Silicon diatom frustules as nanostructured photoelectrodes

Chandrasekaran, Soundarrajan; Sweetman, Martin J.; Kant, Kamal; Skinner, William; Lošić, Dušan; Nann, Thomas; Voelcker, Nicolas H.

doi:10.1039/c4cc04470c

Cited by 57 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…7). As expected, Si signals around 1.75 keV were obtained from control areas with frustule material below the capsules (Guerra et al, 2013;Chandrasekaran et al, 2014). Si signals were 2.5 to 12 times stronger from such control areas then from capsule material only.…”

Section: Capsule Materials Does Not Contain Silicasupporting

confidence: 50%

Capsules of the diatom Achnanthidium minutissimum arise from fibrillar precursors and foster attachment of bacteria

Leinweber

Kroth

2014

Preprint

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Achnanthidium minutissimum is a benthic diatom that may form biofilms on submerged, aquatic surfaces. Within these biofilms, A. minutissimum cells produce extracellular structures which facilitate substrate adhesion, such as stalks and capsules. Both consist of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), but the microstructure and development stages of the capsules are so far unknown, despite a number of hypotheses about their function, inlcuding attachment and protection. We coupled scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to bright-field microscopy (BFM) and found that A. minutissimum capsules mostly possess an unstructured surface. However, capsule material that was mechanically stressed by being

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Section: Capsule Materials Does Not Contain Silicasupporting

confidence: 50%

Capsules of the diatom Achnanthidium minutissimum arise from fibrillar precursors and foster attachment of bacteria

Leinweber

Kroth

2014

Preprint

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“…Their structure is confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy (Figure b, and Scheme S1 in the Supporting Information) showing the typical shape of a single intact diatom structure with its porous hollow pills‐box like structure. Their size was measured to be 6–15 μm in length and 1–2 μm in diameters, which is in good agreement with our previous studies . After crushing by ball milling these whole silica microcapsules were transformed into micro‐ to nanosized particles which is confirmed by SEM imaging and shown in Figure c.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From The Mine to Cancer Therapy: Natural and Biodegradable Theranostic Silicon Nanocarriers from Diatoms for Sustained Delivery of Chemotherapeutics

Maher

Kumeria

Wang

et al. 2016

Adv Healthcare Materials

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Drug delivery using synthetic nanoparticles including porous silicon has been extensively used to overcome the limitations of chemotherapy. However, their synthesis has many challenges such as lack of scalability, high cost, and the use of toxic materials with concerning environmental impact. Nanoscale materials obtained from natural resources are an attractive option to address some of these disadvantages. In this paper, a new mesoporous biodegradable silicon nanoparticle (SiNP) drug carrier obtained from natural diatom silica mineral available from the mining industry is presented. Diatom silica structures are mechanically fragmented and converted into SiNPs by simple and scalable magnesiothermic reduction process. Results show that SiNPs have many desirable properties including high surface area, high drug loading capacity, strong luminescence, biodegradability, and no cytotoxicity. The in-vitro release results from SiNPs loaded with anticancer drugs (doxorubicin) demonstrate a pH-dependent and sustained drug release with enhanced cytotoxicity against cancer cells. The cells study using doxorubicin loaded SiNPs shows a significantly enhanced cytotoxicity against cancer cells compared with free drug, suggesting their considerable potential as theranostic nanocarriers for chemotherapy. Their low-cost manufacturing using abundant natural materials and outstanding chemotherapeutic performance has made them as a promising alternative to synthetic nanoparticles for drug delivery applications.

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“…Finally, comparative FTIR spectra (Figure S5, Supporting Information) obtained from initial diatom and their silicon replicas confirmed the successful reduction process. Figure S4a (Supporting Information) shows silica diatom spectrum with a strong peak around 1100 cm −1 corresponding to stretching mode of SiOSi of diatom silica precursor, whereas Figure S4b (Supporting Information) displays vibrations around 2200 cm −1 , which is associated with SiH stretching in the case of silicon diatom replicas …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Luminescent Silicon Diatom Replicas: Self‐Reporting and Degradable Drug Carriers with Biologically Derived Shape for Sustained Delivery of Therapeutics

Maher

Alsawat

Kumeria

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

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Current development of drug microcarriers is mainly based on spherical shapes, which are not biologically favorable geometries for complex interactions with biological systems. Scalable synthesis of drug carriers with nonspherical and anisotropic shapes featuring sustained drug‐releasing performances, biocompatibility, degradability, and sensing capabilities is challenging. These challenges are addressed in this work by employing Nature's optimized designs obtained from low‐cost diatomaceous earth mineral derived from single‐cell algae diatoms. Silica diatoms with unique shapes and 3D microcapsule morphology are converted into silicon diatom replicas with identical structure by a magnesiothermic reduction process. The results reveal that prepared silicon diatoms have a set of unique properties including favorable microcapsule structure with high surface area and micro/mesoporosity providing high drug loading, fast biodegradability, and intrinsic luminescence, which make them highly suitable for low‐cost production of advanced drug microcarriers. Their sustained drug release >30 days combined with self‐reporting function based on silicon luminescence properties using nonluminescent and luminescent drugs for intravitreal drug therapy is successfully demonstrated. These silicon diatoms offer promising potential toward scalable production of low‐cost and advanced microcarriers for broad medical therapies, including theranostics and microrobotic guided drug delivery devices.

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Silicon diatom frustules as nanostructured photoelectrodes

Cited by 57 publications

References 33 publications

Capsules of the diatom Achnanthidium minutissimum arise from fibrillar precursors and foster attachment of bacteria

Capsules of the diatom Achnanthidium minutissimum arise from fibrillar precursors and foster attachment of bacteria

From The Mine to Cancer Therapy: Natural and Biodegradable Theranostic Silicon Nanocarriers from Diatoms for Sustained Delivery of Chemotherapeutics

Luminescent Silicon Diatom Replicas: Self‐Reporting and Degradable Drug Carriers with Biologically Derived Shape for Sustained Delivery of Therapeutics

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