Many technical applications of biological objects like proteins, viruses or bacteria such as chromatography, optical information technology, sensorics, catalysis and drug delivery require their immobilization.
This immobilization has been achieved predominantly by adsorption or by chemical binding and to a lesser extent by incorporating these objects as guests in host matrices.
Due to the large number of natural or synthetic polymers available and the advanced techniques developed to process such systems to nanofibres, rods, tubes etc.
A strong electric field of the order of 103 V/cm is applied to the polymer solution droplets emerging from a cylindrical die.
Electro spinning, co-electrospinning, and the template methods based on nanofibres yield nano-objects which are, in principle, infinitively long.
For a broad range of applications including catalysis, tissue engineering, and surface modification of implants this infinite length is an advantage.
A polymer melt or solution is brought into contact with the pores located in materials characterized by high energy surfaces such as aluminum or silicon.
Wetting sets in and covers the walls of the pores with a thin film with a thickness of the order of a few tens of nanometers.
The exact process is still not understood theoretically in detail but its known from experiments that low molar mass systems tend to fill the pores completely, whereas polymers of sufficient chain length just cover the walls.
To obtain nanotubes, the polymer/template system is cooled down to room temperature or the solvent is evaporated, yielding pores covered with solid layers.
The addition of these nanoparticles in the polymer matrix at low concentrations (~0.2 weight %) leads to significant improvements in the compressive and flexural mechanical properties of polymeric nanocomposites.
Nanotubes and nanofibres, for instance, which contained fluorescent albumin with dog-fluorescein isothiocyanate were prepared as a model drug, as well as super paramagnetic nanoparticles composed of iron oxide or nickel ferrite.
In addition, by using periodically varying magnetic fields, the nanoparticles were heated up to provide, thus, a trigger for drug release.
[10] The most common type of filler particles utilized by the tire industry had traditionally been Carbon black (Cb), produced from the incomplete combustion of coal tar and ethylene.
[11] The main reason is that the addition of Cb to rubbers enables the manufacturing of tires of a smaller rolling resistance which accounts for about 4% of the worldwide CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
However, a smaller rolling resistance also leads to a lower wet grip performance, which poses concerns of the passenger's safety.
The problem can be partially solved by replacing Cb with silica, because it enables the production of "green" tires that display both improved wet grip properties as well as a smaller rolling resistance.
However, the glass transition temperature of supported films having strong interaction with substrates increases of pressure and the decrease of size.
To describe Tg (D, 0) function of polymers more generally, a simple and unified model recently is provided based on the size-dependent melting temperature of crystals and Lindemann's criterion where σg is the root of mean squared displacement of surface and interior molecules of glasses at Tg (D, 0), α = σs2 (D, 0) / σv2 (D, 0) with subscripts s and v denoting surface and volume, respectively.
The single domain nature and super paramagnetic behavior of nanoparticles containing ferromagnetic metals could be possibly used for magneto-optical storage media manufacturing.