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2025 ACS DFW Executive Committee
Chair: Denise Lynn Merkle, PhD
Chair-elect: Jonathan Dannatt, PhD
Past Chair: Rajani Srinivasan, PhD
Treasurer: Martha Gilchrist, MS
Secretary: Trey Putnam, PhD
Councilors:
MaryAnderson, PhD
Kirby Drake, JD
Linda Schultz, PhD
Rebecca Weber, PhD
Alternate Councilors:
Daniela Hutanu, PhD
Danny Tran, PhD
Yunxiang Li, PhD
From the ACS Press Room
Plant-based calamari that rivals real seafood in texture
“3D Printing for Seafood Mimic: Factors
Impacting the Rheology and Texture of Microalgae and Mung Bean Protein Composite Ink”
ACS Food Science & Technology
Plant-based seafood alternatives should have similar flavors, textures and nutritional content to the foods they mimic. And recreating the properties of fried calamari rings, which have a neutral flavor and a firm, chewy texture after being cooked, has been a challenge. Building off previous research, a team publishing in ACS Food Science & Technology describes successfully using plant-based ingredients to mimic calamari that matches the real seafood’s characteristic softness and elasticity.
Previously, Poornima Vijayan, Dejian Huang and colleagues presented air-fried vegan calamari rings made from a 3D-printed paste of microalgae and mung bean proteins at ACS Fall 2023, a meeting of the American Chemical Society. When the researchers air-fried the calamari mimic
After this 3D-printed calamari mimic (top image) is battered and deep-fried (bottom image), its look and texture is like squid rings cooked the same way.
Adapted from ACS Food Science & Technology 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acsfoodscitech.4c00852
(demonstrated in this short video), it had an acceptable taste, but they noted that the texture wasn’t ideal. So, now they’ve optimized the recipe and printing parameters, improving the plant-based product’s texture so that it’s more like real calamari when battered and deep-fried the way most calamari is prepared.
The researchers tested multiple versions of their printable paste recipe, varying the amounts of mung bean protein isolate, powdered light-yellow microalgae, gellan gum (thickener) and canola oil (fat). A food-grade 3D printer deposited the pastes into layered rings about 1.8 inches wide (4.5 centimeters). Unlike the original research, this time the researchers froze the rings overnight and then battered and quickly deep-fried them.
In lab tests, the researchers analyzed properties related to the cooked samples’ chewiness, including hardness, springiness and cohesiveness. The deep-fried product with the textural properties closest to real calamari contained 1.5% gellan gum, 2% canola oil and 10% powdered microalgae. From microscope images, the researchers saw that small voids in the structure of these plant-based samples modified their softness, so they resembled the real seafood counterpart. Additionally, an analysis of the protein content in the optimal recipe found that the plant-based version could have more protein (19%) than the reported protein composition of squid (14%).
Continued on page 16
From the ACS Press Room
Some protective resin coatings may damage metal artifacts
“Unexpected Damage on Metal Artifacts
Triggered by the Hazardous Interfacial Interaction from Aging of Polymer Coatings”
ACS Central Science
Conservators and museum technicians protect precious archaeological metal objects, such as tools and weapons, with clear coatings, leaving preserved and unobstructed views of these detailed treasures. However, researchers have reported in ACS Central Science that some of the resins used for these coatings react with iron-containing metals and can cause damage. The team developed a non-invasive fluorescence imaging strategy that reveals early signs of these damaging chemical reactions and confirmed its utility on ancient artifacts.
Polymer coatings, including acrylic resins, are commonly used to protect metal artifacts from long-term exposure to light, heat, oxygen and humidity. The coatings are in many ways ideal for this application because polymers are lightweight, transparent and watertight, and they can adhere strongly to the materials they are preserving, including waterlogged wood. However, there is limited research on what happens to polymer coatings as they age and how that might affect ironcontaining metals, such as steel or cast iron, because it’s difficult to monitor where the materials contact one another. Current options include peeling away or dissolving the polymer, risking damage to the artifact, or imaging techniques that are non-destructive and fast but don’t give a clear, high-
resolution picture of the chemical interactions within this thin space. So, Rui Tian, Chao Lu and colleagues developed a 3D fluorescence imaging strategy to light up the carboxyl groups that indicate early signs of corrosion and rust on iron-containing metal. Initially, the researchers observed no fluorescence when they used the imaging technique to look at metal freshly coated with a common acrylic resin used for preserving metal artifacts (a copolymer of ethyl methacrylate and methyl acrylate). They then sped up the aging process of the resin by applying heat and UV light for 30 hours. In observations, the intensity of fluorescence at the resinmetal interface steadily increased after 3 hours.
