Conducting polymers (CPs) have been widely studied to realize advanced technologies in various areas such as chemical and biosensors, catalysts, photovoltaic cells, batteries, supercapacitors, and ...others. In particular, hybridization of CPs with inorganic species has allowed the production of promising functional materials with improved performance in various applications. Consequently, many important studies on CPs have been carried out over the last decade, and numerous researchers remain attracted to CPs from a technological perspective. In this review, we provide a theoretical classification of fabrication techniques and a brief summary of the most recent developments in synthesis methods. We evaluate the efficacy and benefits of these methods for the preparation of pure CP nanomaterials and nanohybrids, presenting the newest trends from around the world with 205 references, most of which are from the last three years. Furthermore, we also evaluate the effects of various factors on the structures and properties of CP nanomaterials, citing a large variety of publications.
Display omitted
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are phospholipid and protein constructs which are continuously secreted by cells in the form of smaller (30–200 nm) and larger (micron size) particles. ...While all of these vesicles are called as EVs, the smaller size are normally called as exosomes. Small EVs (sEVs) have now been explored as a potential candidate in therapeutics delivery owing to their endogenous functionality, intrinsic targeting property, and ability to cooperate with a host defense mechanism. Considering these potentials, we hypothesize that immune cell-derived sEVs can mimic immune cell to target cancer. However, different sEVs isolation technique reported poor yield and loss of functional properties. To solve this problem, herein we hybridized sEVs with synthetic liposome to engineer vesicles with size less than 200 nm to mimic the size of exosome and named as hybrid exosome (HE). To achieve this goal, sEVs from mouse macrophage was hybridized with synthetic liposome to engineer HE. The fluorescence-based experiment confirmed the successful hybridization process yielding HE with the size of 177 ± 21 nm. Major protein analysis from Blot techniques reveal the presence of EV marker proteins CD81, CD63, and CD9. Differential cellular interaction of HE was observed when treated with normal and cancerous cells thereby supporting our hypothesis. Moreover, a water-soluble doxorubicin was loaded in HE. Drug-loaded HE showed enhanced toxicity against cancer cells and pH-sensitive drug release in acidic condition, benefiting drug delivery to acidic cancer environment. These results suggest that the engineered HE would be an exciting platform for tumor-targeted drug delivery.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are phospholipid and protein constructs which are continuously secreted by cells in the human body. These vesicles can efficiently deliver their parental biomolecules to the recipient cells and assist in intracellular communication without a direct cell-to-cell contact. Moreover, they have the ability to perform some of the molecular task similar to that of its parent cells. For example, exosome derived from immune cells can seek for diseased and/or inflammatory cells by reading the cell surface proteins. However, different EVs isolation techniques reported poor yield and loss of functional properties. Therefore, to overcome this limitation, we herein propose to re-engineer immuno-exosome with a synthetic liposome as a refined biomimetic nanostructure for the delivery of doxorubicin (clinical drug) for breast cancer treatment.
Nanocellulose is a bionanomaterial with many promising applications, but high energy use in production has been described as a potential obstacle for future use. In fact, life cycle assessment ...studies have indicated high life cycle energy use for nanocellulose. In this study, we assess the cradle-to-gate environmental impacts of three production routes for a particular type of nanocellulose called cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) made from wood pulp. The three production routes are (1) the enzymatic production route, which includes an enzymatic pretreatment, (2) the carboxymethylation route, which includes a carboxymethylation pretreatment, and (3) one route without pretreatment, here called the no pretreatment route. The results show that CNF produced via the carboxymethylation route clearly has the highest environmental impacts due to large use of solvents made from crude oil. The enzymatic and no pretreatment routes both have lower environmental impacts, of similar magnitude. A sensitivity analysis showed that the no pretreatment route was sensitive to the electricity mix, and the carboxymethylation route to solvent recovery. When comparing the results to those of other carbon nanomaterials, it was shown that in particular CNF produced via the enzymatic and no pretreatment routes had comparatively low environmental impacts.
In this letter, a reconfigurable unit-cell for transmitarray antenna working at X-band is presented. It is designed to provide 1-bit phase quantization using p-i-n diodes. The unit-cell is based on ...multilayer frequency selective surfaces with the use of two substrates and a combination of a C-patch and a ring slot loaded by a rectangular gap. It is optimized using full-wave electromagnetic simulation and verified by using waveguide simulator. The experimental results show that the unit-cell provides two values of the transmission phase with a step of 180° at 11.5 GHz. Furthermore, the unit-cell has a low thickness of 0.19λ 0 , and is low-cost and easy to fabricate.
