Self-assembly in complex liquids The research program has the general theme of studying self-assembly and nanostructure, on the supra-molecular level, in systems of interest in basic science and in technology. Much of the effort has been focused on self-assembly systems and complex liquids, because these fascinating systems play an important role in areas from physics and chemistry to biology and medicine. The approach in this work has been direct imaging of the nanostructures studied, and correlating the images obtained to results of indirect methods, to rule out experimental artifacts, and to obtain precise quantitative data. An important part of the work has been the understanding of nanostructure/system properties relations, and testing and developing theories that describe the thermodynamics of these systems. The major tool in our studies has been the electron microscope. A substantial part of our microscopy is done at cryogenic temperatures as this enables us to directly visualize complex liquids at their native state. We use light-microscopy and image analysis and reconstruction to augment TEM and SEM work. Small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) is also applied regularly in the work to obtain quantitative data, based on our electron micrographs. Among the systems we have studied lately are carbon and boron nitride nanotubes in super acids, blood extracellular vesicles, microemulsions, and the interaction between polyelectrolytes and oppositely charged amphiphiles.

Kaberov, L., Verbraeken, B., Ryabtseva, A., Brus, J., Talmon, Y., Stepanek, P., Hoogenboom, R., and Filippov, S., Fluorinated 2-alkyl-2-oxazolines of High Reactivity: Spacer-Length Induced Acceleration for Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization as Basis for Triphilic Block Copolymer Synthesis, Macro Lett. 7, 7-10 (2018).

Karayil, J., Talmon, Y., Hassanc, P.A., Tatad, B.V.R., and Sreejith, L., Tuning the Solubilization Behavior of CTAB/C9OH-C12OH Micellar System with Quaternary Ammonium Salts, Colloids and Polymer Sci. 296, 595–606 (2018).

Aharon, A., Rebibo-Sabbah, A., Issman, L., Berkovich, H., Stern, H., Abboud, Y., Talmon, Y., and Brenner, B., Effects of Low- and High-Dose Chemotherapy on Tumorigenic, Thrombogenic and Angiogenic Properties of Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Breast Cancer Cell Lines, Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis 18, 480-489 (2018).

Maillaud, L., Headrick, R., Jamali, V., Maillaud, J., Tsentalovich, D., Neri, W., Bengio, E.A., Mirri, F., Kleinerman, O., Talmon, Y., Poulin, P., and Pasquali, M., Highly Concentrated Aqueous Dispersions of Carbon Nanotubes for Flexible and Conductive Fibers, Ind. & Eng. Chem. Res. 57, 3554−3560 (2018).

Headrick, R.J., Tsentalovich, D.E., Berdegué, J., Bengio, E.A., Liberman, L. Kleinerman, O., Lucas, M.S., Talmon, Y., and Pasquali, M., Structure-Property Relations in Carbon Nanotube Fibers by Downscaling Solution Processing, Adv. Mat. 30, 1704482 (2018).

Bazylińska, U., Kulbacka, J., Schmidt, J., Talmon, Y., and Murgia, S., “Bioinspired Cubosomes for Simultaneous Bioimaging and Photodynamic Action of Photosensitizers in Melanoma Skin Cancer Cells”, J. Coll. Interface Sci. 522, 163-173 (2018).

Adnan, M., Marincel, D.M., Kleinerman, O., Chu, S.-H., Park, C., Hocker, S., Fay, C., Arepalli, S., Talmon, Y., and Pasquali, M., Extraction of Boron Nitride Nanotubes and Fabrication of Macroscopic Articles using Chlorosulfonic Acid, Nano Letters 18, 1615–1619 (2018).

Kaberov, L., Verbraeken, B., Riabtseva, A., Brus, J., Radulescu, A., Talmon, Y., Stepanek, P., Hoogenboom, R., and Filippov, S., Fluorophilic-lipophilic-hydrophilic poly-2-oxazolines block copolymers as MRI contrast agents: from synthesis to self-assembly, Macromolecules 51, 6047−6056 (2018).

Mirri, F., Ashkar, R., Jamali, V., Liberman, L., Pinnick, R., van der Schoot, P., Talmon, Y., Butler, P., and Pasquali, M., “Quantification of Carbon Nanotube Liquid Crystal Morphology via Neutron Scattering”, Macromolecules, 51, 6892–6900 (2018).

Banerjee, S., Schmidt, J., Talmon, Y., Hori, H., Takuma Asai, T., and Ameduri, B., A Degradable Fluorinated Surfactant for Emulsion Polymerization of Vinylidene Fluoride, Chem. Comm. 54, 11399-11402 (2018).

Shaharabani, R., Ram-On, M., Talmon, Y., and Beck, R., Pathological Transitions in Myelin membranes driven by environmental conditions: a biophysical approach to multiple sclerosis, PNAS 115, 11156-11161 (2018).

Alves, L., Medronho, B., Filipe, A., Antunes, F.E., Lindman, B., Topgaard, D., Davidovich, I., and Talmon, Y., New Insights on the Role of Urea on the Dissolution and Thermal-induced Gelation of Cellulose in Aqueous Alkali, Gels 4, paper no. 87 (2018).

Smith McWilliams, A.D., de los Reyes, C.A., Liberman, L., Ergülen, S., Talmon, Y., Pasquali, M., and Martí, A.A., Surfactant-Assisted Individualization and Dispersion of Boron Nitride Nanotubes, Nanoscale Advances 1, 1096-1103 (2019).

Marincel, D.M., Adnan, M., Ma, J., Bengio, E.A., Trafford, M.A., Kleinerman, O., Kosynkin, D., Chu, S.-H., Park, C., Hocker, S.J.A., Fay, C., Arepalli, S., Martí, A.A., Talmon, Y., and Pasquali, M., Scalable Purification of Boron Nitride Nanotubes via Wet Thermal Etching, Chem. Mat. 31 1520-1527 (2019).

