A facile, environment-friendly, versatile and reproducible approach to the successful oxidation of fullerenes (oxC₆₀) and the formation of highly hydrophilic fullerene derivatives is introduced. This synthesis relies on the widely known Staudenmaier’s method for the oxidation of graphite, to produce both epoxy and hydroxy groups on the surface of fullerenes (C₆₀) and thereby improve the solubility of the fullerene in polar solvents (e.g. water). The presence of epoxy groups allows for further functionalization via nucleophilic substitution reactions to generate new fullerene derivatives, which can potentially lead to a wealth of applications in the areas of medicine, biology, and composite materials. In order to justify the potential of oxidized C₆₀ derivatives for bio-applications, we investigated their cytotoxicity in vitro as well as their utilization as support in biocatalysis applications, taking the immobilization of laccase for the decolorization of synthetic industrial dyes as a trial case.

We probe the temperature- and pressure-dependent specific volume (v) and dipolar dynamics of the amorphous phase (in both the supercooled liquid and glass states) of the ternidazole drug (TDZ). Three molecular dynamic processes are identified by means of dielectric spectroscopy, namely the α relaxation, which vitrifies at the glass transition, a Johari-Goldstein β_JG relaxation, and an intramolecular process associated with the relaxation motion of the propanol chain of the TDZ molecule. The lineshapes of dielectric spectra characterized by the same relaxation time (isochronal spectra) are virtually identical, within the studied temperature and pressure ranges, so that the time-temperature-pressure superposition principle holds for TDZ. The α and β_JG relaxation times fulfil the density-dependent thermodynamic scaling: master curves result when they are plotted against the thermodynamic quantity Tv ^γ , with thermodynamic exponent γ approximately equal to 2. These results show that the dynamics of TDZ, a system characterized by strong hydrogen bonding, is characterized by an isomorphism similar to that of van-der-Waals systems. The low value of γ can be rationalized in terms of the relatively weak density-dependence of the dynamics of hydrogen-bonded systems.

We study the temperature-dependent molecular dynamics, ion conduction, and phase behavior of plastic-crystal electrolytes based on the succinonitrile molecule. We employ calorimetry and dielectric spectroscopy to probe binary mixtures of succinonitrile with glutaronitrile or acetonitrile and also analyze the effect of dissolving lithium salts in these systems. The glutaronitrile–succinonitrile mixture has the highest conductivity, and it is the only plastic-crystal system that displays a perfect correlation between the ion drift and the on-site reorientational dynamics. Doping with lithium ions boosts the conductivity but breaks such perfect correlation. All of these features can be rationalized by assuming that conduction is due to the self-diffusion of a minority of ionized dinitrile molecules. Doping with lithium salts slows down the collective molecular dynamics while leaving the intramolecular relaxation motion unaffected. All samples exhibit a very broad melting transition and exist in a mixed liqui...

Bimodal reorientational relaxations along the twofold ( α ) and threefold ( α ′) axes of the disordered Phase II ( P 4̄2 ₁ c ) of 1-F-adamantane.