Natural polymers, such as alginate and gelatin, can be used to produce scaffolds for tissue engineering applications; but, their mechanical and biochemical performance should be improved. A possible solution to obtain this result, is the generation of multi-component scaffolds, by blending two or more polymers. One way to realize it, is the formation of an interpenetrating polymer network (IPN)...

Quaternary ammonium salt hydrogels from a cationic monomer, (3-acrylamidopropyl)-trimethylammonium chloride (APTMACl), in a variety sizes such as bulk, microand nanohas been prepared. The synthesis of microand nanogels were carried out in the microenvironment of water-in-oil microemulsions using two types of surfactants, namely, L-αphosphatidylcholine (lecithin) and dioctyl sulfosuccinate sodiu...

Polyacrylamide (PAM) was used as a matrix material for fabricating novel nanocomposite hydrogels reinforced with natural chitosan nanofibers (CNFs) via in situ free-radical polymerization. The nanocomposite's structure, strength, morphology and rheological properties were investigated. The results showed that the CNFs had a strong interaction with PAM through hydrogen and covalent bondings. The...

In this paper we investigate the potential of light trapping with diffraction gratings for organic solar cells. The architecture of the solar cell is based on conjugated polymers and a buckminsterfullerene derivative (PCBM), forming an interpenetrating donor-acceptor-network. The motivation for light trapping is the small absorptance of the photoactive polymer in the range of the solar spectrum...

Polymer solar cells (PSCs), with poly(diketopyrrolopyrrole-terthiophene) (PDPP3T):[6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) as the active layers, were fabricated using solutions of different temperatures. The best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the PSCs prepared using a hot solution was about 6.22%, which is better than 5.54% for PSCs prepared using cool (room temperature) solut...

Two types of conjugated polymers were prepared with the goal to blend them with rod-like CdSe nanocrystals. The polymers of the first type were synthesized through copolymerization of 3-octylthiophene and 3-methylene-ethylcarboxylate-thiophene to give polythiophene with solubilizing alkyl groups and methylene ester functional groups (PE series). Post-polymerization hydrolysis of the ester type ...