Sharif Digital Repository

For risk free application of nanoparticles in life science, energy and the environment, it is essential to understand their biological fate and potential toxicity. The application of iron oxide nanoparticles for drug delivery has been one of the most promising researches in the field of nanotechnology. However, there are two major problems associated with magnetically targeted deliveries that still need close attention: • As the drug is coated on to the particle surfaces, there is the possibility of faster drug release (Burst Effect). Therefore, after reaching to the specific site, there is very low amount of drug for delivery. To overcome this problem, some researchers have used conjugation... 

Synthesis of dithiocarbamates by the one-pot three-component Markovnikov addition reaction of an amine, carbon disulfide and an alkyl vinyl ether or N-vinylpyrrolidone is reported in polyethylene glycol (PEG) under a mild and green procedure with high yields and completely regiospecific. Also, the products were used as efficient starting materials for amidoalkylation of electron-rich arenes such as naphthols and indoles  

In this work, the modified Flory-Huggins coupled with the free-volume concept and the artificial neural network models were used to obtain the osmotic pressure of aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solutions. In the artificial neural network, the osmotic pressure of aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solutions depends on temperature, molecular weight and the mole fractions of poly(ethylene glycol) in aqueous solution. The network topology is optimized and the (3-1-1) architecture is found using optimization of an objective function with batch back propagation (BBP) method for 134 experimental data points. The results obtained from the neural network in obtaining of the osmotic pressure of aqueous... 

In this work, the partition coefficients of Cephalexin in aqueous two-phase systems containing PEG [poly(ethylene glycol)] 4000, 10000 and K 2HPO4, Na3Citrate (C6H 5Na3O7 5, 5H2O) have been measured. The experimental data were obtained in a wide range of temperatures, (28.2 to 37.2) °C. The effects of temperature, pH, polymer concentration, polymer molecular weight, and salt concentration on the partitioning of Cephalexin were also studied. The results showed that salt concentration has a large effect on the partition coefficient, and temperature has an almost negligible effect. The Chen-NRTL Gibbs energy model was used to correlate the experimental results. © 2009 American Chemical Society  

The steam reforming of ethylene glycol, a simple model compound for biomass-derived liquids, is considered to be an environmentally green process for producing renewable hydrogen. Both Pt and Ni species are known for their catalytic activity under steam reforming reaction conditions. In this investigation, alumina supported Ni-Pt bimetallic catalysts (X wt% Ni-Y wt% Pt/Al2O3 named XNi-YPt) were employed for steam reforming of ethylene glycol. The prepared catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, H2-TPR, H₂-Chemisorption, and TEM. It was observed that Ni/Pt ratio strongly affected the redox behavior, BET surface area, and particle size of the samples that in turn affected their catalytic... 

A novel thermosensitive hydrogel was synthesized by block copolymerization of monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol) macromere (PEG) onto chitosan backbone, using potassium per sulfate as a free radical initiator. This block copolymer exhibits a thermoreversible transition from an injectable solution at low temperature to a gel at body temperature. Synthesized copolymers were characterized using FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and DSC techniques. Solubility test was performed to compare water and organo-solubility of chitosan before and after copolymerization. Sol-gel transition behavior was investigated using the vial inversion method and viscosity measurements. The gelation behavior makes the... 

This article focuses on the study of potassium carbonate (PC) based deep eutectic solvents based supported liquid membranes (DES-SLMs) for CO2 separation. Two types of DESs were synthesized by mixing and subsequently heating PC with glycerol or ethylene glycol separately. The mechanism of interaction was inferred from the spectral analysis (FTIR) whereas thermal study (TGA) was performed to analyze the stability of the membrane. Experiments were carried out to analyze the permeability and separation factor of the membranes. The PC-Glycerol based SLM reported permeability of 34 Barrer and ideal selectivity of 59 while PC-Ethylene Glycol based SLM showed permeability of 20 Barrer and... 

Pseudopolyrotaxanes, Ps-PR, consisting of α-cyclodextrin rings, polyethylene glycol axes and end triazine groups were prepared and then were capped by amino-functionalized quantum dots, NH 2-QDs, to achieve polyrotaxanes. The amino-functionalized QDs stoppers of polyrotaxanes were used as core to synthesize polyamidoamine, PAMAM, dendrons divergently and hybrid nanomaterials were obtained. Synthesized hybrid nanomaterials were characterized by different spectroscopy, microscopy and thermal analysis methods. They were freely soluble in water and their aqueous solutions were stable at room temperature over several months. Due to their biocompatible backbone, high functionality and water... 

