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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/N36882/01
Title: SOLVATION PRESSURE AS A ROUTE TO EFFECTIVE NEGATIVE HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE
Principal Investigator: Dunstan, Professor D
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Department: Physics
Organisation: Queen Mary University of London
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 28 October 2000 Ends: 27 April 2003 Value (£): 59,243
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Chemical Biology Condensed Matter Physics
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
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Summary on Grant Application Form
This is an interdisciplinary, speculative programme on the combined effects of solvation and high pressure on carbon nanotubes, on semiconductors, and on proteins. We have recently shown that the solvation pressure of a liquid acts on the Raman spectrum of carbon nanotubes in exactly the same way as external hydrostatic pressure. This is to be confirmed by hydrostatic pressure experiments on nanotubes in a range of liquids. We have evidence already that the solvation pressures should add directly to the applied pressure. Experiments on semiconductor nanoparticles will then be used to gain an insight into how the solvation pressure acts.Co-solvents such as alcohols are known to lead to unfolding of proteins in aqueous solution, and this can be interpreted in terms of the solvation pressure being reduced below the value for water. We propose a series of experiments in which proteins are unfolded by co-solvent and then refolded by external hydrostatic pressure; if our interpretation is correct this will give access to the currently inaccessible negative pressure part of the PT folding - unfolding phase diagram.
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