5^th International Conference on Nanotek & Expo November 16-18, 2015 San Antonio, USA

Aruna Sharma, MD is currently Secretary of Research International Experimental Central Nervous System (CNS) Injury & Repair (IECNSIR) at Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala University, Sweden. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in 1971 and Medicine degree in 1977.Dr Sharma engaged in medical research from 1978 to 1986 in India on University Grants Commission and Indian Council of Medical Research Programs. She is expert Neuropathologist (Free University Berlin, Germany 1989-1991; Neuropathology Institute Uppsala 1992-1995) and the Lead Investigator in Several International Research Projects in association with US Govt, Indian Govt, and EU Program on Nanomedicine with regards to CNS Function, toxicology, neurorepair and neuroprotection including Ayurvedic traditional drugs containing metal oxide and/or ashes. Dr Sharma is member of several Distinguished American Organizations and elected to receive the prestigious award “Women of the Years Representing Sweden Award 2009” for her outstanding contributions towards society by American Biographical Research Institute, USA; and “Best Professional Business Women Award 2010” For Setting Standard to Motivate, Excel and Inspire Others, Raleigh,North Carolina, USA. She has published over 60 original research papers in Reputed Neuroscience Journals and is currently Acquisition Editor of American Journal of Neuroproetction and Neuroregenartion.

Concussive head injury (CHI) is quite frequent in military personnel during combat operation. CHI induced breakdown of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) causing brains to be more vulnerable to peripheral toxins and other adverse reactions. Thus, this is likely that CHI may induce brain damage leading to enhanced reaction with additional amyloid beta peptide (AβP) exposure causing adverse Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. This hypothesis was tested in this investigation. AD like pathology was induced by AβP infusion (50 ng/10 µl, i.c.v. daily for 4 weeks) in control and CHI rats. CHI was inflicted by an impact injury (0.224 N) on the right skull without fracture to simulate clinical conditions. We found that ABP infusion in CHI cases results in 8 to 12 fold higher deposition of ABP in various brain areas and accumulation of tau proteins. A significantly higher increase in CSF tau proteins was also seen in CHI group than normal rats induced with identical AβP. In these groups of animals BBB and blood-CSF barrier (BCSFB) was also broken down for Evans Blue albumin. Brain edema, neuronal injuries, activation of astrocytes closely corresponds to the tau protein concentrations in the brain. Interestingly TiO2 nano-wired delivery of cerebrolysin, a balanced composition of neurotrophic factors and peptide fragment (2.5 ml/kg, i.v. daily for 3 weeks after 1 week of AβP infusion), resulted in marked neuro-protection in CHI induced exacerbation of AD pathology. This indicates that CHI aggravates AD pathology and nano-wired cerebrolysin has a therapeutic value, not reported earlier.

This paper presents a novel infrared fractal nano-structure with a localized enhanced field with multiband resonant frequencies. Based on complementary fractal geometry, these structures offer two important characteristics, multiband functionality and a sub wavelength effect. The electric field, power flow, and the field intensity distributions are given to indicate the internal mechanism of the localized enhanced field in the fractal nano-structure. It is shown that a strongly enhanced localized field is achieved in the fractal nano-structure at many different resonance frequencies. The multiband property and high localized intensity offered by the fractal nano-structure give a great potential to the surface plasmon applications

The plasmonic nanostructures are widely used to design sensors with improved capabilities. The position of the localized surface plasmon (SP) resonance (LSPR) is a part of their characteristics and deserves to be specifically studied, according to its importance in sensor tuning, especially for spectroscopic applications. In the visible and infra-red domain, the LSPR of an array of nano-gold spherical is considered as a function of the diameter, and the thickness of substrate layer. In this paper, the new shapes of quantum dot arrays are used to enhance the photo physical properties of gold nano-particles (NPs). A study of the effect of NP’s shape, arrays , and size on their absorption characteristics is presented.

Spider silk is one of the most extraordinary natural fibers which are assembled from one or more silk proteins each comprising multiple domains. Besides the outstanding mechanical properties, the silk is biodegradable and biocompatible. Nevertheless, spider silk is still not widely used by human in daily life or industry due to the difficulty in large scale farming posed by the territorial and cannibalistic behavior of spiders. In order to make use of “nature’s super fibers”, bio-mimetic production of spider silk is a good option. Recently, we have found that a single repetitive unit of a prey-wrapping silk protein can form silk-like fibers under shear force. Due to its small size, high expression level in E. coli and easy modification by incorporating functional groups, the repetitive unit is suitable to be fabricated into various biomaterials. Here, we present the production of silk-like fibers with protease activity. The repetitive unit fused to a protease still formed silk-like fibers in diameters of ~10μm under shear force. Further processing by sonication, fibers with diameters in the nanometer scale were generated. The fused protein with additives could be spun into nanofibers by electro-spinning. All the fibers were bioactive and could be reused for more than 20 times.

Shao-Chin Tseng has completed his PhD from Department of materials science and engineering, National Taiwan University. He is the Assistant Scientist of National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center. He studies on Nanotechnology, X-ray nano-probe, Optoelectronic Materials, Semiconductor Process, Biomedical Sensing. He has published more than 18 papers in reputed journals.

