Advanced Materials Interfaces最新文献

Lipid Droplets (LDs) or as also called oleosomes are lipid storage organelles in eukaryotic cells. Besides storing lipids, LDs can fuse their core into other intracellular organelles, but the mechanism remains unknown. In this work, this is aimed to understand the effect of cargo's polarity on the transportation of the cargo from LDs to lipid bilayers using liposomes. LDs are loaded with curcumin and Nile red, two lipophilic molecules with similar log P values. The loaded LDs are blended with liposomes, while curcumin and Nile red are tracked using confocal microscopy and spectroscopy. LDs remained intact, while curcumin was transferred in 5 min from LDs to liposomes. Nile red remained in LDs. The difference between curcumin and Nile red is attributed to the amphiphilicity of curcumin, which allowed its adsorption in the LD monolayer and the subsequent transportation to the liposome bilayer upon contact. The unique selectivity of LDs is shown as carriers since lipophilic cargo is transferred to the lipid bilayer only when participating in the LD membrane. The understanding of the transportation mechanism of molecules from LDs to bilayers helps the exploitation of LDs as natural lipid carriers.

Impacted by heavy corrosion and poor connections, zinc (Zn) powders have rarely been considered as the raw materials of Zn-ion aqueous batteries (ZABs). Nonetheless, the ease of controlling loadings of Zn powders entitles ZABs to better capacity match between negative and positive electrodes. Here, a simple and rapid chemical solution passivation method is reported, which leads to a thin, dense, and conformal passivation layer on Zn powder surface. The passivation layer suppresses parasitic reactions of Zn powder anode, mitigates corrosions, and extends the calendar life. Mixing with well-dispersed carbon nanotubes, the passivated Zn powder anode is able to cycle 100 h under 3 mA cm⁻² and 3 mAh cm⁻² at depth of discharge of 41.3%. Besides, the anode with negative/positive electrode capacity ratio of 5.95 improves the energy density of the Zn powder||MnO₂ full cell to 70 Wh Kg⁻¹. Such a simple “one-step” passivation method is believed to be a “drop-in” technique applied in the scalable manufacture of ZABs.

Miniaturization in life sciences and chemical sciences offers substantial advantages to experimental workflows, such as increased throughput, reduced costs, and lower environmental impact. While microtiter plates are effective, further miniaturization is necessary to enhance efficiency and throughput. However, microtiter plates cannot be easily miniaturized to volumes below 5 µL, primarily because adhesive and capillary forces become stronger than the gravitational forces needed to confine the liquid within the wells. To overcome this, the droplet microarray (DMA) is developed, utilizing patterned adhesive regions on a liquid-repellent background to immobilize and confine sub-microliter droplets without physical barriers. This unique format enables novel applications such as droplet merging and parallel ultra-high-throughput manipulations. This review provides an overview of DMA's diverse applications and highlights the new experimental opportunities it offers, establishing it as a versatile tool for highly miniaturized, high-throughput biological and chemical experiments. The evolving requirements and future applications of the DMA approach are also discussed.

Direct fuel cells, such as direct hydrazine fuel cells (DHFC), are considered environmentally friendly alternative energy technologies with great potential for the future. Hydrazine, used as a liquid fuel, is particularly advantageous due to its high cell voltage and energy density. In this study, the electrocatalytic potential of SnZr/ZSM-5 catalysts synthesized with wet impregnation at various molar ratios is investigated for hydrazine oxidation. The catalyst is characterized by XPS, ICP-MS, XRD, FTIR, SEM-EDX, and TEM techniques. Additionally, thermal characterization of this catalyst is performed with temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO), and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The catalytic activities of ZSM-5-supported monometallic and bimetallic catalysts are determined using electrochemical measurements such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) for direct hydrazine fuel cell (DHFC). The highest catalytic activity achieved is 44.874 mA cm⁻² for SnZr(50:50)/ZSM-5 catalyst, revealing that Zr addition to Sn improves the electrocatalytic activity of bimetallic catalysts compared to monometallic catalysts. The long-term current density and stability of SnZr(50:50)/ZSM-5 catalyst are taken at 0.6 V. EIS measurements indicated that the lowest charge transfer resistance is at 0.6 V, consistent with CV and CA measurements. SnZr(50:50)/ZSM-5 provides a new perspective as an anode catalyst for DHFC applications.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been widely applied for adsorption applications owing to their high surface area and porosity. In this paper, the atmospheric water adsorption kinetics in a prototypical MOF with two forms, that is, powder and monolithic MOF-801, are systematically investigated. It is shown that the total pore volume (average pore diameter) of the monolithic MOF-801 is 0.831 cm³ g⁻¹ (5.20 nm) which is much larger than that of powder MOF-801, that is, 0.488 cm³ g⁻¹ (1.95 nm). Monolithic MOF-801 absorbs more water than powder MOF-801 at a relative humidity (RH) above 90%. However, between the RH ranges from 10% to 90%, its water uptake is significantly lower than that of the powder form. Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that the unexpected water uptake capacity of monolithic MOF-801 at RH of 10%∼90% is caused by the water film formed by the capillary condensation in these mesopores of monolithic MOF-801. The capillary force of the formed film can be overcome by water vapor pressure when RH is over 90%. These findings reveal the underlying mechanisms for water adsorption kinetics in both powder and monolithic MOFs, which can motivate and benefit the new passive cooling or water harvesting system design based on MOFs.