Schnabel-Lubovsky. M., Kossover, O., Melino, S., Nanni, F., Talmon, Y., and Seliktar, D., “Visualizing Cell‐laden Fibrin‐based Hydrogels Using Cryogenic Scanning Electron Microscopy and Confocal Microscopy”, J. Tissue Eng. Regen. Med. 13, 587-598 (2019).

Li, J., Marmorat, C., Vasilyev, G., Jiang, J., Koifman, N., Guo, Y., Talmon, Y., Zussman, E., Gersappe, D., Davis, R., and Rafailovich, J., “Flow Induced Stability of Pluronic Hydrogels: Injectable, Unencapsulated Nucleus Pulposus Replacement”, Acta Biomaterialia 96, 295-302 (2019).

Liberman, L., Jamali, V., Pasquali, M., and Talmon, Y., The Effect of Carbon Nanotube Diameter and Stiffness on their Phase Behavior in Crowded Solutions, Langmuir 36, 242-249 (2020).

Schmidt, P.W., Morozova, S., Ertem, S.P., Coughlin, M.L., Davidovich, I., Talmon, Y., Reineke, T.M., Bates, F.S., and Lodge, T.P., “Internal Structure of Methylcellulose Fibrils”, Macromolecules 53, 398-405 (2020).

Tian, M., Ticer, T., Wang, Q., Walker, S., Pham, A., Suh, A., Busatto, S., Davidovich, I., Alkharboosh, R., Lewis-Tuffin, L., Ji, B., Quinones-Hinojosa, A., Talmon, Y., Shapiro, S., Rückert, F., and Wolfram, J., Adipose-derived biogenic nanoparticles for suppression of inflammation, Small 16, paper 1904064 (2020).

da Cunha, F.R,, Davidovich, I., Talmon, Y., and Ameduri, B., Emulsion Copolymerization of Vinylidene fluoride (VDF) with Perfluoromethyl Vinylether (PMVE), Polymer Chemistry 11, 2430–2440 (2020).

Simon, M., Schneck, E., Noirez, L., Rahn, S., Davidovich, I., Talmon, Y., and Gradzielski, M., “Effect of Polymer Architecture on Phase Behavior and Structure of Polyelectrolyte/Microemulsion Complexes (PEMECs)”, Macromolecules 53, 4055–4067 (2020).

Jenni, S., Picci, G., Fornasier, M., Mamusa, M., Schmidt, J., Talmon, Y., Sour, A., Heitz, V., Murgia, S. and Caltagirone, C., Multifunctional Cubic Liquid Crystalline Nanoparticles for Chemo- and Photodynamic Synergistic Cancer Therapy”, Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 19, 674-680 (2020).

Erlich, M., Arie, T., Koifman, N., and Talmon, Y., The Core-shell Structure of Silica-based Microencapsulated Drugs for Topical Applications, J. Colloid and Interface Sci. 579, 778–785 (2020).

Liberman, L., Kleinerman, O., Davidovich, I., and Talmon, Y., Micrograph Contrast in Low-Voltage SEM and Cryo-SEM, Ultramicroscopy 218, 113085 (2020).

Buchold, P. Ram-On, M., Talmon, Y., Hoffmann, I., Schweins., R., and Gradzielski, M., “The Uncommon Structures of Oppositely Charged Hyaluronan/Surfactant Assemblies under Physiological Conditions”, Biomacromolecules 21, 3498-3511 (2020).

Busatto, S., , Yang, Y., Walker, S.S., Davidovich, I., Lin, W.-H., Lewis-Tuffin, L., Anastasiadis, P.Z., Sarkaria, J., Talmon, Y., Wurtz, G., Wolfram, J., “Brain Metastases-derived Extracellular Vesicles Induce Low-density Lipoprotein Binding and Aggregation”, J. Nanobiotechnology 18, 1-15 (2020).

Costa, C., Rosa, P., Alexandra Filipe, A., Medronho, B., Romano, A., Liberman, L., Talmon, Y., and Norgren, M., “Cellulose-stabilized Oil-in-Water Emulsions: Structural Features, Microrheology, and Stability”, Carbohydrate Polymers, 252, 117092 (2021).

Alves, L., Medronho, B., Filipe, A., Romano, A., Rasteiro, M.G., Lindman, B., Topgaard, D., Davidovich, I., and Talmon, Y., “Revisiting the Dissolution of Cellulose in H3PO4 (aq.) through Cryo-TEM, PTssNMR and DWS”, Carbohydrate Polymers, 252, 117122 (2021).

Smith McWilliams, A.D., Martínez-Jiménez, C., Matatyaho-Ya’akobi, A., Ginestra, C., Talmon, Y., Pasquali, M., and Martí, A.A., Understanding the Exfoliation and Dispersion of Hexagonal Boron Nitride by Surfactants, Applied Nano Materials 4, 142-151(2021).

Tatini, D., Raudino, M., Ambrosi, M., Carretti, E., Davidovich, I., Talmon, Y., Ninham, B.W., Lo Nostro, P., Physicochemical Characterization of Green Sodium Oleate-based Formulations. Part 1. Structure and Rheology. J. Colloid Interface sci. (accepted).

Liberman, L., Schmidt, P.W., Coughlin, M.L., Matatyaho, A., Davidovich, I., Edmund, J., Ertem, S.P., Morozova, S., Talmon, Y., Bates, F.S., and Lodge, T.P., Salt Dependent Structure in Methylcellulose Fibrillar Gels, Macromolecules (accepted).