Synthesized and Functionalized Nanoparticles in Essential Oils
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 100
Special Issue Editor
Interests: green chemical synthesis; nanomaterials; nanotechnologies; template synthesis in essential oils; functionalized nanoparticles in essential oils; cultural heritage applications; drug delivery; drug discovery; bio-compatible nanocomposite materials
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
There are many ways to synthesize nanoparticles, and among these, template synthesis represents a very versatile and high-performance method. Template systems can be made up of chemical materials (of an inorganic nature) and/or biological materials (such as natural substances). Chemical templates are often difficult to remove after synthesis, and their removal process often requires aggressive chemical reagents.
This leads to serious contamination of the nanoparticles obtained by the synthetic approach, based on the chemical template strategy. To overcome this problem, green and eco-sustainable templates are used that come directly from plants, their flowers, leaves, and roots. The role of these natural substances in behaving as biological templates is very interesting. There are two aspects that explain the action of natural substances in the template synthesis:
(A) The redox features;
(B) The specific molecular chemical composition of their corresponding extracts.
In case (A), the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are able to reduce the inorganic precursors of nanoparticles, allowing the metal nanoparticles to be obtained in their correct redox state (on which the antibacterial, antimicrobial, and antifungal properties also strongly depend).
In case (B), the different presence of monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, polyphenolic composites, etc., is certainly responsible for all the chemical-physical properties mentioned previously in the text (mainly antibacterial, antimicrobial, and antimitotic features of the final nanoparticle-based products). Especially regarding point (B), the cytotoxicity properties also strictly depend on the chemical composition of the natural extracts, where there are also several chiral compounds (i.e., enantiomers), which functionalize the reduced nanoparticles. These chemically volatile compounds mainly influence the mechanism growth of nanoparticles, especially the nucleation and subsequent growth (i.e., the two-step growth mechanism model).
The dimensions, shapes, and geometry of these nanostructured particles strongly depend on the two-step growth mechanism. The antibacterial, antiviral properties, and cytotoxicity towards multipurpose materials (both of natural and synthetic/laboratory origin) derive from the shape factors in synergy with the molecular chemical composition.
The aim of this Special Issue (SI) is:
“To bring to light new eco-sustainable synthetic processes from which to obtain new versatile and highly performing nanostructures to be applied in many fields, from the medical/clinical, pharmaceutical/nutraceutical/cosmetic ones, to the environmental monitoring, to the conservation of cultural heritage fields.
Furthermore, the possibility of exploring new biological systems to be applied as templates certainly opens the doors to new synthetic routes and new chemical reaction mechanisms.”
Prof. Dr. Federica Valentini
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- nanoparticles
- green synthesis
- two step-based mechanism growth for nanostructures
- template synthetic approach
- essential oil (EO)
- functionalized nanoparticles
- shape factor (SF)
- antibacterial features
- cytotoxicity properties
- cultural heritage reparation
- drug delivery and discovery
- nano-carrier in biotechnologies
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