Rapid advances in the development of nanotechnology in recent years have led to functional magnetic nanoparticle types (MNPs) with different properties. The diverse applications of these nanoparticles make them a desirable candidate for use in biomedical areas due to their exclusive chemical and physical properties. The present work is conducted to study the in vitro biocompatibility of CoFe₂O₄@shell with different surface coatings (shell: ascorbic acid (AA), dextran (DEX), and polyethyleneimine (PEI). The cytotoxicity of coated nanoparticles is screened toward the glioma cancer line (C6) and fibroblast cell line (L929) using an MTT assay. CoFe₂O₄ NPs are synthesized using the co-precipitation method together with hydrothermal synthesis and characterized regarding their structural and magnetic properties using state-of-the-art techniques. Results showed the particles are consistent with the crystal structure of CoFe₂O₄ and the average crystallite size in the range of 16–18 nm. For the coated NPs, only a slight increase in the Hc is found except for the CoFe₂O₄@PEI NPs. The comparative analysis of the cytotoxic effects of CoFe₂O₄@shell NPs on L929 fibroblast and glioma cells shows that the cytotoxicity of samples is much more specific in brain tumor cells, especially it also indicates the significant efficacy of CoFe₂O₄@PEI in cancer cells.

Capacitive Material

In article 2400621, Teresa Gatti and co-workers present a novel method for covalent anchoring of polyaniline chains to 2D MoS₂ nanosheets. The resulting covalently grafted hybrids are employed as active materials in electrochemical supercapacitors, providing improved performance and stability compared to the non-covalently grafted alternatives.

Invisible Hydrocarbons on Graphene

Rapidly diffusing hydrocarbons on graphene are revealed through direct detection in image intensity. The graphene appears to be clean on a microscopic level but is shown to still harbor contamination in a non-solid form, loosely adhered to the graphene surface. This work updates the conceptual model of surface hydrocarbons on graphene. More details can be found in article 2400598 by Ondrej Dyck and co-workers.

Optoelectric Superwetting

In article 2400459, Riccardo Zamboni and co-workers develop an optoelectric method for droplet manipulation on artificially micropatterned surfaces. It relies solely on optically induced virtual electrodes on photovoltaic crystals. Selective droplet transport and superhydrophobic wetting states are optically controlled on various patterns and substrates.

Studies have increasingly aimed at improving the piezoresistive behavior of polymer-based conductive composites (CPCs) for strain-sensing, with inorganic nanomaterial enhancement offering research opportunities. This study investigates the impact of incorporating zinc sulfide nanospheres (ZnS NSs, 1–7 wt.%), synthesized via a one-step hydrothermal method, into a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) polymer matrix together with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses reveal that ZnS NSs comprise a mixture of ZnS_0.96O_0.04 and S phases. While of ZnS NSs minimally impact tensile properties of the PVDF/MWCNT composites, they reduce elongation at break at 5 wt.%. During 15-cycle strain sensing up to 3% strain, ZnS NSs-enhanced composites outperformed PVDF/1 wt.% MWCNT. The reference sample's resistance change ratio (ΔR/R0) decreased below 1% with increased cycles, while 1 wt.% ZnS NSs increased ΔR/R0 to 3%, reducing changes upon cycle increments. Higher ZnS NSs levels (3–7 wt.%) resulted in ΔR/R0 exceeding 4–5%, indicating enhanced strain sensing performance. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed limited impact of ZnS NSs on the thermal properties and microstructure of the composites.