With regard to the increasing need for sustainable energy, developing strategies to exploit solar energy become more and more important. Inspired by natural systems it is highly promising to self-assemble building blocks into functional supramolecular units.
Electrostatic self-assembly leads to nanoscale shapes ranging from spheres and cylinders over vesicles to networks. Key to a targeted...
Adding nanoparticles (NPs) to polymer solution or melt is an efficient strategy to improve the macroscopic polymer behavior (viscosity, mechanical reinforcement…) and design hybrid macromolecular materials with enhanced properties. Among the vast literature dealing with NPs and polymer, one fundamental question arises: do NPs modify the global and local polymer chain conformation? Such issue...
Wood is an abundant biological material with various technical applications ranging from sustainable building materials to advanced functional materials made of nanocelluloses. The structure of wood cell walls is hierarchical, consisting of well-oriented, elongated units from the molecular level to the macroscale. Our picture of the complex composite-like structure of wood cell walls and its...
Whoever tried to prepare homemade mayonnaise, knows how much energy input the formation of water/oil emulsions require. In addition to that, in order to provide stability to the emulsion, the presence of components which stabilize the system are required. This role is played by some of proteins and the lecithin contained in the egg yolk, for the case of mayonnaise. In most of other
emulsions,...
Surfactant self-assembly is an important phenomenon in a wide range of processes and applications. SANS has played a central and key role in developing our understanding of surfactant self-assembly. From the early 1980’s D11 has been the leading and pioneering SANS instrument for such studies. Three key issues from some the early studies on D11, associated with micelle models, the...
