ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces最新文献

Porous silicon (pSi) has gained substantial attention as a versatile material for various biomedical applications due to its unique structural and functional properties. Initially used as a semiconductor material, pSi has transitioned into a bioactive platform, enabling its use in drug delivery systems, biosensing, tissue engineering scaffolds, and implantable devices. This review explores recent advancements in macrostructural pSi, emphasizing its biocompatibility, biodegradability, high surface area, and tunable properties. In drug delivery, pSi's potential for controlled and sustained release of therapeutic agents has been well-studied, making it suitable for chronic disease treatment. Innovative approaches, like microneedle arrays and hybrid drug delivery systems, are highlighted, along with challenges, such as scalability and stability, in biological environments. pSi-based biosensors offer exceptional sensitivity for detecting biomarkers, benefiting early disease diagnosis. In tissue engineering, fibrous and particulate pSi scaffolds mimic the extracellular matrix, promoting cell proliferation and tissue regeneration. pSi is also gaining momentum in orthopedic implants, demonstrating the potential for bone regeneration. Despite its promise, challenges like mechanical strength, scalability, and long-term stability must be addressed. Looking forward, future research should focus on optimizing production methods, enhancing stability, and exploring hybrid materials for pSi, paving the way for its widespread clinical use in personalized medicine, advanced drug delivery, and next-generation biosensors and implants.

Due to the low bioavailability and insolubility of high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (HMW-PAHs) in aqueous solutions, their degradation efficiency is significantly limited in wastewater treatment and environmental remediation. To address this challenge, we designed oil-in-water (O/W) macroemulsion (ME) bioreactors with mixed surfactants (Tween-80 and Triton X-100), n-butanol, corn oil, and Burkholderia vietnamiensis (BVs) to enhance the degradation efficiency of pyrene. Owing to the higher solubility of pyrene in MEs, it could be easily adsorbed onto hydrophobic groups on the cell surface. Furthermore, the fluorescence images showed that the BVs were adsorbed on the surface of the MEs, increasing the contact frequency and interactions between pyrene and BVs. Meanwhile, the degradation efficiency of the prepared ME bioreactor was improved by up to 198% compared to that of the conventional surfactant. Therefore, the constructed ME bioreactors can provide green guidance for HMW-PAH biodegradation in industrial wastewater and environmental remediation.

In this work, we present a facile and straightforward approach for fabricating highly stretchable photodetectors based on Ag₂S and Ti₃C₂T_x MXene hybrid materials. These devices exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, maintaining stable electrical and optical performance even after 10 000 cycles of 30% strain. The incorporation of MXene not only enhances the device's electrical durability but also ensures the retention of conductivity under significant mechanical deformation, positioning MXene as a critical material for the advancement of flexible electronics. These devices demonstrate strong photoresponses across a broad wavelength range, from visible to infrared, confirming their potential for use in flexible and stretchable optoelectronic applications. This study highlights the advantage of utilizing MXene in stretchable electronics and offers a promising route for developing durable, flexible devices for next-generation wearable technologies.

Thermoelectric properties of conducting polymers typically suffer from molecular chain disordering, as charge transport is predominantly controlled by morphology. This is especially more problematic when counterions are introduced to tune the carrier concentration for optimal thermoelectric performance, which disturbs the morphology further. In this work, we introduce a new avenue for enhancing thermoelectric properties without needing to regulate the morphology, namely, by controlling the coulombic interaction between polarons and counterions. We perform in situ de-doping thermoelectric experiments over 3 orders of magnitude change in electrical conductivity of three distinct thermoelectric polymers, namely, poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT), poly[2,5-bis(3-dodecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene] (PBTTT-C₁₂), and poly[2,5-(2-octyldodecyl)-3,6-diketopyrrolopyrrole-alt-5,5-(2,5-di(thien-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene)] (OD-PDPP2T-TT) conjugated polymers, followed by grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) to study their respective morphologies. We demonstrate a 9-fold enhancement in the thermoelectric power factor in OD-PDPP2T-TT compared to PBTTT-C₁₂ and link it to the coulombic screening of charge carriers, including in the optimally doped regime. We support this hypothesis using Boltzmann transport equations and show that, in both P3HT and PBTTT-C₁₂, as the polymer is doped, impurity scattering remains the dominant scattering mechanism, while in OD-PDPP2T-TT, the scattering mechanism changes from impurity to acoustic phonon limited, resulting in more effective screening of ionized counterions. Our results provide an additional knob to enhance the fundamental understanding of thermoelectric physics of conducting polymers and provide a pathway to achieve higher performance in the field of organic thermoelectrics.

