In this study we present the synthesis of erbium, ytterbium and erbium-ytterbium nanoparticles supported on multiwalled carbon nanotubes by a microwave-assisted method as well as the evaluation of their luminescent properties. In the case of erbium, nanoparticles of ~1 nm homogeneously dispersed on the carbon nanotubes were obtained. In the case of ytterbium, the carbon nanotubes were partially coated with this metal. Clusters of erbium-ytterbium nanoparticles were obtained in the co-deposition of both metals. The erbium-ytterbium/carbon nanotube composite showed both down- and up-conversion luminescence. For the down-conversion process, strong emission signals at 523, 530 and 563 nm as well as a weak signal at 612 nm under 488 nm excitation are observed. For the up-conversion process, the composite showed emission signals centered at 528 and 660 nm under 980 nm excitation.

Bismuth titanate syntheses using wet chemical methods are comparatively time-consuming and require long durations for completion using the well-studied sol-gel method. In this work, we use microwave initiated combustion method to produce ultra-thin bismuth titanate nanosheets. This method reduces the time required for the synthesis down to minutes, when compared to hours or days in most other methods. The thickness of the synthesized sheets were tuned by adding polyethylene glycol as a capping agent, which in turn affects the band gap and subsequently, their photocatalytic properties. The samples were characterized using x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and absorption spectrophotometry. Photocatalytic effect of the synthesized bismuth titanate nanosheets on methylene blue dye also studied and variation of band gap depending on thickness of the nanosheets were observed.

Therapeutic nucleic acids provide versatile treatment options for hereditary or acquired diseases. Ionic complexes with basic polymers are frequently used to facilitate nucleic acid’s transport to intracellular target sites. Usually, these polyplexes are prepared manually by mixing two components: polyanionic nucleic acids and polycations. However, parameters such as internal structure, size, polydispersity and surface charge of the complexes sensitively affect pharmaceutical efficiency. Hence a controlled assembly is of paramount importance in order to ensure high product quality. In the current study, we present a microfluidic platform for controlled, sequential formulation of polyplexes. We use oligo-amidoamines (termed “oligomers”) with precise molecular weight and defined structure due to their solid phase supported synthesis. The assembly of the polyplexes was performed in a microfluidic chip in two steps employing a design of two successive Y junctions: first, siRNA and core oligomers were assembled into core polyplexes. These core oligomers possess compacting, stabilizing, and endosomal escape mediating motifs. Second, new functional motifs were mixed to the core particles and integrated into the core polyplex. The iterative assembly formed multi-component polyplexes in a highly controlled manner and enabled us to investigate structure-function relationships. We chose nanoparticle shielding polyethylene glycol (PEG) and cell targeting folic acid (termed “PEG-ligands”) as functional components. The PEG-ligands were coupled to lipid anchor oligomers via strain promoted azide—alkyne click chemistry. The lipid anchors feature four cholanic acids for inserting various PEG-ligands into the core polyplex by non-covalent hydrophobic interactions. These core—lipid anchor—PEG-ligand polyplexes containing folate as cell binding ligand were used to determine the optimal PEG-ligand length for transfecting folate receptor-expressing KB cells in vitro. We found that polyplexes with 20 mol % PEG-ligands (relative to ncore oligomer) showed optimal siRNA mediated gene knock-down when containing defined PEG domains of in sum 24 and 36 ethylene oxide repetitions, 12 EOs each from the lipid anchor and 12 or 24 EOs from the PEG-ligand, respectively. These results confirm that transfection efficiency depends on the linker length and stoichiometry and are consistent with previous findings using core—PEG-ligand polyplexes formed by click modification of azide-containing core polyplexes with aforementioned PEG-ligands. Hence, successive microfluidic assembly might be a potentially powerful route to create defined multi-component polyplexes with reduced batch-to-batch variability.