Heavy ions with MeV to GeV energies (also termed ‘swift heavy ions’) interact predominately through inelastic interactions with the target electrons when penetrating a material. The resulting intense electronic excitation can produce narrow trails of permanent damage along the ion paths, so called ‘ion tracks’. Ion tracks are generally between 5-20 nm in diameter, tens of micrometers long and...
Protic ionic liquids are the largest known solvent class capable of promoting surfactant self-assembly. However, ILs are increasingly used as mixtures with molecular solvents, such as water, to reduce their cost, viscosity and melting point, and the self-assembly promoting properties of these mixtures are largely unknown. Here we investigated the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of ionic...
Proteins are often utilised for a range of applications in the pharmaceutical, biological, chemical and food industries[1-2]. The ideal solvent for hydrophilic proteins is usually buffered water due to its minimal cost, and ability to mimic the native environment of proteins, however many proteins are hydrophobic and have poor solubility in water. Because of this, organic solvents have been...
Protic ionic liquids (PILs) are cost efficient “designer” solvents which can be tailored to have properties suitable for a broad range of applications. PILs are also being combined with molecular solvents to enable more control over the solvent environment, driven by a need to reduce their cost and viscosity. However, there are relatively few structure-property studies which look at these more...
