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Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common type of malignant tumor of the central nervous system, characterized by aggressiveness, genetic instability, heterogenesis, and unpredictable clinical behavior. Disappointing results from the current clinical therapeutic methods have fueled a search for new therapeutic targets and treatment modalities. GBM is characterized by various genetic alterations, and RNA-based gene therapy has raised particular attention in GBM therapy. Here, we review the recent advances in engineered non-viral nanocarriers for RNA drug delivery to treat GBM. Therapeutic strategies concerning the brain-targeted delivery of various RNA drugs involving siRNA, microRNA, mRNA, ASO, and short-length RNA and the therapeutical mechanisms of these drugs to tackle the challenges of chemo-/radiotherapy resistance, recurrence, and incurable stem cell-like tumor cells of GBM are herein outlined. We also highlight the progress, prospects, and remaining challenges of non-viral nanocarriers-mediated RNA-based gene therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemical capacitors are expected to replace conventional electrolytic capacitors in line filtering for integrated circuits and portable electronics1–8. However, practical implementation of electrochemical capacitors into line-filtering circuits has not yet been achieved owing to the difficulty in synergistic accomplishment of fast responses, high specific capacitance, miniaturization and circuit-compatible integration1,4,5,9–12. Here we propose an electric-field enhancement strategy to promote frequency characteristics and capacitance simultaneously. By downscaling the channel width with femtosecond-laser scribing, a miniaturized narrow-channel in-plane electrochemical capacitor shows drastically reduced ionic resistances within both the electrode material and the electrolyte, leading to an ultralow series resistance of 39 mΩ cm2 at 120 Hz. As a consequence, an ultrahigh areal capacitance of up to 5.2 mF cm−2 is achieved with a phase angle of −80° at 120 Hz, twice as large as one of the highest reported previously4,13,14, and little degradation is observed over 1,000,000 cycles. Scalable integration of this electrochemical capacitor into microcircuitry shows a high integration density of 80 cells cm−2 and on-demand customization of capacitance and voltage. In light of excellent filtering performances and circuit compatibility, this work presents an important step of line-filtering electrochemical capacitors towards practical applications in integrated circuits and flexible electronics.A miniaturized narrow-channel in-plane electrochemical capacitor shows drastically reduced ionic resistances within both the electrode material and the electrolyte and an ultrahigh areal capacitance by downscaling the channel width with femtosecond-laser scribing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric water, as one of the most abundant natural resources on Earth, has attracted huge research interest in the field of water harvesting and energy harvesting and conversion owing its environmental friendliness and easy access. The developments of new materials have seen advanced technologies that can extract water and energy out of this long-neglected resource, suggesting a promising and sustainable approach to address the water and energy crises over the world. Carbon-based functional materials have been considered to be indispensable materials for atmospheric water utilization due to their large surface area, excellent adsorption performance, and higher surface activity. In this review, first, we analyze the interaction between carbon-based functional materials and atmospheric water molecular. Then, technologies developed in recent years for atmospheric water utilization based on carbon-based functional materials are reviewed, mainly focusing on atmospheric water harvesting, moisture-enabled electricity generation, and moisture-responsive actuation. Finally, the remaining challenges and some tentative suggestions possibly guiding developments are proposed, which may pave a way for a bright future of carbon-based functional material in the utilization of atmospheric water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For electrocatalytic processes, the electronic structure especially the density of states (DOS) of electrode materials plays a dominant role in process of electron transfer kinetics for redox reactions. The unusual electronic properties of sp2‐hybridized carbon nanomaterials with adjustable DOS offer great promise in constructing high performance electrodes for electrochemical applications. However, researchers are still confronted with challenges such as how the electronic properties influence the kinetics of electron transfer and how to modulate the electronic structure appropriate strategy for achieving efficient electrochemical reactions of different sp2 carbon nanomaterials. With