In this study, the partitioning of β-amylase in aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) containing polyethylene glycol (PEG) with a molar mass of 6000 and 10 000 and KH 2PO 4 at T = (301.65 and 304.65) K was experimentally studied. In addition, the partitioning of amyloglucosidase in ATPS containing polyethylene glycol with molar mass of 4000, 6000, and 10 000 in the presence of Na 2SO 4 at T = (301.65 and 305.65) K was investigated. The effects of molar mass of PEG, temperature, mass fractions of salt, and the length of the tie line on partition coefficients of the enzymes were also studied. The experimental results showed that while the partition coefficients of enzymes decrease with increasing... 

Ethylene glycol is an environmental pollutant, which exists in airport runoff and industrial waste. In this article, biodegradation of ethylene glycol in a two-chamber, batch-mode microbial fuel cell was investigated. Glucose and ethylene glycol at different concentrations were used as carbon and energy sources. Chemical oxygen demand removal in the range of 92-98% indicated that microbial fuel cell can be used for biodegradation of ethylene glycol. Ethylene glycol also improved power generation and the maximum power density was 5.72 mW/m2 (137.32 mW/m3), with respect to the same glucose and ethylene glycol concentrations (500 ppm)  

In this study, the effect of hydrophobicity of environmentally responsive surface-modified silica nanoparticles on the stability and surface activity of the nanoparticles is examined. To this end, n-propyl, n-hexyl, or n-octyl chains and methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) chains at various quantities were coated covalently on the surface of silica nanoparticles to regulate the hydrophobicity of the responsive nanoparticles. Various experimental tools such as stability analysis, interfacial-tension and contact-angle measurements, and emulsion formation were performed to investigate the effect of hydrophobicity. It became evident that the presence of the hydrophobic agents influences considerably... 

PEG-modification is a proven method to enhance the hydrophilicity, protein resistance, and anti-biofouling properties of polymer coatings. It is considered as the gold standard interfacial modification technique such that the higher PEG content, the higher hydrophilicity, and lower protein adsorption, i.e., the initial stage of the biofouling process. Nevertheless, increasing the PEG content causes a higher water uptake, which declines the polymer mechanical strength and increases its hydrolytic degradation rate. Thus, an effective strategy to produce a limited-water-absorbing PEG-modified polymer is to force the majority of PEG molecules to migrate towards the interfacial region while the... 

The properties of colloidal nanoparticles are the key parameters in the fabrication of inexpensive solar cells based on the solution methods. In this study, Different nanostructures of CuInS2 (CIS) were successfully synthesized by a heating-up facile polyol-based method in which, polyols including diethylene glycol (DEG), ethylene glycol (EG), and glycerol (Gly) were chosen as both the solvent and the reductant. It is found that not only the indium precursor type but also the polyol solvent are greatly effective on the size, morphology and crystal phase of this sulfide ternary composition. Briefly, the heating-up synthesis using In(acac)3 in DEG and Gly media, created nano-sized particles... 

In this study, water activities for the ternary systems of PEG6000 + sodium citrate (Na3Cit) + H2O and PEG6000 + potassium citrate (K3Cit) + H2O have been measured using an improved isopiestic method over the entire homogeneous mixing range at 298.15 K. From these measurements, values of the vapor pressure of solutions were also determined. The experimental data for the activity of water, collected in this work, were accurately correlated with local composition based models of the NRTL, modified NRTL, Wilson and modified Wilson. The results showed that these models can accurately correlate the water activity data generated in this work. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

Specific and sensitive electroanalysis of blood-circulating protein cancer biomarkers is often complicated by interference from serum proteins nonspecifically adsorbing at the biosensing interface and masking specific reactions of interest. Here, we have developed an electrocatalytically amplified assay for specific and sensitive analysis of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2/neu, a protein cancer biomarker over-expressed in breast cancers) that allows us to avoid both the interference from bovine serum albumin (BSA) and electrocatalytic amplification of the signal stemming from the specific aptamer−HER-2/neu binding. A HER-2/neu-specific thiolated aptamer sequence was... 

The current investigation was to present composite membranes with strong interfacial adhesion between top polymeric selective layer and the bottom micro-porous support layer with appropriate gas permeation behavior and practically suitable processing characteristics. To this end, a series of acrylate-terminated polyurethanes (APUs) based on poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) with different molecular weights (Mn) of 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 4000 g/mol, toluene diisocyanate (TDI), and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) were synthesized. Composite membranes were prepared with UV-curable acrylate-terminated polyurethane/acrylate diluent (APUAs) as selective layer and polyester/polysulfone (PS/PSF) as...