Emerging areas of nanotechnology hold the promise of overcoming the limitations of existing technology for intracellular manipulation. These new developments include the creation of nanocomposites that can be introduced into the cells, targeted to specific subcellular sites, and subsequently used as platforms for initiation of intracellular processes dependent on or aided by locally high concen...

Nanostructured materials have emerged as a key research field in order to confer materials with unique or enhanced properties. The performance of nanocomposites depends on a number of parameters, but the suitable dispersion of nanoparticles remains the key in order to obtain the full nanocomposites' potential in terms of, e.g., flame retardance, mechanical, barrier, thermal properties, etc. Lik...

This review covers sonochemical fabrication of polymer nanocomposites. In addition to its application to the synthesis of various polymeric systems, due to its powerful efficiency, sonochemistry has been widely used not only as the assistant of dispersion for nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNT) and organophillic clay, but also as a special initiator to enhance polymerization for fabric...

Graphene has attracted considerable interest over recent years due to its intrinsic mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. Incorporation of small quantity of graphene fillers into polymer can create novel nanocomposites with improved structural and functional properties. This review introduced the recent progress in fabrication, properties and potential applications of graphene-polymer ...

We developed an unconventional route to produce uniform and intimately contacted semiconducting organic-inorganic nanocomposites for potential applications in thermoelectrics. By utilizing amphiphilic star-like PAA-b-PEDOT diblock copolymer as template, monodisperse PEDOT-functionalized lead telluride (PbTe) nanoparticles were crafted via the strong coordination interaction between PAA blocks o...

Mesoporous polyaniline-silica nanocomposites with a full interpenetrating structure for pseudocapacitors were synthesized via the vapor phase approach. The morphology and structure of the nanocomposites were deeply investigated by scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis and nitrogen adsorption-desorption tests. The results present tha...

Chitosan (CHI), a biocompatible and biodegradable polysaccharide with the ability to provide a non-protein matrix for tissue growth, is considered to be an ideal material in the biomedical field. However, the lack of good mechanical properties limits its applications. In order to overcome this drawback, CHI has been combined with different polymers and fillers, leading to a variety of chitosan-...

Carbon plasma nanocoatings with controlled fraction of sp(3)-C bonding were deposited on TiO2 nanorod arrays (TNAs) by DC magnetic-filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition (FCVAD). The cytocompatibility of TNA/carbon nanocomposites was systematically investigated. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were cultured on the nanocomposites for 4, 24, and 72 h in vitro. It was found that p...

The thermal conductivity of particulate nanocomposites is strongly dependent on the size, shape, orientation and dispersion uniformity of the inclusions. To correctly estimate the effective thermal conductivity of the nanocomposite, all these factors should be included in the prediction model. In this paper, the formulation of a generalized effective medium theory for the determination of the e...

Nanoribbon-shaped nanocomposites composed of conjugated polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) nanoribbons and plasmonic gold nanorods (AuNRs) were crafted by a co-assembly of thiol-terminated P3HT (P3HT-SH) nanofibers with dodecanethiol-coated AuNRs (AuNRs-DDT). First, P3HT-SH nanofibers were formed due to interchain π-π stacking. Upon the addition of AuNRs-DDT, P3HT-SH nanofibers were transfor...