Colloidal suspensions are used to generate polymers or particles from which ceramic materials can be made by the sol-gel process. The precursors for preparation of a colloidal suspension consist of a metal element surrounded by various ligands (attached groups not including another metal). For example, common precursors for sol-gel synthesis of aluminum oxide include inorganic salts such as Al(...

We report on the fabrication of diffraction gratings in photosensitive sol–gel thin films by direct contact printing using a UV-mercury lamp. Titanium amplitude masks were used to replicate diffraction gratings into photosensitive sol–gel films by contact printing with an incoherent UV-light source. Gratings with 1-mm period were fabricated in sol–gel films. The diffraction efficiencies of each...

The overall objective of this research is to enhance the bioactivity of cellulase enzymes as well as the stability of the enzymes to increase it reusability through immobilization of the enzymes in the microenvironment of porous inorganic-organic hybrid sol-gel polymers. Recently, we have discovered that the microenvironment of these sol-gel polymers markedly increases the bioactivity of immobi...

The sol-gel method is a simple and facile wet chemical process for fabricating advanced materials with high homogeneity, high purity, and excellent chemical reactivity at a relatively low temperature. By adjusting the processing parameters, the sol-gel technique can be used to prepare hollow sphere and 1D structural materials that exhibit a wide application in the fields of catalyst, drug or ge...

A water vapor sensor based on a combination of sol-gel processing and planar optical waveguide technologies has been developed. The indicator erythrosin B was entrapped in a thin sol-gel film (thickness ∼100 nm) prepared from methyltriethoxysilane, dimethyldiethoxysilane, and tetraethoxysilane. This dye exhibits an increase in absorbance in the presence of liquid or gaseous water. The sol-gel l...

Research in recent years has demonstrated that biological molecules such as enzymes, immunoglobulins, and other proteins can be immobilized in sol-gel derived matrices and retain their biological function. Development ofglasses with encapsulated biomolecules has opened the possibility of solid-state optical biosensors for the detection and measurement of desired analytes. In this work, we repor...

A study of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) sol-gel-coated channels fabricated using soft lithography and a laser direct writing technique is presented. PDMS is a biocompatible material that presents a high versatility to reproduce several structures. It is widely employed in the fabrication of preclinical devices due to its advantages but it presents a rapid chemical deterioration to organic solven...

This study describes a new means to conduct molecular recognition-based analysis using mass spectrometry. Taking advantage of the unique characteristic of the absorption capacity of the TiO(2) sol-gel material in the UV region, a TiO(2) sol-gel-deposited thin film was employed as the sample substrate to assist in UV laser desorption/ionization of analytes. Sol-gels are polymeric materials that ...

The cold gelation of preheated whey protein isolate (WPI) solutions at alkaline conditions (pH>10) has been studied to better understand the effect of NaOH in the formation and destruction of whey protein aggregates and gels. Oscillatory rheology has been used to follow the gelation process, resulting in novel and different gelation profiles with the gelation pH. At low alkaline pH, typical sol...

absorption spectra of the composite sol-gel (blue solid) and pure photochromic sol-gel (black solid). The open-form ∆OD for composite solgel (red dash). The inset is the chemical structure of the composite molecule with donor moiety (bottom red) and acceptor moiety (top blue). (d) The thermally reversing photokinetic measurement of the open-form ∆OD (460nm) of the composite sol-gel, recovering ...