| 1. |
- Cardellini, Jacopo, et al.
(författare)
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Probing the coverage of nanoparticles by biomimetic membranes through nanoplasmonics
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0021-9797. ; 640, s. 100-109
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although promising for biomedicine, the clinical translation of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) is limited by low biocompatibility and stability in biological fluids. A common strategy to circumvent this drawback consists in disguising the active inorganic core with a lipid bilayer coating, reminiscent of the structure of the cell membrane to redefine the chemical and biological identity of NPs. While recent reports introduced membrane-coating procedures for NPs, a robust and accessible method to quantify the integrity of the bilayer coverage is not yet available. To fill this gap, we prepared SiO2 nanoparticles (SiO2NPs) with different membrane coverage degrees and monitored their interaction with AuNPs by combining microscopic, scattering, and optical techniques. The membrane-coating on SiO2NPs induces spontaneous clustering of AuNPs, whose extent depends on the coating integrity. Remarkably, we discovered a linear correlation between the membrane coverage and a spectral descriptor for the AuNPs’ plasmonic resonance, spanning a wide range of coating yields. These results provide a fast and cost-effective assay to monitor the compatibilization of NPs with biological environments, essential for bench tests and scale-up. In addition, we introduce a robust and scalable method to prepare SiO2NPs/AuNPs hybrids through spontaneous self-assembly, with a high-fidelity structural control mediated by a lipid bilayer.
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| 2. |
- Fischer, Hubertus, et al.
(författare)
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Reconstruction of millennial changes in dust emission, transport and regional sea ice coverage using the deep EPICA ice cores from the Atlantic and Indian Ocean sector of Antarctica
- 2007
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Ingår i: Earth and Planetary Science Letters. - : Elsevier BV. - 0012-821X. ; 260, s. 340-354
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Continuous sea salt and mineral dust aerosol records have been studied on the two EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring inAntarctica) deep ice cores. The joint use of these records from opposite sides of the East Antarctic plateau allows for an estimate ofchanges in dust transport and emission intensity as well as for the identification of regional differences in the sea salt aerosolsource. The mineral dust flux records at both sites show a strong coherency over the last 150 kyr related to dust emission changes inthe glacial Patagonian dust source with three times higher dust fluxes in the Atlantic compared to the Indian Ocean sector of theSouthern Ocean (SO). Using a simple conceptual transport model this indicates that transport can explain only 40% of theatmospheric dust concentration changes in Antarctica, while factor 5–10 changes occurred. Accordingly, the main cause for the strong glacial dust flux changes in Antarctica must lie in environmental changes in Patagonia. Dust emissions, hence environmentalconditions in Patagonia, were very similar during the last two glacials and interglacials, respectively, despite 2–4 °C warmertemperatures recorded in Antarctica during the penultimate interglacial than today. 2–3 times higher sea salt fluxes found in bothice cores in the glacial compared to the Holocene are difficult to reconcile with a largely unchanged transport intensity and thedistant open ocean source. The substantial glacial enhancements in sea salt aerosol fluxes can be readily explained assuming sea iceformation as the main sea salt aerosol source with a significantly larger expansion of (summer) sea ice in the Weddell Sea than inthe Indian Ocean sector. During the penultimate interglacial, our sea salt records point to a 50% reduction of winter sea icecoverage compared to the Holocene both in the Indian and Atlantic Ocean sector of the SO. However, from 20 to 80 ka beforepresent sea salt fluxes show only very subdued millennial changes despite pronounced temperature fluctuations, likely due to thelarge distance of the sea ice salt source to our drill sites.
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| 3. |
- Svensson, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Bipolar volcanic synchronization of abrupt climate change in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores during the last glacial period
- 2020
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Ingår i: Climate of the Past. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1814-9324 .- 1814-9332. ; 16:4, s. 1565-1580
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The last glacial period is characterized by a number of millennial climate events that have been identified in both Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and that are abrupt in Greenland climate records. The mechanisms governing this climate variability remain a puzzle that requires a precise synchronization of ice cores from the two hemispheres to be resolved. Previously, Greenland and Antarctic ice cores have been synchronized primarily via their common records of gas concentrations or isotopes from the trapped air and via cosmogenic isotopes measured on the ice. In this work, we apply ice core volcanic proxies and annual layer counting to identify large volcanic eruptions that have left a signature in both Greenland and Antarctica. Generally, no tephra is associated with those eruptions in the ice cores, so the source of the eruptions cannot be identified. Instead, we identify and match sequences of volcanic eruptions with bipolar distribution of sulfate, i.e. unique patterns of volcanic events separated by the same number of years at the two poles. Using this approach, we pinpoint 82 large bipolar volcanic eruptions throughout the second half of the last glacial period (12-60ka). This improved ice core synchronization is applied to determine the bipolar phasing of abrupt climate change events at decadal-scale precision. In response to Greenland abrupt climatic transitions, we find a response in the Antarctic water isotope signals (δ18O and deuterium excess) that is both more immediate and more abrupt than that found with previous gas-based interpolar synchronizations, providing additional support for our volcanic framework. On average, the Antarctic bipolar seesaw climate response lags the midpoint of Greenland abrupt δ18O transitions by 122±24 years. The time difference between Antarctic signals in deuterium excess and δ18O, which likewise informs the time needed to propagate the signal as described by the theory of the bipolar seesaw but is less sensitive to synchronization errors, suggests an Antarctic δ18O lag behind Greenland of 152±37 years. These estimates are shorter than the 200 years suggested by earlier gas-based synchronizations. As before, we find variations in the timing and duration between the response at different sites and for different events suggesting an interaction of oceanic and atmospheric teleconnection patterns as well as internal climate variability.
