Invertebrates represent the most plentiful component of marine biodiversity. To date, only few species have been documented for marine litter intake. Here, we report for the first time the presence of macroplastic debris in a jellyfish species. Such novel target to plastic pollution highlights an under studied vector of marine litter along marine trophic web, raising further concern over the impact on marine wildlife.

Unlike the archetypal deep eutectic solvent (DES) choline chloride:urea (ChCl:U), fundamental knowledge of the intermolecular network in choline acetate (ChOAc) DESs and how they change upon dilution is still missing. Here we jointly use UV resonance Raman (UVRR) and NMR spectroscopy to comparatively explore how the strength and distribution of hydrogen bonding and the solvation of the components are modified in ChOAc:U and ChCl:U with increasing hydration. Overall, Raman and NMR data indicate that ChOAc:U is continuously affected by hydration and, even at low water concentrations, undergoes a breakage of DES–DES interactions, with rapid solvation of the urea portion and full exchange of mobile protons. On the contrary, ChCl:U seems to maintain its structure as small interplays gradually occur between urea in the DES and the surrounding water molecules. The combined approach provides a multifaceted consistent description of the systems, outlining the crucial role of the anion in driving the structure and dynamics of the materials and then yielding valuable data toward the exploitation of DESs as tunable systems.

The origin of the peculiar amide spectral features of proteins in aqueous solution is investigated, by exploiting a combined theoretical and experimental approach to study UV Resonance Raman (RR) spectra of peptide molecular models, namely N-acetylglycine-N-methylamide (NAGMA) and N-acetylalanine-N-methylamide (NALMA). UVRR spectra are recorded by tuning Synchrotron Radiation at several excitation wavelengths and modeled by using a recently developed multiscale protocol based on a polarizable QM/MM approach. Thanks to the unparalleled agreement between theory and experiment, we demonstrate that specific hydrogen bond interactions, which dominate hydration dynamics around these solutes, play a crucial role in the selective enhancement of amide signals. These results further argue the capability of vibrational spectroscopy methods as valuable tools for refined structural analysis of peptides and proteins in aqueous solution.

In this work, aqueous solutions of two prototypical ionic liquids (ILs), [BMIM][BF₄] and [BMIM][TfO], were investigated by UV Raman spectroscopy and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) in the water-rich domain, where strong heterogeneities at mesoscopic length scales (microheterogeneity) were expected. Analyzing Raman data by a differential method, the solute-correlated (SC) spectrum was extracted from the OH stretching profiles, emphasizing specific hydration features of the anions. SC-UV Raman spectra pointed out the molecular structuring of the interfacial water in these microheterogeneous IL/water mixtures, in which IL aggregates coexist with bulk water domains. The organization of the interfacial water differs for the [BMIM][BF₄] and [BMIM][TfO] solutions, being affected by specific anion-water interactions. In particular, in the case of [BMIM][BF₄], which forms weaker H-bonds with water, the aggregation properties clearly depend on concentration, as reflected by local changes in the interfacial water. On the other hand, stronger water-anion hydrogen bonds and more persistent hydration layers were observed for [BMIM][TfO], which likely prevent changes in IL aggregates. The modeling of SANS profiles, extended to [BPy][BF₄] and [BPy][TfO], evidences the occurrence of significant concentration fluctuations for all of the systems: this appears as a rather general phenomenon that can be ascribed to the presence of IL aggregation, mainly induced by (cation-driven) hydrophobic interactions. Nevertheless, larger concentration fluctuations were observed for [BMIM][BF₄], suggesting that anion-water interactions are relevant in modulating the microheterogeneity of the mixture.