Despite many scientific advances, human exposure to, and intoxication by, toxic metal species continues to occur. Surprisingly, little is understood about the mechanisms by which certain metals and metal-containing species gain entry into target cells. Since there do not appear to be transporters designed specifically for the entry of most toxic metal species into mammalian cells, it has been p...

Ionic liquids have been explored as attractive alternative media for CO2 separation not only due to their low volatility but also due to their highly tuneable nature. Aiming at designing highly efficient liquid phases for flue gas separation and natural gas purification, this work focuses on the use of binary ionic liquid mixtures containing sulfate and/or cyano-functionalized anions. Several m...

Gel Polymer Electrolytes (GPEs) composed by ZnTf₂ salt, poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVdF-HFP), and different ionic liquids are synthesized using n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent. Three different imidazolium-based ionic liquids containing diverse cations and anions have been explored. Structural and electrical properties of the GPEs varying the ZnTf₂ concentration ar...

Skin has become an impressive and idealistic platform for the delivery of drugs compared to other routes. However, the stratum corneum “dead, impermeable barrier devoid of biological activity” to skin had challenged the development of transdermal product, which delivers the drugs directly to the systemic circulation at a controlled rate. Recent literature suggests the old doctrine, which states...

Anatase TiO2 is a stable, cheap, non-toxic and environmentally benign candidate for use as an anode active material for lithium ion batteries (LIB). Due to the comparably high lithium insertion potential of around 1.8 V vs. Li/Li, typical battery electrolytes can be used in their thermodynamic stability window. Anatase offers high capacity and high cycling stability, and due to the oxidic frame...

Recently, in addition to the well-known resistor, capacitor and inductor, a fourth passive circuit element, named memristor, has been identified following theoretical predictions. The model example used in such case consisted in a nanoscale system with coupled ionic and electronic transport. Here, we discuss a system whose memristive behaviour is based entirely on the electron spin degree of fr...

Conjugated polymer-polyelectrolyte blends combine and couple electronic semiconductor functionality with selective ionic transport, making them attractive as the active material in organic biosensors and bioelectronics, electrochromic displays, neuromorphic computing, and energy conversion and storage. Although extensively studied and explored, fundamental knowledge and accurate quantitative mo...