In a proof-of-concept demonstration, the researchers tested their fluorescence imaging technique on a rusty iron coin of the Northern Song Dynasty from an archaeological excavation. They coated the artifact with the same resin and expedited the polymer’s aging process with heat and light. The aged polymer coating magnified the production of damaging carboxyl groups, making the al-
Continued on Page 17
An untreated metal coin from the Northern Song Dynasty (left image) got rustier after a resin coating was applied and then exposed to light and heat (right image).
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From the ACS Press Room
Scientists have found a way to ‘tattoo’ tardigrades
Patterning on Living Tardigrades”
Nano Letters
.If you haven’t heard of a tardigrade before, prepare to be wowed. These clumsy, eightlegged creatures, nicknamed water bears, are about half a millimeter long and can survive practically anything: freezing temperatures, near starvation, high pressure, radiation exposure, outer space and more. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters took advantage of the tardigrade’s nearly indestructible nature and gave the critters tiny “tattoos” to test a microfabrication technique to build microscopic, biocompatible devices.
“Through this technology, we’re not just creating micro-tattoos on tardigrades we’re extending this capability to various living organisms, including bacteria,” explains Ding Zhao, a co-author of the paper.
This tardigrade is sporting a new “tattoo” represented in this magnified image by the highlighted dots, and visible in the inset image.Adapted from Nano Letters 2025, DOI: 10.1021/ acs.nanolett.5c00378
nanoscale devices ranging from microprocessors and solar cells to biosensors that detect food contamination or cancerous cells. But the technology could also advance medicine and biomedical engineering, if researchers can adapt microfabrication techniques to make them compatible with the biological realm. So, Zhao, Min Qiu and colleagues employed a process that carves a pattern with an electron beam into a thin layer of ice coating living tissue, called ice lithography, leaving behind a design when the remaining ice sublimates. And what creature is better suited to being frozen, coated in ice, and then exposed to an electron beam than the nearly indestructible tardigrade?
The team put tardigrades into a cryptobiotic state (a sort of half-dead, suspended animation) by slowly dehydrating the microscopic animals. Then, the researchers placed an individual tardigrade onto a carbon-composite paper, cooled the sheet below -226 degrees Fahrenheit (-143 degrees Celsius), and covered the water bear with a protective layer of anisole an organic compound that smells like anise. The frozen anisole protected the tardigrade’s surface from the focused electron beam as it drew the pattern. When exposed to the beam, the anisole reacted and formed a new biocompatible chemical compound that stuck to the tardigrade’s surface at higher temperatures. As the tardigrade warmed to room temperature under vacuum, any unreacted frozen anisole sublimated and left behind the pattern of reacted anisole. Finally, the researchers rehydrated and revived the tardigrade, which then sported a new tattoo.
Microfabrication has revolutionized electronics and photonics, creating micro- and Continued on page 17
From the ACS Press Room
A light-activated probe reveals TB immune system evasion mechanisms
“A Photoactivatable Free Mycolic Acid
Probe to Investigate Mycobacteria–Host Interactions”
ACS Infectious Diseases
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that kills more than a million people worldwide every year. The pathogen that causes the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is deadly in part because of its complex outer envelope, which helps it evade immune responses of infected hosts. In an ACS Infectious Diseases paper, researchers developed a chemical probe to study a key component of this envelope. Their results provide a step toward finding new ways of inactivating the bacterium.
A chemical probe reveals information about M. tuberculosis’ protective envelope that may inform new treatment strategies for tuberculosis. Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock.com
Because curing TB requires taking drugs for months, which can result in TB resistance to some antibiotics, scientists are working to develop new treatments. One possible target is the bacterium’s outermost layer, called the mycomembrane, which protects the bacteria from stressors. When M. tuberculosis is at-
tacked by a host’s macrophage immune cells, the mycomembrane produces compounds that suppress the infected host’s immune response.
Previously, Ben Swarts, Sloan Siegrist and colleagues developed light-activated chemical probes that mimic some of these compounds and studied how they might interact with a host’s immune cells. Now, the researchers have developed a chemical probe for another mycomembrane component called mycolic acid. They designed the mycolic acid probe to enable capture of interacting proteins within host immune cells information that could help scientists better understand how M. tuberculosis survives in the assaulting environment of the host.
