Although in recent years silica and silica-based materials has become one of the most frequently used materials in a various branches of science and industry, their use in biotechnology still is an very intensively expanding fields in materials chemistry. This is due to the extraordinary stability and mechanical resistance of the silica, its neutral character for most of the molecules as well as surface properties, such as well-defined surface area and the presence of numerous of hydroxyl moieties. These properties make silica extremely interesting for biotechnological application including, among others, adsorption of hazardous pollutants, catalysis, enzyme immobilization, drug delivery systems and development of novel, eco-friendly solutions. The increasingly growing number of possibilities to design and develop novel synthesis approaches and to use advanced characterization techniques of the silica and silica-based materials gives the opportunity to apply these materials, for instance in sophisticated medical and catalytic solutions. Nevertheless, further scientific studies are still required as development of the novel silica-based materials acts as a driving force for a widespread application of the above-mentioned systems in the field of biotechnology.\u00a0This Special Issue welcomes articles concerning synthesis, characterization and application of silica and silica-based materials in various areas of biotechnology. We hope to attract both, original research papers related to the fundamental science and practical application of silica and silica-based materials in biotechnology as well as review articles describing the current state of the knowledge.
\nKeywords: silica; biomaterials; silica-based materials; silica for biotechnology; polymer composites; environmental protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","format":"standard","topic":[642,431,286,130,467,469,474],"country":[55],"nsj_language":[57],"class_list":["post-1653","call_for_papers","type-call_for_papers","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","topic-air-pollution","topic-bio-based-materials","topic-biotechnology","topic-chemical-material-sciences-en","topic-industry-4-0","topic-interdisciplinarity-approach","topic-nature-based-solutions","country-switzerland","nsj_language-english"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n