TY - JOUR A1 - Zancajo, V. M. R. A1 - Lindtner, T. A1 - Eisele, M. A1 - Huber, A. J. A1 - Elbaum, R. A1 - Kneipp, Janina T1 - FTIR Nanospectroscopy Shows Molecular Structures of Plant Biominerals and Cell Walls JF - Analytical Chemistry N2 - Plant tissues are complex composite structures of organic and inorganic components whose function relies on molecular heterogeneity at the nanometer scale. Scattering-type near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) in the mid-infrared (IR) region is used here to collect IR nanospectra from both fixed and native plant samples. We compared structures of chemically extracted silica bodies (phytoliths) to silicified and nonsilicified cell walls prepared as a flat block of epoxy-embedded awns of wheat (Triticum turgidum), thin sections of native epidermis cells from sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) comprising silica phytoliths, and isolated cells from awns of oats (Avena sterilis). The correlation of the scanning-probe IR images and the mechanical phase image enables a combined probing of mechanical material properties together with the chemical composition and structure of both the cell walls and the phytolith structures. The data reveal a structural heterogeneity of the different silica bodies in situ, as well as different compositions and crystallinities of cell wall components. In conclusion, IR nanospectroscopy is suggested as an ideal tool for studies of native plant materials of varied origins and preparations and could be applied to other inorganic–organic hybrid materials. KW - Cells KW - Plants KW - Organic polymers KW - Silica KW - Infrared light PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c00271 SN - 0003-2700 VL - 92 IS - 20 SP - 13694 EP - 13701 PB - ACS Publications AN - OPUS4-54445 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zhang, Zhiyang A1 - Li, Y. A1 - Frisch, J. A1 - Bär, M. A1 - Rappich, J. A1 - Kneipp, Janina T1 - In situ surface-enhanced Raman scattering shows ligand-enhanced hot electron harvesting on silver, gold, and copper nanoparticles JF - Journal of Catalysis N2 - Hot carriers (electrons and holes) generated from the decay of localized surface plasmon resonances can take a major role in catalytic reactions on metal nanoparticles. By obtaining surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra of p-aminothiophenol as product of the reduction of p-nitrothiophenol by hot electrons, different catalytic activity is revealed here for nanoparticles of silver, gold, and copper. As a main finding, a series of different ligands, comprising halide and non-halide species, are found to enhance product formation in the reduction reaction on nanoparticles of all three metals. A comparison with the standard electrode potentials of the metals with and without the ligands and SERS data obtained at different electrode potential indicate that the higher catalytic activity can be associated with a higher Fermi level, thereby resulting in an improved efficiency of hot carrier generation. The concept of such a ligand-enhanced hot electron reduction provides a way to make light-to-chemical energy conversion more efficient due to improved electron harvesting. KW - Ligands KW - Hot electrons KW - SERS KW - p-Nitrothiophenol KW - p-Aminothiophenol PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2020.01.006 VL - 383 SP - 153 EP - 159 PB - Elsevier Inc. CY - Amsterdam, NL AN - OPUS4-50626 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Diehn, S. A1 - Zimmermann, B. A1 - Tafintseva, V. A1 - Seifert, S. A1 - Bagcioglu, M. A1 - Ohlson, M. A1 - Weidner, Steffen A1 - Fjellheim, S. A1 - Kohler, A. A1 - Kneipp, Janina T1 - Combining Chemical Information From Grass Pollen in Multimodal Characterization JF - Frontiers in Plant Science N2 - The analysis of pollen chemical composition is important to many fields, including agriculture, plant physiology, ecology, allergology, and climate studies. Here, the potential of a combination of different spectroscopic and spectrometric methods regarding the characterization of small biochemical differences between pollen samples was evaluated using multivariate statistical approaches. Pollen samples, collected from three populations of the grass Poa alpina, were analyzed using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), and matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The variation in the sample set can be described in a hierarchical framework comprising three populations of the same grass species and four different growth conditions of the parent plants for each of the populations. Therefore, the data set can work here as a model system to evaluate the classification and characterization ability of the different spectroscopic and spectrometric methods. ANOVA Simultaneous Component Analysis (ASCA) was applied to achieve a separation of different sources of variance in the complex sample set. Since the chosen methods and sample preparations probe different parts and/or molecular constituents of the pollen grains, complementary information about the chemical composition of the pollen can be obtained. By using consensus principal component analysis (CPCA), data from the different methods are linked together. This enables an investigation of the underlying global information, since complementary chemical data are combined. The molecular information from four spectroscopies was combined with phenotypical information gathered from the parent plants, thereby helping to potentially link pollen chemistry to other biotic and abiotic parameters. KW - Pollen KW - MALDI-TOF MS KW - FTIR KW - Raman KW - Multivariate analyses PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-504822 DO - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01788 VL - 10 SP - 1788 AN - OPUS4-50482 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -