The true amphipathic nature of graphene flakes: a versatile 2D stabilizer

The fundamental colloidal properties of pristine graphene flakes remain incompletely understood, with conflicting reports about their chemical character, hindering potential applications that could exploit the extraordinary electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties of graphene. Here, the true amphipathic nature of pristine graphene flakes is demonstrated through wet‐chemistry testing, optical microscopy, electron microscopy, and density functional theory, molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo calculations, and it is shown how this fact paves the way for the formation of ultrastable water/oil emulsions. In contrast to commonly used graphene oxide flakes, pristine graphene flakes possess well‐defined hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions: the basal plane and edges, respectively, the interplay of which allows small flakes to be utilized as stabilizers with an amphipathic strength that depends on the edge‐to‐surface ratio. The interactions between flakes can be also controlled by varying the oil‐to‐water ratio. In addition, it is predicted that graphene flakes can be efficiently used as a new‐generation stabilizer that is active under high pressure, high temperature, and in saline solutions, greatly enhancing the efficiency and functionality of applications based on this materia

DNA Double-Strand Breaks Induced by Cavitational Mechanical Effects of Ultrasound in Cancer Cell Lines

Ultrasonic technologies pervade the medical field: as a long established imaging modality in clinical diagnostics; and, with the emergence of targeted high intensity focused ultrasound, as a means of thermally ablating tumours. In parallel, the potential of [non-thermal] intermediate intensity ultrasound as a minimally invasive therapy is also being rigorously assessed. Here, induction of apoptosis in cancer cells has been observed, although definitive identification of the underlying mechanism has thus far remained elusive. A likely candidate process has been suggested to involve sonochemical activity, where reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediate the generation of DNA single-strand breaks. Here however, we provide compelling new evidence that strongly supports a purely mechanical mechanism. Moreover, by a combination of specific assays (neutral comet tail and staining for γH2AX foci formation) we demonstrate for the first time that US exposure at even moderate intensities exhibits genotoxic potential, through its facility to generate DNA damage across multiple cancer lines. Notably, colocalization assays highlight that ionizing radiation and ultrasound have distinctly different signatures to their respective γH2AX foci formation patterns, likely reflecting the different stress distributions that initiated damage formation. Furthermore, parallel immuno-blotting suggests that DNA-PKcs have a preferential role in the repair of ultrasound-induced damage

Effect of Covalent Functionalisation on Thermal Transport Across Graphene-Polymer Interfaces

This paper is concerned with the interfacial thermal resistance for polymer composites reinforced by various covalently functionalised graphene. By using molecular dynamics simulations, the obtained results show that the covalent functionalisation in graphene plays a significant role in reducing the graphene-paraffin interfacial thermal resistance. This reduction is dependent on the coverage and type of functional groups. Among the various functional groups, butyl is found to be the most effective in reducing the interfacial thermal resistance, followed by methyl, phenyl and formyl. The other functional groups under consideration such as carboxyl, hydroxyl and amines are found to produce negligible reduction in the interfacial thermal resistance. For multilayer graphene with a layer number up to four, the interfacial thermal resistance is insensitive to the layer number. The effects of the different functional groups and the layer number on the interfacial thermal resistance are also elaborated using the vibrational density of states of the graphene and the paraffin matrix. The present findings provide useful guidelines in the application of functionalised graphene for practical thermal management.Comment: 8 figure

Mechanobiological Modulation of Cytoskeleton and Calcium Influx in Osteoblastic Cells by Short-Term Focused Acoustic Radiation Force

Mechanotransduction has demonstrated potential for regulating tissue adaptation in vivo and cellular activities in vitro. It is well documented that ultrasound can produce a wide variety of biological effects in biological systems. For example, pulsed ultrasound can be used to noninvasively accelerate the rate of bone fracture healing. Although a wide range of studies has been performed, mechanism for this therapeutic effect on bone healing is currently unknown. To elucidate the mechanism of cellular response to mechanical stimuli induced by pulsed ultrasound radiation, we developed a method to apply focused acoustic radiation force (ARF) (duration, one minute) on osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells and observed cellular responses to ARF using a spinning disk confocal microscope. This study demonstrates that the focused ARF induced F-actin cytoskeletal rearrangement in MC3T3-E1 cells. In addition, these cells showed an increase in intracellular calcium concentration following the application of focused ARF. Furthermore, passive bending movement was noted in primary cilium that were treated with focused ARF. Cell viability was not affected. Application of pulsed ultrasound radiation generated only a minimal temperature rise of 0.1°C, and induced a streaming resulting fluid shear stress of 0.186 dyne/cm2, suggesting that hyperthermia and acoustic streaming might not be the main causes of the observed cell responses. In conclusion, these data provide more insight in the interactions between acoustic mechanical stress and osteoblastic cells. This experimental system could serve as basis for further exploration of the mechanosensing mechanism of osteoblasts triggered by ultrasound

