The formation and growth of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were investigated in pH 7 buffer solution of bovine serum albumin (BSA) at room temperature. The processes were monitored by UV-Vis, circular dichroism, Raman and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopies. TEM microscopy and dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements were used to evidence changes in particle size during nanoparticle formation and growth. The formation of AuNPs at pH 7 in the absence of BSA was not observed, which proves that the albumin is involved in the first step of Au(III) reduction. Changes in the EPR spectral features of two spin probes, CAT16 and DIS3, with affinity for BSA and AuNPs, respectively, allowed us to monitor the particle growth and to demonstrate the protective role of BSA for AuNPs. The size of AuNPs formed in BSA solution increases slowly with time, resulting in nanoparticles of different morphologies, as revealed by TEM. Raman spectra of BSA indicate the interaction of albumin with AuNPs through sulfur-containing amino acid residues. This study shows that albumins act as both reducing agents and protective corona of AuNPs.

We present computational analyses, methodological advances, and heuristic conclusions applied on a series of polyaromatic systems condensed in the shape of regular triangles, carrying spin, because of topological reasons. A new clue about the classification of title systems in three equivalency classes is presented. A conjugated hydrocarbon having n-hexagonal rings at one edge, carrying n − 1 unpaired electrons, will be called n-triangulene in the generalization of the experimentally known structures with n = 2 (phenalenyl) and n = 3 (triangulene). To be distinguished from most of the previous computational approaches, done by density functional theory, we challenged the problem in the key of valence bond (VB) paradigm in both ab initio and phenomenological manners. The Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian was used to simulate the computed spectrum of VB states for the phenalenyl radical (n = 2), predicting with the fitted parameters the effective VB description of n = 3 triangulene and other related systems. The outcome has practical importance in the prospects of spin chemistry because the VB ab initio calculations are prohibitive beyond the n = 2 case. The results are made transparent to the chemical intuition using the language of resonance structures.

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Nitroxide-based radicals, having the advantage of firm chemical stability, are usable as probes in the detection of nanoscale details in the chemical environment of various multi-component systems, based on subtle variations in their electron paramagnetic resonance spectra. We propose a systematic walk through the vast area of problems and inquires that are implied by the rationalization of solvent effects on the spectral parameters, by first-principle methods of structural chemistry. Our approach consists of using state-of-the-art procedures, like Density Functional Theory (DFT), on properly designed systems, kept at the border of idealization and chemical realism. Thus, we investigate the case of real solvent molecules intervening in different configurations between two radical molecules, in comparison with radicals taken in vacuum or having the solvent that is treated by surrogate models, such as polarization continuum approximation. In this work, we selected the dichloromethane as solvent and the prototype radicals abbreviated TEMPO ((2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl) oxyl). In another branch of the work, we check the interaction of radicals with large toroidal molecules, β-cyclodextrin, and cucurbit[6]uril, modeling the interaction energy profile at encapsulation. The drawn synoptic view offers valuable rationales for understanding spectroscopy and energetics of nitroxide radicals in various environments, which are specific to soft chemistry.

Deriving a practical formula for the atomic body with generalized shell occupations, we perform a detective analysis of the radial distribution in the exchange energy, hinting at ideas about new types of density functionals, dedicated to the specifics of the electronic structure of atoms, exploiting the intrinsic spherical symmetry.

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