An anionic clay, magnesium–aluminum layered double hydroxide (Mg2Al–NO3–LDH), was prepared by a co-precipitation method and intercalated with poly(oxypropylene)–amindocarboxylic acid (POP– amido acid). Depending on the POP-intercalating agents with molecular weight at 2000 or 400 g/mol, the intercalated LDHs were analyzed to have d spacing of 6.8 or 2.7 nm and organic incorporation of 80 and 55...

Polycationic systems based on poly(hexamethylene biguanide) (PHMBG), branched polyethyleneimine (PEI) and poly(N-vinylguanidine) (PVG) have been evaluated as heterogeneous catalysts for the transesterification of sunflower oil by methanol. Insoluble networks are synthesized via crosslinking of PHMBG by either 4,4'-methylenebis(N,N-diglycidylaniline) or polyisocyanate prepolymer, PEI with sebaco...

Degradation kinetics of organic-inorganic hybrid materials based on epoxy resin was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The hybrid materials were prepared from diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GLYMO) polymerised simultaneously by poly(oxypropylene)diamine (Jeffamine D230). Nanometric level of homogeneity in the hybrids was verified b...

Silk fibroin hydrogels with tunable properties could be obtained from aqueous fibroin solutions (4.2 w/v %) in a short period of time. This was achieved by the addition of ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) into the reaction solution. Introduction of EGDE cross-links between the fibroin molecules decreases the mobility of the chains, which triggers the conformational transition from random...

Colitis involves immune cell-mediated tissue injuries, but the contribution of epithelial cells remains largely unclear. Vanin-1 is an epithelial ectoenzyme with a pantetheinase activity that provides cysteamine/cystamine to tissue. Using the 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-colitis model we show here that Vanin-1 deficiency protects from colitis. This protection is reversible by admi...

It is challenging to reinforce and toughen thermoset epoxy resins. We describe a slurry-compounding technique to transfer a uniform dispersion of chitin nanowhiskers (CW) in ethanol into an epoxy matrix. The incorporation of the hydrophilic CW reinforces the oil-soluble diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA). The resultant CW/epoxy bionanocomposites were transparent and showed considerably enh...

Multi-scale model for response of the bi-material “thermostat,” consisting of a single unidirectional lamina of carbon/epoxy and an uncured layer of neat diglycidyl ether of bisphenol F (DGEBF) with curing agent, diethyltoluenediamine (DETDA), is developed in order to measure thermal strains during a prescribed, but arbitrary thermal history. Molecular modeling simulations provided the elastic ...

We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the thermo-mechanical response of a thermosetting polymer (diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A with 3,30diamino-Diphenylsulfone) subject to cyclic loading for a family of tri-axial deformation paths and two different load levels and strain rates. We focus on how the relative amount of deviatoric and volumetric deformation affects strain accumulation an...

A simple method for preparation of DNA-carbon nanotubes hybrid hydrogel based on a two-step procedure including: (i) solubilization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) in aqueous solution of DNA, and (ii) chemical cross-linking between solubilized MWCNT via adsorbed DNA and free DNA by ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether is reported. We show that there exists a critical concentration of MWCNT...