Van Der Waals Density Functionals for Graphene Layers and Graphite

In this communication, we present results of theoretical studies of various systems where Van der Waals interaction plays a considerable role. In the first-principle calculations performed in the density functional theory framework we implement novel functionals accounting for Van der Waals forces and employ to the test cases of graphite and graphene layers. It turns out that this approach provides a solution to the long standing problem of overbinding between graphene layers in bulk graphite, giving the distance between the carbon layers in excellent agreement with experiment. In graphene bilayers, Van der Waals functionals lead to energetic barriers for A-B to A-A ordering of graphene bilayers that are by a factor of two smaller than the barriers obtained with standard functionals. It may be of crucial importance, particularly, if one uses atomistic ab initio methods as a starting point for multi-scale modeling of materials and for determination of effective potentials

Ab Initio Modeling of Graphene Functionalized with Boron and Nitrogen

We investigate theoretically the electronic properties of graphene functionalized with nitrogen and boron atoms substituted into the graphene monolayer. Our study is based on the ab initio calculations in the framework of the density functional theory. We predict the dependence of the energy band gap, binding energy per atom, and the shift of the Fermi level on the concentration of dopants. Moreover, we examine the influence of the distribution of B/N atoms on the specified properties

Ab Initio Study of Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes

In the present paper, we study the stability of (9, 0), (10, 0), (11, 0) carbon nanotubes functionalized with simple organic molecules $-CH_{n}$ (for n = 2, 3, 4). Our studies are based on ab initio calculations within the framework of the density functional theory. We determine binding energies of the functionalized carbon nanotubes and the changes in the geometry and electronic structure caused by the functionalization. We observe the characteristic effects such as rehybridization of the bonds induced by fragments attached to carbon nanotubes and pentagon/heptagon (5/7) defects in $-CH_{2}$ functionalized carbon nanotubes. We study also dependence of the binding energies of the functionalized carbon nanotubes on the density of the adsorbed molecules and diameter of the single-wall carbon nanotubes. Our calculations reveal that the $-CH_{2}$ fragments exhibit the strongest cohesion and we determine the critical density of the $-CH_{2}$ fragments which could be adsorbed

Structural and Electronic Properties of Functionalized Graphene

In the present paper, we study the effects of functionalization of graphene with simple organic molecules OH, and $NH_2$, focusing on the stability and band gaps of the structures. We have performed DFT calculations for graphene supercells with various numbers of the attached molecules. We have determined adsorption energies of the functionalized graphene mono- and bilayers, the changes in the geometry, and the band structure. We observe the characteristic effects such as rehybridization of the bonds induced by fragments attached to graphene and opening of the graphene band gap by functionalization. We have also studied the dependence of the adsorption energies of the functionalized graphene on the density of the adsorbed molecules. Our calculations reveal that the -OH and $-NH_2$ groups exhibit the strong cohesion to graphene layers. Further, we determine the critical density of the OH fragments which lead to the opening of the band gap. We also show how to engineer the magnitude of the band gap by functionalizing graphene with $NH_2$ groups of various concentrations

Ab Initio Study of Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes

In the present paper, we study the stability of (9, 0), (10, 0), (11, 0) carbon nanotubes functionalized with simple organic molecules $-CH_{n}$ (for n = 2, 3, 4). Our studies are based on ab initio calculations within the framework of the density functional theory. We determine binding energies of the functionalized carbon nanotubes and the changes in the geometry and electronic structure caused by the functionalization. We observe the characteristic effects such as rehybridization of the bonds induced by fragments attached to carbon nanotubes and pentagon/heptagon (5/7) defects in $-CH_{2}$ functionalized carbon nanotubes. We study also dependence of the binding energies of the functionalized carbon nanotubes on the density of the adsorbed molecules and diameter of the single-wall carbon nanotubes. Our calculations reveal that the $-CH_{2}$ fragments exhibit the strongest cohesion and we determine the critical density of the $-CH_{2}$ fragments which could be adsorbed