BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile spores and multidrug-resistant (MDR) organisms, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), and MDR Acinetobacter baumannii, are important nosocomial pathogens that are difficult to eliminate from the hospital environment. We evaluated the efficacy of hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV), a no-touch automated roo...

Graphenes are an emerging class of carbon nanomaterials whose adsorption properties toward organic compounds have not been well understood. In the present study, graphene nanosheets were prepared by reoxidation and abrupt heating of graphite oxide, which was prepared by sequential chemical oxidation of commercial nonporous graphite powder. Adsorption properties of three aromatic compounds (naph...

We determine the high-frequency limiting shear viscosity, eta(infinity), in colloidal suspensions of rigid, uniformly porous spheres of radius a as a function of volume fraction phi and (inverse) porosity parameter x. Our study covers the complete fluid-state regime. The flow inside the spheres is modeled by the Debye-Bueche-Brinkman equation using the boundary condition that fluid velocity and...

In many animals, the bonding of tendon and cartilage to bone is extremely tough (for example, interfacial toughness ∼800 J m(-2); refs ,), yet such tough interfaces have not been achieved between synthetic hydrogels and non-porous surfaces of engineered solids. Here, we report a strategy to design tough transparent and conductive bonding of synthetic hydrogels containing 90% water to non-porous...

Four swab materials were evaluated for their efficiency in recovery of Bacillus anthracis spores from steel coupons. Cotton, macrofoam, polyester, and rayon swabs were used to sample coupons inoculated with a spore suspension of known concentration. Three methods of processing for the removal of spores from the swabs (vortexing, sonication, or minimal agitation) and two swab preparations (premo...

The low density polymorph of the well-known host p-tert-butylcalix[4]arene absorbs more methane than p-tert-pentylcalix[4]arene at room temperature and 1 atm pressure, but the order of absorption is reversed at 38 atm with p-tert-pentylcalix[4]arene absorbing more.