Under suitable conditions polystyrene microsphere colloids form photonic crystals capable of diffracting visible light, analogous to x-ray diffraction from atomic crystal planes. The lattice spacings of these crystals can be tailored to satisfy the Bragg condition along a certain direction for a particular desired wavelength. A modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer has been developed for accurat...

An increase of the degree of d-alanylation of teichoic acids in Lactococcus lactis resulted in a significant increase of bacterial resistance toward the cationic antimicrobials nisin and lysozyme, whereas the absence of D-alanylation led to a decreased resistance toward the same compounds. In contrast, the same variations of the D-alanylation degree did not modify bacterial cell surface charge ...

Commercial 125I anti-HBs was processed to yield a sixfold improvement in economy without significant loss of sensitivity or specificity. Additional polystyrene beads were coupled with commercially supplied anti-HBs. The modified assay (Mod-RIA) was compared with commercial RIA, EIA, and RPHA using established HBsAg panels. Mod-RIA was also compared with HEPATEST (RPHA) for screening 71 200 fres...

Polyelectrolyte capsules with silver and gold nanoparticles in the shell composition have been obtained using calcium carbonate and polystyrene microparticles as cores. Capsules were modified with silver nanoparticles using silver mirror reaction. Gold nanoparticles were embedded in capsule shells via their adsorption from previously obtained sol. A significant difference in the structure of ca...

A new and general approach is proposed to analyze the dynamics of a colloidal particle interacting with a nearby wall. This analysis can be used to determine the acting forces even when the system is non-stationary. As an illustration, we use total internal reflection microscopy to investigate the forces acting on a polystyrene sulfate latex particle as it is receding from a charged glass surface.

Polystyrene (PS) polymer layers were prepared and studied as anti-corrosive barrier on both carbon steel zinc substrates. To increase the corrosion resistance of coatings, two different approaches considered: (i) use mesoporous silica-nanocontainers impregnated with a inhibitor (tannic acid) introduced into polystyrene matrix (ii) direct impregnation coatings same inhibitor. The nanocontainers ...