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| 4. |
- Traversi, Rita, et al.
(författare)
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Sulfate spikes in the deep layers of EPICA-Dome C Ice Core: Evidence of glaciological artifacts
- 2009
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Ingår i: Environmental Science and Technology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0013-936X .- 1520-5851. ; 43:23, s. 8737-8743
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A detailed ionic component record was performed on EPICA Dome C ice core (East Antarctica) to a depth of 3190 m using Ion Chromatography and Fast Ion Chromatography (FIC). At depths greater than 2800 m, the sulfate profile shows intense, sharp spikes which are not expected due to the smoothing of sulfate peaks by diffusion processes. Moreover, these spikes show an "anomalous" chemical composition (e.g., unusually low acidity, high Mg2+ concentration and high Mg2+/Ca2+ ratio). These peaks and the surrounding layers also exhibit good Mg2+ vs SO42- and Cl- vs Na+ correlations through both glacial and interglacial periods. Furthermore, the high-resolution analysis of two horizontally contiguous ice sections showed that some fraction of the impurities are characterized by a heterogeneous distribution. Altogether, these results suggest the occurrence of long-term postdepositional processes involving a rearrangement of impurities via migration in the vein network, characterized by sulfuric acidity and leading to the formation of soluble particles of magnesium sulfate salts, along with ionic association of ions in the liquid films along boundaries. This evidence should be taken into consideration when inferring information on for rapid climatic and environmental changes from ice core chemical records at great depths. At Dome C, the depth threshold was found to be 2800 m.
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| 5. |
- Xavier, Carlton, et al.
(författare)
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Secondary aerosol formation in marine Arctic environments : a model measurement comparison at Ny-Ålesund
- 2022
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 22:15, s. 10023-10043
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this study, we modeled the aerosol particle formation along air mass trajectories arriving at the remote Arctic research stations Gruvebadet (67 m a.s.l.) and Zeppelin (474 m a.s.l.), Ny-Ålesund, during May 2018. The aim of this study was to improve our understanding of processes governing secondary aerosol formation in remote Arctic marine environments. We run the Lagrangian chemistry transport model ADCHEM, along air mass trajectories generated with FLEXPART v10.4. The air masses arriving at Ny-Ålesund spent most of their time over the open ice-free ocean. In order to capture the secondary aerosol formation from the DMS emitted by phytoplankton from the ocean surface, we implemented a recently developed comprehensive DMS and halogen multi-phase oxidation chemistry scheme, coupled with the widely used Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM).The modeled median particle number size distributions are in close agreement with the observations in the marine-influenced boundary layer near-sea-surface Gruvebadet site. However, while the model reproduces the accumulation mode particle number concentrations at Zeppelin, it overestimates the Aitken mode particle number concentrations by a factor of ∼5.5. We attribute this to the deficiency of the model to capture the complex orographic effects on the boundary layer dynamics at Ny-Ålesund. However, the model reproduces the average vertical particle number concentration profiles within the boundary layer (0–600 m a.s.l.) above Gruvebadet, as measured with condensation particle counters (CPCs) on board an unmanned aircraft system (UAS).The model successfully reproduces the observed Hoppel minima, often seen in particle number size distributions at Ny-Ålesund. The model also supports the previous experimental findings that ion-mediated H2SO4–NH3 nucleation can explain the observed new particle formation in the marine Arctic boundary layer in the vicinity of Ny-Ålesund. Precursors resulting from gas- and aqueous-phase DMS chemistry contribute to the subsequent growth of the secondary aerosols. The growth of particles is primarily driven via H2SO4 condensation and formation of methane sulfonic acid (MSA) through the aqueous-phase ozonolysis of methane sulfinic acid (MSIA) in cloud and deliquescent droplets.
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