Achieving dual functionalities of hydrophobicity and excellent microwave transmission in a single material remains a significant challenge, especially for advanced applications in aerospace, telecommunications, and navigation engineering. Inspired by natural designs like chestnut burrs, bioinspired polyaniline (PANI) particles with tunable micro-/nanostructures through a facile template-free polymerization process have been developed. By regulating the polarity of the reaction system, temperature, and reaction time, various hierarchical structures, including cross-linked nanosheets, chestnut burr-like spheres, and starburst flower-like structures, are synthesized. The spiny projections and surface roughness endow the unique chestnut burr-like structure, achieving superior hydrophobicity and excellent microwave transmission properties. The formation of hierarchical structures is driven by intermolecular interactions during the nucleation and growth processes. The presence of both hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains within PANI particles leads to the coexistence of large water contact angles up to 152° and high surface energy. The optimized PANI structure minimizes the charge carrier mobility, dipole relaxation, and dielectric loss. A superior microwave transmission efficiency of up to 96% is achieved with these combined factors. By disclosing the relationship between the structure, wettability, and dielectric properties, a design protocol for the bionic regulation of micro-/nanostructures is established to achieve both superhydrophobic and excellent microwave-transparent functions.

Colon cancer is one kind of malignant digestive tract tumor with high morbidity and mortality worldwide, treatments for which still face great challenges. Recently emerged intervention strategies such as phototherapy and gas therapy have displayed promising effects in the treatment of colon cancer, but their application are still hindered due to insufficient tumor targeting and deeper tissue penetrating capacity. Herein, in the present study, we developed one theranostic nanoplatform Cet-CDs-SNO (CCS) to realize multimodal imaging-guided synergistic colon cancer therapy. Among the CCS, Cetuximab (Cet), one first-line clinical drugs for colorectal cancer, endowed CCS with tumor-targeting capacity and enhanced drug accumulation in tumor cells; CDs doped by Ni²⁺ and Mn²⁺ served as NIR-II photothermal therapy (PTT), chemodynamic therapy (CDT), and photothermal/magnetic resonance/fluorescence imaging (PTI/MRI/FLI) agents; SNO, a nitric oxide (NO) donor, exerted gas therapeutic (GT) effects under thermal stimulation derived from PTT. In vitro and in vivo experiments proved that CCS had excellent colon cancer-targeting ability. Proliferation of colon cancer cells and tumor growth were significantly inhibited by the administration of CCS without detectable cytotoxicity. This study presented one strategy for developing a multifunctional nanoplatform to be applied in imaging-guided precise tumor therapy.

Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) show great promise as cathode candidates for aqueous zinc-ion batteries thanks to their high operating voltage, open-framework structure, and low cost. However, suffering from numerous vacancies and crystal water, the electrochemical performance of PBAs remains unsatisfactory, with limited capacity and poor cycle life. Here, a simple coprecipitation method is shown to synthesize well-crystallized cobalt hexacyanoferrate (CoHCF) with a small amount of water and high specific surface area. Benefitting from two redox-active sites, CoHCF could deliver 104.6 mA h g^-1 at 0.02 A g^-1 and 72 mA h g^-1 at 1 A g^-1, with good capacity retention of 92.4% after 300 cycles at 0.5 A g^-1. Several electrochemical kinetic tests indicate that the reaction is dominated by capacitive behavior and that the diffusion coefficient of Zn²⁺ ions is approximately 10^-9 cm² s^-1. Furthermore, ex-situ XRD indicated a reversible insertion/extraction of Zn²⁺ ions without any phase transition.