Novel chromophoric and fluorescent carbonitrile-functionalized poly(vinyl amine) (PVAm) and PVAm/silica particles were synthesized by means of nucleophilic aromatic substitution of 8-oxo-8H-acenaphtho[1,2-b]pyrrol-9-carbonitrile (1) with PVAm in water. The water solubility of 1 has been mediated by 2,6-O-β-dimethylcyclodextrin or by pre-adsorption onto silica particles. Furthermore, 1 was conve...

Supramolecular gels are an important and interesting class of soft materials that show great potential for many applications. Most of them have been discovered serendipitously, and understanding the supramolecular self-assembly that leads to the formation of the gel superstructure is the key to the directed design of new organogels. We report herein the organogelating property of four stereoiso...

Bathochromic and hypsochromic shifts in the photo-luminescent spectra of doped and functionalized carbon nano-dots (CDs) arise due to the complex interaction between CDs and the solvent molecules around them. Nitrogen-functionalized carbon nano-dots (N-CDs) were synthesized from citric acid and urea using microwave assisted hydrothermal methods. Optical studies (absorption and photoluminescence...

Aiming at designing ionic liquids for the purification of natural gas, the solubility of methane in ionic liquids is investigated here through the measurement of the solubilities of methane in four ionic liquids (ILs), in a wide range of molar fractions, temperature and pressures. With the exception of the phosphonium-based IL, which behaves as an almost ideal solution, the other ionic liquids ...

Rational design of small molecular gelators is an elusive and herculean task, despite the rapidly growing body of literature devoted to such gels over the past decade. The process of self-assembly, in molecular gels, is intricate and must balance parameters influencing solubility and those contrasting forces that govern epitaxial growth into axially symmetric elongated aggregates. Although the ...

Thin polymer films are important in many areas of biomaterials research, biomedical devices, and biological sensors. The accurate in situ measurement of multiple physicochemical properties of thin polymer films is critical in understanding biocompatibility, polymer function, and performance. In this work we demonstrate a facile spectroscopic methodology for accurately measuring the micro-polari...

We report the kinetic study of the substitution reaction of a cationic platinum(II) complex [Pt(dpma)Cl](+) (dpma identical with di(2-picolyl)amine) with thioacetate in room temperature ionic liquids {[C(4)C(1)im][NTf(2)], [C(4)C(1)py][NTf(2)], [C(4)C(1)py][OTf] and [(C(3)O)C(1)im][NTf(2)]} and molecular solvents (water, methanol and DMSO). The reaction was studied as a function of the nucleoph...

Imidazolium-based chloride ionic liquids (ILs) have exhibited remarkable performance in several important applications such as biomass dissolution and extraction, but their large viscosity is a non-negligible problem. Adding molecular co-solvents into chloride ILs is effective in reducing viscosity; nevertheless, understanding of the accompanied change of thermodynamic polarity is quite few. Th...