THE FABRICATION OF CARBON AEROGELS BY GELATION IN ISOPROPANOL WITH BASIC CATALYST

A new method for the fabrication of carbon aerogels is reported in this paper. Resorcinol and furfural were gelated in isopropanol with basic catalysts and then dried directly under isopropanol supercritical condition, followed by carbonization under nitrogen atmosphere. The bulk densities of carbon aerogels obtained are in the range of 0.21g/cm3~0.27g/cm3 and the sizes of the interconnected carbon nano-particles are in the range of 20nm^30nm. All of the aerogel samples exhibit high BET surface areas in the range of 730m2/g^900m2/g. The bulk density, micro-pore volume, meso-pore volume and meso-pore diameter can be controlled by gelation conditions such as R/I ratio and R/C ratio.

Tuning hybrid liquid/solid electrolytes by lowering Li salt concentration for lithium batteries

Hybrid liquid/solid electrolytes（HLSEs） consisting of conventional organic liquid electrolyte（LE）, polyacrylonitrile（PAN）, and ceramic lithium ion conductor Li（1.5）Al（0.5）Ge（1.5）（PO4）3（LAGP） are proposed and investigated. The HLSE has a high ionic conductivity of over 2.25 × 10^（-3） S/cm at 25？C, and an extended electrochemical window of up to 4.8 V versus Li/Li＋. The Li｜HLSE｜Li symmetric cells and Li｜HLSE｜Li FePO4 cells exhibit small interfacial area specific resistances（ASRs） comparable to that of LE while much smaller than that of ceramic LAGP electrolyte, and excellent performance at room temperature. Bis（trifluoromethane sulfonimide） salt in HLSE significantly affects the properties and electrochemical behaviors. Side reactions can be effectively suppressed by lowering the concentration of Li salt. It is a feasible strategy for pursuing the high energy density batteries with higher safety.

Self-assembly and drug delivery behaviors of a novel thermo-sensitive block glycopolymer

A novel thermo-sensitive block glycopolymer based on peracetylated maltoheptaose (AcMH) and poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEtOz) was synthesized for the first time and characterized by hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy and gel permeation chromatograph (GPC) analyses. To obtain such a block polymer, the dihydroxyl poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) homopolymer (OH-PEtOz-OH) was first synthesized by cationic ring-opening polymerization of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (EtOz), and then coupled with the peracetylated maltoheptaose having a free hydroxyl group at the reducing end (AcMH-OH) prepared from β-cyclodextrin. It was found that the obtained block polymer could self-assemble into nanosize spherical micelles with a distinct core-shell structure in aqueous solution triggered by its amphiphilic character without any organic solvent. The model drug indomethacin (IND) was efficiently loaded into the resultant polymeric micelles, which was confirmed by 1H NMR spectra, transmission electron microscope (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. The release behavior of IND loaded micelles was well in response to the environmental temperature change. It is suggested that the resulting micelles might be a potential targeted carrier for drug delivery.

Antibacterial Activity of Polymeric Quaternary Ammonium Compounds Tuned by Incorporating Hydrophilic co-Monomer

Copolymers of quaternary ammonium monomer（QAM） and hydrophilic co-monomer were successfully synthesized by free radical polymerization. It was discovered that the hydrophilic co-monomers with poor antibac- terial activity significantly enhanced the activity of QAM substituted with a long alkyl chain[i.e., N,N-dimethyl-N-dodecyl methacrylate ammonium bromide（DMAEMA-DB）]. When a suitable molar ratio of DMAEMA-DB to co-monomer was selected, the activity of the copolymers was up to 123 times that of the homopolymer of DMAEMA-DB against S. aureus, and 282 times that of it against E. colt. But unlike DMAEMA-DB, the co-monomers might weaken the activity of QAM substituted with a short alkyl chain[i.e., N,N-dimethyl-N-butyl methacrylate ammonium bromide（DMAEMA-BB）]. Moreover, it was found that copolymers of DMAEMA-DB were much more biocidal than those of DMAEMA-BB. Therefore, it could be speculated that the long alkyl chain plays an important role in the antibacterial activity, and that the hydrophilie co-monomers are beneficial to polymeric guaternary ammonium compounds（PQACs） to exert the positive effect of the long alkyl chain to the greatest degree.