The mechanical properties of non-vulcanized natural rubber and dialyzed natural rubber-clay nanocomposites have been studied by uniaxial deformations to evaluate the reinforcement efficiency of the clay. We show that while non-rubber molecules contribute to auto-reinforcement, removal of these molecules improves significantly the performance of clay as reinforcement agent. These mechanical prop...

Efficient evolution of hydrogen through electrocatalysis at low overpotentials holds tremendous promise for clean energy. Hydrogen evolution can be easily achieved by electrolysis at large potentials that can be lowered with expensive platinum-based catalysts. Replacement of Pt with inexpensive, earth-abundant electrocatalysts would be significantly beneficial for clean and efficient hydrogen e...

The recovery of exfoliated cells from biological fluids is a noninvasive technology which is in high demand in the field of translational research. Exfoliated epithelial cells can be isolated from several body fluids (i.e., breast milk, urines, and digestives fluids) as a cellular mixture (senescent, apoptotic, proliferative, or quiescent cells). The most intriguing are quiescent cells which ca...

Most cases of hypophosphatasia (HPP) exhibit early loss of primary teeth. Results of microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) analysis of teeth with HPP have rarely been reported. The purpose of the present study was to describe the mineral density distribution and mapping of exfoliated teeth from an HPP patient using micro-CT. Four exfoliated teeth were obtained from a patient with HPP. Enamel and ...

The present paper reports the successful elaboration of exfoliated plasticized starch-based nanobiocomposites. This was made possible by using cationic starch as a new clay organomodifier to better match the polarity of the matrix and thus to facilitate the clay exfoliation process. To demonstrate the efficiency of this new approach, either natural (MMT-Na) or organomodified (OMMT-CS) montmoril...

We study mechanically exfoliated nanosheets of franckeite by quantitative optical microscopy. The analysis of transmission-mode and epi-illumination-mode optical microscopy images provides a rapid method to estimate the thickness of the exfoliated flakes at first glance. A quantitative analysis of the optical contrast spectra by means of micro-reflectance allows one to determine the refractive ...

Exfoliated cells from patients with squamous carcinoma of the cervix contain antigens related to herpesvirus subtype 2, as revealed by direct or indirect immunofluorescent techniques. Normal squamous cells from the same subjects and from controls without the disease, and cells from a small number of tumors at sites other than the cervix, did not react with anti-herpesvirus subtype 2 serum. Anti...

The production of two-dimensional rhenium disulfide (ReS2) nanosheets by exfoliation using lithium intercalation is demonstrated. The vibrational and photoluminescence properties of the exfoliated nanosheets are investigated, and the local atomic structure is studied by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The catalytic activity of the nanosheets in a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER)...

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) nanosheets were exfoliated from bulk g-C₃N₄ and utilized to improve the sensing performance of a pure graphene sensor for the first time. The role of hydrochloric acid treatment on the exfoliation result was carefully examined. The exfoliated products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force micros...

In this work, the reduced graphene nanosheets were synthesized from pre-exfoliated graphite flakes. The pristine graphite flakes were firstly pre-exfoliated to graphite nanoplatelets in the presence of acetic acid. The obtained graphite nanoplatelets were treated by Hummer’s method to produce graphite oxide sheets and were finally exfoliated to graphene nanosheets by ultrasonication and reducti...