In this article, we propose a query-and-learn active learning approach combined with first-principles calculations to rapidly search for potentially stable crystal structure via elemental ...substitution, to clarify their stabilization mechanism, and integrate this approach to SmFe
12
-based compounds with ThMn
12
structure, which exhibits prominent magnetic properties. The proposed method aims to (1) accurately estimate formation energies with limited first-principles calculation data, (2) visually monitor the progress of the structure search process, (3) extract correlations between structures and formation energies, and (4) recommend the most beneficial candidates of SmFe
12
-substituted structures for the subsequent first-principles calculations. The structures of SmFe
12
-
α
-
β
X
α
Y
β
before optimization are prepared by substituting
X
,
Y
elements—Mo, Zn, Co, Cu, Ti, Al, Ga—in the region of
α
+
β
<
4
into iron sites of the original SmFe
12
structures. Using the optimized structures and formation energies obtained from the first-principles calculations after each active learning cycle, we construct an embedded two-dimensional space to rationally visualize the set of all the calculated and not-yet-calculated structures for monitoring the progress of the search. Our machine learning model with an embedding representation attained a prediction error for the formation energy of
1.25
×
10
-
2
(eV/atom) and required only one-sixth of the training data compared to other learning methods. Moreover, the time required to recall most potentially stable structures was nearly four times faster than the random search. The formation energy landscape visualized using the embedding representation revealed that the substitutions of Al and Ga have the highest potential to stabilize the SmFe
12
structure. In particular, SmFe
9
Al/Ga
2
Ti showed the highest stability among the investigated structures. Finally, by quantitatively measuring the change in the structures before and after optimization using OFM descriptors, the correlations between the coordination number of substitution sites and the resulting formation energy are revealed. The negative-formation-energy-family SmFe
12
-
α
-
β
Al/Ga
α
Y
β
structures show a common trend of increasing coordination number at substituted sites, whereas structures with positive formation energy show a corresponding decreasing trend.
Impact statement
Seeking the next generation of high-performance magnets is a crucial demand for replacing the widely accepted Nd-Fe-B magnets developed in the middle 80s. The iron-rich compounds with the original tetragonal ThMn
12
structure appear as the most potential candidates except for the hard synthesizing it in nature due to its high energy of formation. Stabilization for this material system is expected by substituting new elements, but the vast number of possible structures makes the exploration difficult even for theoretical calculations. This article proposes an integration of first-principles calculations and explainable active learning to efficiently explore the crystal structure space of this material system. In particular, the explored crystal structure space can be rationally visualized, on which the relationship between substitution elements, substitution sites, and crystal structure stabilization can be intuitively interpreted.
Ni‐CeO2 is a highly efficient, stable and non‐expensive catalyst for methane dry reforming at relative low temperatures (700 K). The active phase of the catalyst consists of small nanoparticles of ...nickel dispersed on partially reduced ceria. Experiments of ambient pressure XPS indicate that methane dissociates on Ni/CeO2 at temperatures as low as 300 K, generating CHx and COx species on the surface of the catalyst. Strong metal–support interactions activate Ni for the dissociation of methane. The results of density‐functional calculations show a drop in the effective barrier for methane activation from 0.9 eV on Ni(111) to only 0.15 eV on Ni/CeO2−x(111). At 700 K, under methane dry reforming conditions, no signals for adsorbed CHx or C species are detected in the C 1s XPS region. The reforming of methane proceeds in a clean and efficient way.
NiCe and dry: Ni‐CeO2 is shown to be highly efficient, stable, and non‐expensive catalyst for methane dry reforming at relative low temperatures (700 K). The active phase of the catalyst consists of small nanoparticles of nickel dispersed on partially reduced ceria. Strong metal–support interactions activate Ni for the dissociation of methane.
Neural progenitor cell (NPC) culture within three-dimensional (3D) hydrogels is an attractive strategy for expanding a therapeutically relevant number of stem cells. However, relatively little is ...known about how 3D material properties such as stiffness and degradability affect the maintenance of NPC stemness in the absence of differentiation factors. Over a physiologically relevant range of stiffness from ∼0.5 to 50 kPa, stemness maintenance did not correlate with initial hydrogel stiffness. In contrast, hydrogel degradation was both correlated with, and necessary for, maintenance of NPC stemness. This requirement for degradation was independent of cytoskeletal tension generation and presentation of engineered adhesive ligands, instead relying on matrix remodelling to facilitate cadherin-mediated cell-cell contact and promote β-catenin signalling. In two additional hydrogel systems, permitting NPC-mediated matrix remodelling proved to be a generalizable strategy for stemness maintenance in 3D. Our findings have identified matrix remodelling, in the absence of cytoskeletal tension generation, as a previously unknown strategy to maintain stemness in 3D.
Pharmaceutical Applications of Electrospraying Nguyen, Duong Nhat; Clasen, Christian; Van den Mooter, Guy
Journal of pharmaceutical sciences,
09/2016, Letnik:
105, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The electrohydrodynamic atomization technique, or simply called electrospraying, has been extensively studied for biomedical as well as for pharmaceutical applications over the past years. The ...simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency of producing particles at the microscale or nanoscale, with tailored size, shape, morphology, and microstructure, make electrospraying to become one of the most promising and well-practiced approaches to be applied in many biomedical and pharmaceutical fields, from improving the bioavailability of poorly aqueous soluble drugs, preparing targeted drug delivery systems, and controllable drug release systems to delivering sensitive therapeutic agents such as protein-based drugs or even living cells. Nevertheless, some issues still remain with respect to low throughput as well as the complex interplay between a great number of processing and formulation factors. A comprehensive understanding of these fundamental aspects is essential for the successful application of electrospraying for the production of particulate formulations with desired properties.
PDF
