Engineering Commons^™

Fluidization Characteristics Of Group C+ Particles: Fine Powder With Nanoparticle Modulation, Yandaizi Zhou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Geldart Group C particles become increasingly attractive in industry because of their small particle sizes and large specific surface areas. The main challenge in the flow and fluidization of Geldart Group C particles is their cohesive nature due to strong interparticle forces. The “nanoparticle modulation” technique was adopted to reduce the interparticle forces of Group C particles and thus significantly improved their flow and fluidization quality. Group C⁺ particles, a new type of fine particles with drastically reduced or insignificant interparticle forces, were created using the nano-modulation technique.

Fundamental studies provided a comprehensive understanding of the fluidization quality of …

A Ph-Sensitive Delivery System For The Prevention Of Dental Caries Using Salivary Proteins, Yi Zhu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dental caries remains one of the most common chronic diseases worldwide. Salivary proteins such as histatins have demonstrated biological functions directly related to tooth homeostasis and prevention of dental caries. However, histatins are susceptible to the high proteolytic activities in the oral environment. Therefore, pH-sensitive chitosan nanoparticles (CNs) have been proposed as potential carriers to target major oral diseases that occur under acidic conditions (e.g. dental caries and dental erosion). Four different types of chitosan polymers were investigated and the optimized CNs successfully loaded histatin 3 and released it selectively under acidic conditions. Through loading the survival time of histatin …

Ginseng Polysaccharides Nanoparticles - Synthesis, Characterization, And Biological Activity, Kazi Farida Akhter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

North American (NA) ginseng is a widely used medicinal plant. Polysaccharides (PS), the major medicinal fractions derived from NA ginseng root, have been shown several biological activities including anti-carcinogenic, anti-aging, immunostimulatory and antioxidant activity. This work focused on nanoprocessing of ginseng PS for enhancing their immunostimulation. Herein, we have developed a novel microfluidic approach to synthesize ginseng PS nanoparticles (NPs) from NA ginseng root. The microfluidics was found to provide unimodal PS spheres down to 20 nm with very narrow particle size distributions. In addition, the immunostimulating effect was investigated on Murine macrophage cell lines, with the results revealing an …

Poly(Ester Amide) And Poly(Ethyl Glyoxylate) Nanoparticles For Controlled Drug Release, Amira Mohamed Moustafa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The objective of this research was to develop polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) having improved drug release properties for drug delivery. Poly(ester amide)s (PEAs) are promising biodegradable polymers. PEA NPs were prepared via emulsification-evaporation and salting-out methods and optimized through by varying different processing parameters. Polymer-model drug conjugates based on PEAs containing L-aspartic acid and rhodamine B were synthesized and used for NP preparation. Release behavior was studied and compared to a control system with physically encapsulated rhodamine B. It was shown that the release of rhodamine B from the covalent system did not show the burst effect and exhibited a slower …

Surface Functionalization And Bioconjugation Of Nanoparticles For Biomedical Applications, Longyan Chen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Colloidal inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) have been attracting considerable interest in biomedicine, from drug and gene delivery to imaging, sensing and diagnostics. It is essential to modify the surface of nanoparticles to have enhanced biocompatibility and functionality for the in vitro and in vivo applications, especially in delivering locally and recognizing biomolecules. Herein, the goal of this research work is to develop advanced NPs with well-tailored surface functionalities and/or bio-functionality for the applications in cell tracking and analytes detection.

In the first project, quantum dots incorporating with gelatin nanoparticles (QDs-GNPs) have been developed for bioimaging applications. Two different approaches have been …

Nano Tio2/Graphene Composites For Photovoltaic And Photocatalytic Materials, Nasrin Farhangi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Graphene has been recognized as one of the most exciting carbon based materials of the present decade due to its unique electronic, mechanical and thermal properties. High surface area exfoliated graphene sheets with controllable surface functionality is an attractive two-dimensional surface for attaching different metals and semiconductors for improving the performance of catalysts, sensors, photoelectronic and energy conversion devices. Graphene is an ideal material which can be used for improving various metal oxide properties such as those of titania (TiO₂). TiO₂/graphene composites have shown excellent properties compared to bare TiO₂ in various applications. In high …