In this study, we describe a unique method for preparing “atomic-scale” Au nano-clusters for use as highly active catalysts to enhance atomic force microscope (AFM) local oxidation. Here we thermally deposited an Au film on a Si substrate and found that, during the deposition process, some Au atoms would migrate and intrude into the ultra-shallow junction beneath the surface of the Si substrate as a result of their residual thermal or kinetic energy. Thus, in our process, we kept the native oxide on the Si substrate and deposited the Au film onto it. Some of the deposited Au atoms migrated through the porous structure of the native oxide to reach within the Si lattice, thereby forming the atomic-scale catalyst. Because most of the Au atoms remained as a film on top of the native oxide layer, it was readily removed using adhesive Scotch tape, as a result of the weak bonding between the Au atoms and SiO2 units. This method can be compared with the earliest fabrication of graphene; because graphite features relatively weak Vander Waals bonding between the layers of its structure, graphene can be obtained by adhering tape onto graphite and then peeling away a monolayer having a graphene structure. Therefore, the new intruded nano-clusters conductive layer such as Au reduces the current decay that results from increasing oxide resistance. Detailed methods and analysis will be reported in the conference.

Soon Yee Liew received PhD in 2012 at University of Nottingham UK for his work in using cellulose nanocrystals as nanocomposite fillers for the fabrication of electronically conducting polymer nanocomposites. The resulting nanocomposites had very interesting properties and can be used to make high capacitance, and at the same time highly durable electrodes for use in super capacitors. He has considerable experience in nanocomposite characterisation and also electrochemical experiments. His postdoctoral work is to develop a pilot scale continuous process for the production of cellulose nanocrystals, as opposed to the widely practised batch process. In this work he thus also investigated how to continuously produce cellulose nanocrystals in the most effective way, both time and energy wise. For this he developed understanding in the field of physicochemical hydrodynamics, colloids and interfaces, and fluid mechanics.

As oppose to widely practised batch process of producing cellulose nanocrystals (CNXLs), a continuous flow process for the scalable production process is being developed. The aim is to produce up to 1 kg of CNXLs per day, compared to the current laboratory scale of 15 grams per batch. The continuous process consists of 3 major unit operations: CNXL extraction from cotton with 64 wt% sulphuric acid (reaction), acid-CNXL separation and thereafter CNXL purification, and acid recycling. The major difficulties of the scaling up process are attributed to the nature of CNXLs, due to their small sizes and whisker-like shape and also the high amount of acid used in the process. However, these challenges have overcome through careful application of process engineering principles together with the understanding of the underlying material physical and chemical properties. The motivation of this work is to prepare the right background that will enable the incorporation of these high performance renewable nanomaterials into consumer products. Its success will also accelerate and widen the research on these nanomaterials for the development of the next generation of advance materials.

Samson Akpotu is pursuing PhD from the School of Chemistry and Physics, Westville Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal. His current research is on the conversion of agrowaste to adsorbent and photocatalyst. He remediates organic pollutants with mesoporous silica, silica-graphene and silica-titania composite with the precursor for silica as agrowaste. He has 2 publications in reputable journals and has submitted 2 manuscripts. He is also a reviewer in Plos One.

In this study, 3 different types of mesoporous silica (MS) was synthesised from elephant grass via sol-gel technique, varying synthesis condition. This low cost, locally available highly efficient eco-friendly adsorbent was applied in adsorption of cationic dyes. Characterisation of the adsorbent was carried out using scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Brauner-Emmet-Teller analysis (BET), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared analysis (FTIR). The effect of surfactant concentration, ageing time and temperature on the morphology of MS was also investigated, yielding silica nanotubes (SNT) and silica nanoparticles (SNP). Methyl blue (MB) and methyl red (MR) adsorption studies were carried out on SNT and SNP, varying parameters such as initial dye concentration, pH, adsorbent dose, contact time and temperature. Adsorption process was affected by the molecular structures of different dyes and also the morphology of MS. Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubunin-Radushkevich models were used in analyzing equilibrium data. The adsorption of MB and MR on SNT were 40.6 mg/g and 109.97 mg/g, respectively. For SNP, MB and MR adsorption was 40.98 mg/g and 104.85 mg/g, respectively. The adsorption of MB and MR increased with increase in pH, with pH 10 being the optimal. The adsorption capacity of MB and MR for SNP and SNT kinetically favoured the pseudo-second-order model and 3 stage intraparticle diffusion models. Thermodynamic parameters were also evaluated on MB and MR adsorption into SNP and SNT, it was found to be spontaneous and exothermic. The results indicate that SNP and SNT could be considered as an effective adsorbent for dyes removal from wastewater.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been reported as both a useful and hazardous biomaterial. In the present study, we examined the relationship between MWCNTs and MC3T3-E1mouse preosteoblast cell line proliferation. MWCNTs were dispersedinthree separate dispersants: FBS, gelatin, and CMC. Cell viabilitywasthen measured under various culture conditions and cell morphology was analyzed.We observed proliferation inhibition under specific conditions only, such as when MC3T3-E1 not cultured incalcification medium wasexposed to MWCNTs dispersed ingelatin. However, MWCNTs dispersed in FBS or CMC did not adversely affect cell proliferation and was seen to significantly promote it under certain conditions. Furthermore, cell proliferation increased with all dispersants when the cells were cultured in calcification medium. Our results demonstratethat MWCNTs are generally of benefit as a biomaterial for bone substitution.