Whereas considerable interest exists in self-assembly of well-ordered, porous "inverse opal" structures for optical, electronic, and (bio)chemical applications, uncontrolled defect formation has limited the scale-up and practicality of such approaches. Here we demonstrate a new method for assembling highly ordered, crack-free inverse opal films over a centimeter scale. Multilayered composite co...

Whereas considerable interest exists in self-assembly of well-ordered, porous "inverse opal" structures for optical, electronic, and (bio)chemical applications, uncontrolled defect formation has limited the scale-up and practicality of such approaches. Here we demonstrate a new method for assembling highly ordered, crack-free inverse opal films over a centimeter scale. Multilayered composite co...

Inorganic colloidal nanoparticles are very small, nanoscale objects with inorganic cores that are dispersed in a solvent. Depending on the material they consist of, nanoparticles can possess a number of different properties such as high electron density and strong optical absorption (e.g. metal particles, in particular Au), photoluminescence in the form of fluorescence (semiconductor quantum do...

The synthesis of bulk imprinted silica using colloidal gold as a functional template is demonstrated. The imprinting approach relies on the isolation of colloidal gold in gold@silica nanoparticles synthesized via a 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) route. Gold@silica nanoparticles are then condensed within a silica framework for the synthesis of a composite gold-silica material containing ~30...

Using tangential flow ultrafiltration, total mercury (HgT) and methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations in the colloidal phase (0.4 microm-10 kDa) were determined for 15 freshwaters located in the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin) and the Southern United States (Georgia and Florida). Unfiltered concentrations were typical of those reported for freshwater and ranged from 0.9 to 27.1 ...

Talc is often used to control unwanted deposition of resins and wood processing derivatives in the wet end circuit of a paper mill. These compounds, called pitch, originate from the raw forest material and are brought into a semi-stable colloidal dispersion during the pulping process. In preceding work we found that the efficiency of different talcs in reducing the level of pitch present in a t...