pyover...

A novel amperometric phenol sensor was constructed by immobilizing tyrosinase in a titania sol-gel matrix. The tyrosinase entrapped sol-gel film was obtained with a vapor deposition method, which simplified the traditional sol-gel process and avoided the shrinkage and cracking of conventional sol-gel-derived glasses. This matrix provided a microenvironment for retaining the native structure and...

The optical and structural properties of sol–gel prepared polycrystalline films of Cerium doped Lutetium and Yttrium oxyorthosilicates (Ce:LYSO) are investigated by means of optical spectroscopy, XRD diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The sol–gel samples are compared to commercially available Ce-doped LYSO single crystals, and a detailed study of the emission properties from the different ceri...