Smart, fully orthogonal switching was realized in a diblock copolymer system with variable trigger-induced aqueous self-assembly. The polymers are composed of nonionic and zwitterionic blocks featuring lower and upper critical solution temperatures (LCSTs and UCSTs). In the system investigated, diblock copolymers from poly(N-isopropyl methacrylamide) (PNIPMAM) and a poly(sulfobetaine...
The combination of incoherent neutron scattering (INS) and selective deuterium labelling is a powerful tool that puts the focus either on protein or on water motions on the ns-ps time scale and allows their dynamic coupling to be studied (Schiro et al. (2015) Nat Com 6, 6490). We have started focusing on the hydration-water dynamics of those proteins that can form the pathological fibers...
We recently showed how stealth detergents, which are detergents where the H/D balance are head and tail groups are individually tuned to make them invisible to neutrons, could be synthesized and generally applied as a method for determining structures of membrane proteins in solution via small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) (1). With these stealth detergents, only the signal from the membrane...
Operando SANS experiments of reverse osmosis (RO) desalination gaining potable water from sea and wastewater have been realized by us. Two cells are designed for pressure up to 50 bars and a tangential cross-flow of the feed up to 36 L/h. One cell is equipped with a membrane whereas the other cell is not (EC, empty cell) to measure the feed solution alone. Basically, we will present fouling...
Thermo-responsive polymers respond to small changes in temperature with a drastic change in their conformation, which makes them promising candidates for manifold application fields. While the underlying mechanisms of such polymers in solution are well understood, less is known about thermo-responsive polymers in thin film morphology. In our recent work, we follow the phase transition kinetics...
This paper reports the series of developments and investigations on in situ coupling of rheology with very small-angle neutron scattering (rheo-VSANS) measurements of polydisperse colloidal particle suspensions. This coupling allows us to directly correlate microscopic particle-particle interaction with macroscopic suspension behavior under different physical and chemical environments. In this...
Stimuli-responsive polymers are of interest for applications in drug delivery or tissue engineering. Telechelic block copolymers, where a pH-responsive midblock is end-capped by thermo-responsive end blocks, have great potential due to their ability to form highly tunable micelles or hydrogels.
In the present work, micelles formed by the telechelic pentablock quaterpolymer...
The interplay between protein dynamics and catalysis remains a fundamental question in enzymology. Here, we investigate the ns-timescale dynamics (1) and solution structures (2) of a light-dependent NADPH: protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase (LPOR), a photoenzyme crucial for chlorophyll synthesis. Due to the lack of an LPOR structure, the global structural and dynamic consequences of...
