Size-dependent melting decouples melting temperature from chemical composition and provides a new design variable for phase change material applications. To demonstrate this potential, we create nanocomposites that exhibit stable and tunable melting temperatures through numerous melt-freeze cycles. These composites consist of a monodisperse ensemble of Bi nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in a polyi...

In this paper the thermal convective instabilities of a binary nanofluid is theoretically investigated. In order to analyze a binary nanofluid, an addition factor is proposed under linear stability theory which is applied to the stability analysis of normal fluid. The factor describes the effect of nanoparticles on the convective instability of a basefluid. The Soret effect which represents the...

The effect of dextran nanoparticles on the conformation and compaction of single DNA molecules confined in a nanochannel was investigated with fluorescence microscopy. It was observed that the DNA molecules elongate and eventually condense into a compact form with increasing volume fraction of the crowding agent. Under crowded conditions, the channel diameter is effectively reduced, which is in...

A diverse array of tumor targeting agents ranging in size from peptides to nanoparticles is currently under development for applications in cancer imaging and therapy. However, it remains largely unclear how size differences among these molecules influence their targeting properties. Here, we develop a simple, mechanistic model that can be used to understand and predict the complex interplay be...

In this work, the Z interphase parameter which determines the tensile strength of interphase layers in polymer nanocomposites is presented as a function of various material and interphase properties. In this regard, the simple Pukanszky model for tensile strength of polymer nanocomposites is applied and the dependency of Z to different characteristics of constituents and interphase are illustra...

We study the structure and phase behavior of asphaltenes comprised of large polyaromatic molecules in blends of naturally occurring crude oils using small angle neutron scattering (SANS). When two compatible oils are blended together, the asphaltenes remain dispersed as colloidal nanoparticles; however, when two incompatible oils are blended together, these asphaltene nanoparticles can aggregat...

A new mechanism for regulating the stability of colloidal particles has been discovered. Negligibly charged colloidal microspheres, which flocculate when suspended alone in aqueous solution, undergo a remarkable stabilizing transition upon the addition of a critical volume fraction of highly charged nanoparticle species. Zeta potential analysis revealed that these microspheres exhibited an effe...

In this work, a Homotopy Perturbation Solution of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of boundary-layer equations for an electrically conducting Nanofluid flow bounded by an infinite parallel vertical permeable plates is to be introduced. This model is applied to study the mass and heat transfer of an unsteady nanofluid, incompressible flow with suction, internal heat generation, Hall Effect and Ch...

In this study, the two-dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) boundary layer of stagnation-point flow in a nanofluid in the presence of thermal radiation is investigated. Using a similarity transform, the NavierStokes equations are reduced to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The similarity equations are solved numerically for three types of nanoparticles, namely copper (Cu), a...

Understanding the influence of macromolecular crowding and nanoparticles on the formation of in-register β-sheets, the primary structural component of amyloid fibrils, is a first step towards describing in vivo protein aggregation and interactions between synthetic materials and proteins. Using all atom molecular simulations in implicit solvent we illustrate the effects of nanoparticle size, sh...