FTIR investigation of non-volatile molecular nanoparticles

Heavy snow: IR spectroscopy of isotope mixed crystalline water ice

Temperature and isotopic dependence of simulated and experimental spectra shed light on the vibrational modes of crystalline water ice.

Various preparation methods of highly porous hydroxyapatite/polymer nanoscale biocomposites for bone regeneration

Tissue engineering utilizes expertise in the fields of materials science, biology, chemistry, transplantation medicine, and engineering to design materials that can temporarily serve in a structural and/or functional capacity during regeneration of a defect. Hydroxyapatite (HAp) scaffolds are among the most extensively studied materials for this application. However, HAp has been reported to be too weak to treat such defects and, therefore, has been limited to non-load-bearing applications. To capitalize the advantages of HAp and at the same time overcome the drawbacks nanocrystalline HAp (nHAp) is combined with various types of bioactive polymers to generate highly porous biocomposite materials that are used for osteoconduction in the field of orthopedic surgery. In this study we have reviewed nanosized HAp-based highly porous composite materials used for bone tissue engineering, introduced various fabrication methods to prepare nHAp/polymer composite scaffolds, and characterized these scaffolds on the basis of their biodegradability and biocompatibility through in vitro and in vivo tests. Finally, we provide a summary and our own perspectives on this active area of research.

Large molecular aggregates: From atmospheric aerosols to drug nanoparticles

Large molecular aggregates with sizes ranging from subnanometers to microns are ubiquitous. As atmospheric aerosols they influence our climate, in interstellar space they are discussed as reactive sites, and in medicine small particles are considered as promising candidates to achieve a targeted drug delivery. The present contribution is focused on the characterization of the physical-chemical properties of these particles and on their targeted generation. One of the greatest challenges is to understand the properties of these aggregates on a molecular level. The latter point is discussed in detail focussing on the vibrational dynamics of these particles.

FTIR spectroscopic investigations of supersaturated NaClO4 aerosols

Supersaturated NaClO4 aerosols have been studied using a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer coupled with an aerosol flow tube (AFT). Compared with previous Raman results, the water O-H stretching envelope in the supersaturated solutions of NaClO4 aerosols was more structured in response to changing RH, revealing at the same time the existence of water monomers weakly hydrogen-bonded with ClO4- at extremely high concentrations. Due to enhanced ion interactions in the supersaturated solutions of NaClO4 aerosols, the formation of contact ion pairs (CIPs) could be observed without component decomposition for the nondegenerate nu1 band of ClO4-, and the degenerate nu3 band of ClO4- was successfully related to the formation of CIPs in NaClO4 solutions. Based on these observations, a new mechanism featured by the attack of ClO4- upon hydrated Na+ for CIPs formation in the supersaturated solutions of NaClO4 aerosols was further proposed. The anhydrous NaClO4, characterized by the upper limit deliquescence relative humidity (DRH) of approximately 43% and the disappearance of the nu1 band of ClO4- in the infrared spectra, was observed to form on the silicon windows at low RHs.

Fermi resonance and conformation in glycolaldehyde particles

The infrared spectra of gas-phase glycolaldehyde and small glycolaldehyde particles both exhibit a split carbonyl band around 1730 cm–1. Ab initio calculations show that this splitting can be traced back to a Fermi resonance involving the C=O-stretching band and the first overtone of the C–C-stretching band. The analysis of this resonance leads to detailed information about the conformation of glycolaldehyde in the particles. The results can be summarized as follows. (i) In the particles, monomers with OCCO dihedral angles of 0° and CCOH dihedral angles around 50° are strongly preferred. (ii) The intramolecular hydrogen bond observed in the gas phase is partly replaced by intermolecular hydrogen bonds. (iii) The calculated infrared spectrum and the results from the Fermi resonance analysis are in good agreement with the formation of long chains of monomeric glycolaldehyde. This is in contrast to the solid bulk, which consists of chemically bound dimers. Key words: Fermi resonance, conformation, glycolaldehyde particles, hydroxyacetone particles, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.