Each month, the ISGS Newsletter features an interesting and striking micrograph (or series of micrographs) chosen from a recent issue of the Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology or from unpublished sources such as PhD theses, etc (with full attribution given). If you know of any interesting images that might be suitable, please contact the ISGS Newsletter Editor for inclusion. The micrographs can be optical, SEM, TEM, AFM, etc, and a brief description of the samples should be provided.
This month’s images were again taken from two different papers in the latest issue of JSST and have been chosen to highlight the breadth of sol-gel science and technology, together with the areas in which our community is making an impact.
The first is taken from the work of Ahemad and Yu entitled “Investigating the Mechanism of Uniform Ag@SiO2 Core-Shell Nanostructures Synthesis by a One-Pot Sol-Gel Method” (JSST, https://doiorg.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1007/s10971-020-05392-y) and investigates the effect of processing parameters on the nanoparticles obtained. Such core-shell nanoparticles have a wide variety of potential applications in such diverse fields as sensing, SERS substrates, biomedicine, etc. The top row of micrographs illustrate the range of different nanoparticles that can be obtained, while the bottom row provides an elemental analysis of an individual Ag@SiO 2 nanoparticle.
The second series of micrographs is from the work of Bajpai, Mili, Hashmi, Srivastava, Tilwari, Mohapatra and Verma entitled “Synthesis and Characterization of Advanced Hybrid Titanium Compounds/F-MWCNTs Nanocomposites and their Antibacterial Activities” (JSST, 96(1), 153-165 (2020)). This paper investigates the antibacterial activity of hybrid systems in which titania-based materials are conformally impregnated on carbon nanotubes. The micrographs illustrate hybrids prepared from titania nanoparticles (left) and nanoflowers (bellow).