• In an enzyme immunoassay, the probe stimulated an immune response similar to real mycolic acid in cultured macrophage cells from mice.
• Using fluorescence scanning, the researchers observed that the mycolic acid probe photo-labeled proteins in the macrophage cells.
• An immunoblotting technique determined that the probe interacts with a specific receptor a protein known as TREM2 on macrophage cells, which suppresses immune cell activation.
Swarts and colleagues say their strategy provides researchers with a way to investigate the role of mycolic acids in M. tuberculosis pathogenesis. “Chemical probes can be
Continued on page 17
From the ACS Press Room
A step toward cleaner iron extraction using electricity
“Pathways to Electrochemical Ironmaking at Scale Via the Direct Reduction of Fe2O3 ”
ACS Energy Letters
Iron and its alloys, such as steel and cast iron, dominate the modern world, and there’s growing demand for iron-derived products. Traditionally, blast furnaces transform iron ore into purified elemental metal, but the process requires a lot of energy and emits air pollution. Now, researchers in ACS Energy Letters report that they’ve developed a cleaner method to extract iron from a synthetic iron ore using electrochemistry, which they say could become cost-competitive with blast furnaces.
"Identifying oxides which can be converted to iron metal at low temperatures is an important step in developing fully electrified processes for steelmaking," says Paul Kempler, the study’s corresponding author. Electrochemical ironmaking isolates the metal by passing electricity through a liquid that holds iron-containing feedstocks. Compared to high-temperature blast furnaces, the electrochemical process could significantly reduce air pollution emissions, such as greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, and suggests considerable energy savings. Previously, Kempler and colleagues used this process to convert solutions containing solid iron(III) oxide particles and sodium hydroxide directly into elemental iron at temperatures around 176 to 194 degrees Fahrenheit (80 to 90 degrees Celsius). However, when some natural iron ores with irregularly sized, dense particles and impurities were tested, this low-temperature process
wasn’t selective enough. So, Kempler and a new team of researchers led by Anastasiia Konovalova and Andrew Goldman wanted to understand which iron ore-like feedstocks could support scalable growth of the process.
It’s the shape and porosity, not the size, of metal oxide particles that matter for efficiency in electrochemical ironmaking.
Adapted from ACS Energy Letters 2025, DOI: 10.1021/ acsenergylett.5c00166
First, the researchers prepared high surface area iron oxide particles with internal holes and connective cavities to investigate how the nanoscale morphology of the particles impacted the electrochemical reaction. Then, they converted some of these into micrometer-wide iron oxide particles to mimic the morphology of natural ores. These particles contained only a few trace impurities, such as carbon and barium. The team designed a specialized cathode to pull iron metal from a sodium hydroxide solution containing the iron oxide particles as current passed through it.
In experiments, dense iron oxides were reduced, or converted into elemental iron, most selectively at a current density of 50 milliamperes per square centimeter, similar to rapidly charging lithium-ion batteries. Conversely, loose particles with higher porosity, and thus higher surface area, facilitated more efficient electrochemical iron production, as compared to those made to resemble the less porous natural iron ore hematite.
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Baughman was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas; a foreign member of the European Academy of Sciences; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Physical Society; an Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; and an honorary professor at seven universities in China. He also served on the editorial or advisory boards of Science and other scientific journals.
Ray Baughman loved spending time with family, friends and students. He deeply enjoyed travel, water sports, reading about American history and watching British mysteries. He spent the last weeks of his life surrounded by family and friends. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Karen McCarthy Baughman; his children Lara Purser, Heather Baughman, Dana Singh, Rebecca Baughman and Alexander Baughman, eight grandchildren and his sisters MaryJane Jones and Linda Baughman.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the 2025 Memorial – Ray Baughman- The University of Texas at Dallas or Notre Dame School of Dallas.
From the ACS Press Room
A step toward cleaner iron extraction using electricity
Continued from page 12
The researchers evaluated the potential cost of their electrochemical ironmaking method. At the current density used in the experiments, they estimated that iron could be produced at less than $600 per metric ton ($0.60 per kilogram), which is comparable to traditional ironmaking. The study showed that much higher current densities, up to 600 milliamperes per square centimeter, similar to those used in industrial electrolysis cells, could be achieved when using particles with nanoscale porosity. Further advances in electrochemical cell design and techniques to make iron oxide feedstocks more porous will be required before the technology sees commercial adoption. The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
