Advances In Metal Research Articles

Protein and peptide biotemplated metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and their patterning onto surfaces

Metal and metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have many uses, and the size, shape and purity of the NPs must be uniform to ensure that the particles function in a known and consistent manner. The synthesis of uniform NPs usually requires high temperatures, high pressures, and harsh chemical reagents, which is both economically and environmentally costly. In nature, biomineralisation is used to produce precise, pure NPs, using far milder reaction conditions and reagents. Recently, a bioinspired approach has been adopted to produce NPs using proteins and peptides that: occur in nature; are artificially selected from a random peptide library by biopanning; or are rationally designed to control NP formation under mild conditions. Here we highlight the recent advances in metal and metal oxide NP binding and synthesis using proteins and peptides. We then investigate bioinspired patterning of NPs onto surfaces. This is done to demonstrate the possible avenues available to develop environmentally friendly, biotemplated devices and nanotechnologies in the future.

Synthesis and characterization of metal-incorporated aniline formaldehyde resin modified by amino acid for antimicrobial applications

Advances in metal incorporated resins are now an active field of research. To develop resin having better antimicrobial and thermal activity, a series of metal-chelated resins have been synthesized by the condensation of (4-aminobenzene-1,3-diyl)dimethanol with 2,6-diaminohexanoic acid in alkaline medium and then this polymeric ligand further reacts with transition metal ions forming various coordination polymers. (4-Aminobenzene-1,3-diyl)dimethanol was initially prepared by the reaction of aniline and formaldehyde in 1 : 2 molar ratio in alkaline medium. The analytical data reveal that the polymer metal complexes of Mn(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) are coordinated with two water molecules, which are further supported by FTIR spectra and TGA data. Comparative analyses of the polymer metal complexes in thermal curves show better thermal stability than the polymeric ligand. Since these resins are relatively stable at high temperatures, they can be used for medical and biomaterial applications requiring thermal sterilization, solvent-resist coating materials because of their insoluble nature, and antifouling coating materials owing to antimicrobial activity in fields such as life-saving medical devices and the bottoms of ships.

Recent advances of metal–nucleophilic carbene complexes in catalysis

The field of nucleophilic carbenoid ligands in organometallic catalysis is continuously expanding with new chemical transformations and improved catalytic systems. This review highlights just few developments of the last year. Out of several hundred scientific papers that covered the subject last year, the authors limit themselves to the reports that present direct catalytic results and, at some extent, interesting stoichiometric reactions or mechanistic aspects with obvious applicability in catalysis.

Plasmonics is Now Indexed on Thompson’s ISI Database

I have been most pleased with the growth of Plasmonics since its launch in 2006. Since its launch, the journal has seen many papers being submitted for publication consideration, editorials published as well as communityrelated advertisements, and the like. Plasmonics has also seen several themed special issues, notably the September and December 2007 issues, “Advances in Metal–Molecular Interactions” and “Plasmonic DNA technology”, respectively. As we enter 2008, I bring further good news and am happy to report that Plasmonics is now indexed on Thompson’s ISI Web-of-Science database. As one of the dominant search engines used by scientists today, the indexing of Plasmonics on ISI is likely to further fuel the growth of Plasmonics, making Plasmonics’ articles readily searchable. At this time, I would like to thank my assistants, regional editors, and editorial board for their hard work and effort with the journal, and to our readers and contributors, for continually supporting Plasmonics. On behalf of the Journal, my staff, and myself, I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2008. Many thanks. Kind regards, Dr. Chris D. Geddes Professor December 30th 2007 Plasmonics (2008) 3:1 DOI 10.1007/s11468-008-9053-3

Plasmonics Special Issue—Advances in Metal–Molecular Interactions

Plasmonics Special Issue—Advances in Metal–Molecular Interactions

How to keep new hex-chrome PEL from grounding your aerospace business: An overview of methods for minimizing overspray from chromate-containing coatings in the work area

This chapter discusses recent advances in metal and ceramic matrix composites, and their applications in aerospace engineering. The types of fibre, matrix, processing as well as joining and repair techniques are discussed, as well as properties, modelling and applications.

Electrical Studies of Semiconductor-Nanocrystal Colloids

The study of nanometer-sized semiconductor crystals has been advancing at a rapid pace. Much of the interest in these materials stems from the fact that their physical and chemical properties can be systematically tuned by variation of the size, according to increasingly well-established scaling laws. This article describes colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals belonging to the II-VI and III-V families, and outlines strategies for obtaining electrical access to such dots.If an inorganic cluster exceeds a certain size—generally in the 10s of unit cells—then it will likely possess a bonding geometry characteristic of a bulk phase. Above this critical size, the nature of the chemical bonds in the cluster remains fixed as a function of the size, but the total number of atoms—or the surface to volume ratio—changes smoothly. This leads to a slow extrapolation of the properties for ideal nanocrystals toward bulk values with increasing size, according to the scaling laws. The ability to control systematically the properties of inorganic materials by variation of size and shape is an important development with many implications for how materials should be processed and assembled.Many scaling laws have been investigated, including the size variation of bandgap, charging energy, magnetization reversal, and melting. Study of the scaling laws reveals lessons for how to make nanocrystals. This article focuses on the properties of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, how to make them, and ways of gaining electrical access to them. Advances in metal, magnetic, and structural nanomaterials are also occurring. Semiconductor dots produced by other processing techniques in the articles by Bimberg, Gammon, and Tarucha in this issue.

Advances in metal forming processes

In order to remaincompetitive with other manufacturing processes, metal forming processes are being improved by using computer-aided techniques and by developing novel tooling designs to increase part complexity and precision. In addition to the application of CAD/CAM, which is fairly common in industry, expert systems and metal flow simulation techniques are being developed and introduced to practice. This paper describes some of the advances achieved in metal forming research and gives practical examples of computer simulations in forging.