Sorbic acid has been used extensively as a preservative in a vast array of food. The benefits of sorbates as food preservatives are two-fold: sorbates inhibit a wide spectrum of bacteria, yeasts and m...
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A nanocomposite is a reinforcing material that can be added to conventional materials to make them lightweight and ductile while also increasing their strength. Nanocomposites having high strength-to-...
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A nanocomposite includes a matrix material to which nanoparticles (with a size of about 1.0 nm to a few hundreds of nanometers) have been added to improve a particular property of the material. For ex...
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The reduction of small molecules such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide is extremely difficult because one-electron reduction processes often involve high-energy intermediates. Nitrogen reduction usually...
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Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), SiC-based ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) and cermets are all materials that can be used in high temperature environments; however, these materials need prote...
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Phosphines have many commercial and industrial uses as attachments to rare earth metal catalysts, including specialized uses in asymmetric hydrogenation and other catalytic transformations. Asymmetric...
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Responsive hydrogels can respond to external stimuli such as temperature, pH, photons and antigens, which makes them applicable as functional materials in drug/gene delivery devices, microlenses and s...
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Endoperoxides are prominent structural features of several natural products with potent activity against malaria and various cancer cell lines. However, they are difficult to synthesize. The most stra...
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Oligomycin is a highly stable macrolide antibiotic isolated from the fungus Streptomyces diastochromogenes. It is a potent inhibitor of mitochondrial ATPase and phosphoryl group transfer.
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Unnatural polymers that contain β- and γ-amino acids are known as "foldamers." These foldamers form long-lasting, predictable structures that are very stable and resistant to proteolytic d...
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Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process of rebuilding skin and tissue. Chronic or impaired wounds result when tissues fail to progress through the necessary stages of healing. This is a signifi...
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Asymmetric synthesis is important in the pharmaceutical industry because frequently only one optically active isomer, or enantiomer, is therapeutically active. Therefore, it is often desirable to sele...
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Methods that allow reactive polymer films to be deposited or assembled on topologically complex substrates are useful for the patterning or chemical modification of surfaces in a broad range of applic...
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Diazo compounds, which have the general formula R2C=N2, are versatile intermediates in organic synthesis.  They participate in a variety of thermal, photochemical and metal-catalyzed reactions. Most ...
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UW–Madison researchers previously developed a method of using traceless Staudinger ligation to chemically synthesize proteins (see WARF reference number P00315US).  This method is based on the Stau...
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Beta amino acids are the basic building blocks of beta peptides, which have physiological applications, such as blocking human cytomegalovirus infection. Although some types of beta amino acids are re...
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Over the past decade, polymer composites have emerged as a new class of high performance materials with unique and desirable material properties such as strength, weight and rigidity. These composites...
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Position emission tomography (PET) plays a vital role in the diagnosis of health and disease. The long-lived isotope iodine-124 (I-124; half-life 4.2 days) has many features that make it an attractive...
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Semi-solid casting (SSC) is a high-integrity die casting technique, wherein metal is injected into a mold cavity in a semi-liquid/solid state with a “slushy” consistency. Semi-solid metal has lowe...
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Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) exhibit unique properties including high strength, excellent wear and corrosion resistance, high resistance to fractures and outstanding castability. They are also inexpen...
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Levulinic acid is a biomass-derived compound that can be obtained inexpensively in high yields from a variety of waste cellulose-containing materials. It has been identified as a top biomass-derived c...
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Recent surveys have identified welding of dissimilar metals as a top priority in materials joining technology. Friction-stir welding currently is the best potential process for welding dissimilar meta...
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Heat exchangers are used in chemical processing; power production; household appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators and space heaters; and even automobile radiators.  Plate heat exchanger...
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Increasing demand of petrochemical resources to produce the energy and chemical materials required by industrialized societies with growing populations combined with a diminishing supply has resulted ...
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Production of faster, more powerful microelectronics requires that device features continue to shrink in size. Current lithographic processes based on chemically amplified resists routinely pattern fe...
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