Rare earth doped silica nanoparticles via thermolysis of a single source metallasilsesquioxane precursor

Rare earth metal doped silica nanoparticles have significant advantages over traditional organic dyes and quantum dots. Silsesquioxanes are promising precursors in the production of silica nanoparticles by thermolysis, due to their structural similarities with silica materials. This manuscript describes the production of a new Eu(3+)-based metallasilsesquioxane species and its use as a single source precursor in the thermolytic production of luminescent rare earth metal doped silica nanoparticles with characteristic emission in the visible region of the spectrum

Chirality in luminescent Cs3Cu2Br5 microcrystals produced via ligand-assisted reprecipitation

Herein we report new chiral luminescent Cs3Cu2Br5 needle-like microcrystals and the analysis of their optical properties and the effect of the ligand structure on the transfer of chirality

Porphyrin-magnetite nanoconjugates for biological imaging

<p>Background: The use of silica coated magnetic nanoparticles as contrast agents has resulted in the production of highly stable, non-toxic solutions that can be manipulated via an external magnetic field. As a result, the interaction of these nanocomposites with cells is of vital importance in understanding their behaviour and biocompatibility. Here we report the preparation, characterisation and potential application of new “two-in-one” magnetic fluorescent nanocomposites composed of silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles covalently linked to a porphyrin moiety.</p> <p>Method: The experiments were performed by administering porphyrin functionalised silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles to THP-1 cells, a human acute monocytic leukaemia cell line. Cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium with 25 mM HEPES supplemented with heat-inactivated foetal bovine serum (FBS).</p> <p>Results: We have synthesised, characterised and analysed in vitro, a new multimodal (magnetic and fluorescent) porphyrin magnetic nanoparticle composite (PMNC). Initial co-incubation experiments performed with THP-1 macrophage cells were promising; however the PMNC photobleached under confocal microscopy study. bmercaptoethanol (b-ME) was employed to counteract this problem and resulted not only in enhanced fluorescence emission, but also allowed for elongated imaging and increased exposure times of the PMNC in a cellular environment.</p> <p>Conclusion: Our experiments have demonstrated that b-ME visibly enhances the emission intensity. No deleterious effects to the cells were witnessed upon co-incubation with b-ME alone and no increases in background fluorescence were recorded. These results should present an interest for further development of in vitro biological imaging techniques.</p&gt

Effects of long-term exposure of gelatinated and non-gelatinated cadmium telluride quantum dots on differentiated PC12 cells

Journal article (open access)Background: The inherent toxicity of unmodified Quantum Dots (QDs) is a major hindrance to their use in biological applications. To make them more potent as neuroprosthetic and neurotherapeutic agents, thioglycolic acid (TGA) capped CdTe QDs, were coated with a gelatine layer and investigated in this study with differentiated pheochromocytoma 12 (PC12) cells. The QD - cell interactions were investigated after incubation periods of up to 17 days by MTT and APOTOX-Glo Triplex assays along with using confocal microscopy.Results: Long term exposure (up to 17 days) to gelatinated TGA-capped CdTe QDs of PC12 cells in the course of differentiation and after neurites were grown resulted in dramatically reduced cytotoxicity compared to non-gelatinated TGA-capped CdTe QDs.Conclusion: The toxicity mechanism of QDs was identified as caspase-mediated apoptosis as a result of cadmium leaking from the core of QDs. It was therefore concluded that the gelatine capping on the surface of QDs acts as a barrier towards the leaking of toxic ions from the core QDs in the long term (up to 17 days).Science Foundation Irelandpeer-reviewe

Magnetic Nanomaterials and Their Applications

This Special Issue of Nanomaterials is dedicated to the development of new magnetic nanomaterials and their applications in biomedicine, catalysis, spintronics and other areas. The publications in this Issue demonstrate that the interest in magnetic nanomaterials is continuously growing and their realm is expanding rapidly. Some highlights of the publications in this issue are discussed below. [...

Recent Advances in the Application of Magnetic Nanoparticles as a Support for Homogeneous Catalysts

Magnetic nanoparticles are a highly valuable substrate for the attachment of homogeneous inorganic and organic containing catalysts. This review deals with the very recent main advances in the development of various nanocatalytic systems by the immobilisation of homogeneous catalysts onto magnetic nanoparticles. We discuss magnetic core shell nanostructures (e.g., silica or polymer coated magnetic nanoparticles) as substrates for catalyst immobilisation. Then we consider magnetic nanoparticles bound to inorganic catalytic mesoporous structures as well as metal organic frameworks. Binding of catalytically active small organic molecules and polymers are also reviewed. After that we briefly deliberate on the binding of enzymes to magnetic nanocomposites and the corresponding enzymatic catalysis. Finally, we draw conclusions and present a future outlook for the further development of new catalytic systems which are immobilised onto magnetic nanoparticles