Advanced Sensor and Energy Materials最新文献

Salt plays a crucial role in food processing and consumption, and the rapid detection of chloride ions in food and feed has great significance for practical applications. In this work, Ag−based nanomaterials were deposited on the surface of a flexible integrated electrochemical sensor for the detection of Cl⁻ in food. In order to enhance the detection performance, a unique needle−tip structure was formed by manipulating the electro−engraving process during the electrodeposition growth. Theoretical calculations and electrochemical investigations have demonstrated that the dendrimer’s rich tip structure significantly enhanced its electrochemical performance. A sensitive and flexible integrated electrochemical sensor was creatively developed for the detection of Cl⁻ using needle−tip effect−promoted Ag micro dendrimers. The sensor achieved quantitative detection of Cl⁻ over a dynamic range of 10.0 μM–100.0 mM, with a low limit of detection of 0.148 μM. The flexible electrochemical sensor proposed in this work exhibited good repeatability, selectivity and recoveries in real food samples.

DNA nanostructures have emerged as promising carriers for drug delivery. However, challenges such as low stability, poor cellular uptake efficiency, and vulnerability to lysosomal degradation still hinder their therapeutic potential. In this study, we demonstrate the coating of tetrahedral DNA frameworks (TDF) with the endosomolytic peptide L17E through electrostatic interactions to address these issues. Our findings highlight that L17E coating substantially enhances the stability of TDFs and improves their uptake efficiency into RAW264.7 cells through endocytosis and macropinocytosis. Moreover, L17E coating enables efficient endosomal release of TDFs. Finally, we employed L17E-coated TDF to deliver osteogenic growth peptide and demonstrated its potential applications in inhibiting periodontitis both in vitro and in vivo. This straightforward and cost-effective strategy holds promise for advancing the biomedical applications of DNA nanostructures.

The advancement of gas sensor technology over the past decades has led to remarkable progress and achievements in pollution control and environmental protection. Compared with other sensing materials, electrospun nanofibers have attracted significant attention, which is mainly due to their unique characteristics, including but not limited to high surface area, easy structure design, facile facility setup, multifunctional properties, etc., making them outstanding candidates for potential applications in this field. This review provides an overview of the applications of electrospun nanofibers in gas sensors, concentrating on carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, oxygen, and volatile organic compounds. It begins with a brief introduction to sensing materials and the advantages of electrospun nanofibers along with their ongoing research. The principles and progress of electrospinning are then discussed. Afterward, the corresponding properties of electrospun nanofibers in diverse gas sensors are thoroughly reviewed. Finally, a future vision regarding challenges and perspectives in this area is proposed. This review provides an extensive and comprehensive reference to utilize advanced electrospun nanofibers to generate novel sensors, facilitating their performance in high-demand areas.

The development of technologically advanced fiber-based flexible microelectrodes has been of extensive research interest in healthcare systems because of their unique construction and synergistic effect on multifunctional properties. In this work, we constructed functional MXene fiber (MXF) by a simple and versatile wet spinning method, and then, a well-aligned ZIF-67 nanoarray was grown in situ on the surface. Using the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were produced on MXF via the pyrolysis of ZIF-67 and melamine. Finally, Pt nanoparticles were electrodeposited on the CNTs forest, and a Pt@CNTs/MXF electrode was obtained. Owing to the plethora of surface active sites and the synergistic effects between MXene, CNTs, and Pt nanoparticles, the as-fabricated fiber electrode enabled the precise detection of ammonia under alkaline conditions via differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), which exhibited a linear range of 0.1 μM–10 mM and a detection limit of 73.2 nM. Due to their good performance in ammonia detection, Pt@CNTs/MXF electrodes could be adopted to determine the ammonia concentration in urine for clinical estimation, which provides a practical approach for the diagnosis of urinary ammonia-associated diseases.

Procalcitonin (PCT) is a promising biomarker for identification of the origin and severity of sepsis, which is a deadly body infection. However, traditional diagnostic tools exhibited challenges in complicated instruments, sensitivity and time consuming. Herein, we created a highly sensitive and selective surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) platform for PCT monitoring based on flower-like Bi₂WO₆-graphene (Bi₂WO₆-GO), which was created as a chemical mechanism (CM)-based SERS substrate with high stability as well as a remarkable enhancement factor (EF) value of 2.07 × 10⁸. The high EF value was primarily attributed to the efficient charge transfer (CT) between Bi₂WO₆-GO and 4-(2-(3-(dicyanomethylene)-5,5-dimethylcyclohex-1-en) vinyl) phenyl) boronic acid (BP) as a Raman reporter. The BP molecule was designed to play double key roles as a Raman reporter as well as a recognition probe. Owing to the specially designed BP molecule recognition of PCT and the high SERS effects of BP on Bi₂WO₆-GO, the developed SERS platform was employed for ultrasensitive and selective PCT quantification with a limit of detection down to 0.31 pg/mL in less than 8 min. The developed platform was also successfully utilized for early monitoring in sepsis rats, demonstrating practical potential for pathogene screening.

Hydrogen energy is an important energy carrier, which is an ideal choice to meet energy demand and reduce harmful gas emissions. The green recycling of hydrogen energy depends on water electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells, which involves hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The activity of HER/HOR in alkaline electrolyte, however, exhibits a significantly lower magnitude (2–3 orders) compared to that observed in an acidic medium, which hinders the development of alkaline water electrolysis and alkaline membrane fuel cells. Therefore, comprehending the characteristics of HOR/HER activity in alkaline electrolytes and elucidating its underlying mechanism is a prerequisite for the design of advanced electrocatalysts. Based on this background, this review will briefly summarize the explanations and controversies about the basic HOR mechanism, including bifunctional mechanism and hydrogen binding energy theory. Moreover, the crucial affecting factors of the HOR kinetics, such as d-band center theory, interfacial water recombination, alkali metal cations and electronic effects, are discussed. Thus, based on the above theories, the design principle, catalytic performance, and latest progress of HOR electrocatalysts are summarized. An outlook and future research perspectives of advanced catalysts for hydrogen energy recycling are addressed. This review is helpful to understand the latest development of HOR mechanism and design cost-effective and high-performance HOR electrocatalysts towards the production of clean renewable energies.

A solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell is emerging as one of the promising clean hydrogen generation systems. Engineering of semiconductor heterojunctions and surface morphologies of photoelectrodes in a PEC cell has been a primitive approach to boost its performance. This study presents that a molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanoflakes photoanode on 3-dimensional (3D) porous carbon spun fabric (CSF) as a substrate effectively enhances hydrogen generations due to sufficiently enlarged surface area. MoS₂ is grown on CSFs utilizing a hydrothermal method. Among three different MoS₂ coating morphologies depending on the amount of MoS₂ precursor and hydrothermal growth time, film shape MoS₂ on CSFs had the largest surface area, exhibiting the highest photocurrent density of 26.48 mA/cm² and the highest applied bias photon-to-current efficiency (ABPE) efficiency of 5.32% at 0.43 V_RHE. Furthermore, with a two-step growth method of sputtering and a subsequent hydrothermal coating, continuous TiO₂/MoS₂ heterojunctions on a porous CSF further promoted the photoelectrochemical performances due to their optimized bandgap alignments. Enlarged surface area, enhanced charge transfer, and utilization of visible light enable a highly efficient MoS₂/TiO₂/CSF photoanode with a photocurrent density of 33.81 mA/cm² and an ABPE of 6.97 % at 0.87 V_RHE. The hydrogen generation amount of the PEC cell with MoS₂/TiO₂/CSF photoanode is 225.4 μmol/L after light irradiation of 60 s.