the aim of understanding the impacts of electronic structures on electrocatalytic properties, we selected several typical 0D to 3D carbon nanomaterials, and tailored the electrocatalytic performance of carbon nanomaterials by doping electron donor and electron acceptor. The results demonstrate that different molecular doping give rise to entirely different modifications in electronic structure of the sp2‐hybridized carbon nanomaterials, endowing modulation of the electrocatalytic properties for the appropriate redox reaction. When doped with electron acceptor, it is more conducive to the oxidation reaction. Conversely, doping with electron donors is more conducive to the occurrence of reduction reactions. This strategy reveals electronic structure effects on the electron transfer of electrocatalytic redox reaction and provides an efficient approach on tailoring the electrocatalytic performance of sp2‐hybridized carbon nanomaterials. For further electrochemical applications, that can ultimately provide rational guidance toward the development of improved catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The performance of water purification by adsorption method has been limited owing to the fact that most of current available adsorbents fail to achieve satisfactory removal performance for organic micropollutants. Herein, we report the design and synthesis of novel porous polymeric adsorbent built from β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), in which β-CD molecules are arranged in an ordered bis (β-CD) tubular assemblies. The induction of bis (β-CD) units renders them high adsorption affinity toward bisphenols (bisphenol A and its analogues bisphenol B, bisphenol F and bisphenol S), the typical endocrine disruptors, via the formation of stable host-guest inclusion complexes in aquatic systems. In combination with their high porosity (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 150 m2·g−1), abundant β-CD content and fast sorption kinetics, the obtained adsorbent outperforms commercial water purifier in elimination of bisphenol micropollutants from potable water. Our work may open a new avenue for designing highly efficient adsorbents for removal of organic micropollutants from aquatic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploration of cost‐effective, high‐performance and durable multifunctional electrocatalysts is of significant importance for renewable energy conversion and storage. In this work, a simple strategy is developed to tailor the nickel metal with the collaboration of nitrogen‐doped graphene and single‐walled carbon nanotubes. The resulted nickel catalyst exhibits superior trifunctional activities for oxygen evolution, hydrogen evolution and oxygen reduction reactions in the same electrolyte, even comparable to commercial Pt/C and RuO2 respectively, which can be attributed to the synergistic advantages between nickel, nitrogen and carbon, mainly including abundant integrated active sites achieved by the irregular charge distribution among C−N and Ni−N coupling centers. Such remarkable effects on trifunctional catalysis elicit the efficient overall water splitting, and endow the assembled zinc‐air battery with a good performance. These highlight the metallic nickel as an advanced multifunctional electrocatalysts with integrated sites developed from the collaboration of two different carbon nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The porous microspherical Nitrogen and Phosphorus‐co‐doped NiFe2O4/Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes (NP‐NiFe2O4/SWNTs) had been fabricated. Nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) were co‐doped to increase the active sites. And SWNTs hybrid was to obtain the enhanced conductivity, large specific surface area and more active sites. The hierarchical, porous structure and highly conductive SWNTs enables efficient transport of the electrons generated during oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Thus, NP‐NiFe2O4/SWNTs was demonstrated as a high‐performance catalyst for OER with a small overpotential of 247 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and low Tafel slope of 83.6 mV dec−1. The outstanding performance of NP‐NiFe2O4/SWNTs can also made it serve as anode for water splitting at a cell voltage of 1.595 V, which surpasses the precious RuO2 and Pt/C. That's dope! Porous microspherical nitrogen and phosphorus‐co‐doped NiFe2O4/single‐walled carbon nanotubes have been developed for efficient oxygen evolution reaction, which showed the strategy to improve the catalytic activity by designing and tuning the hierarchical structure, composition, conductivity and active sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The synthesis of new nanohybrid catalysts with a tunable structure and the exploration of their synergistic behaviors have captured substantial attention. In this work, amorphous molybdenum disulfide/single‐walled carbon nanotubes (MoS2/SWNTs) composites are synthesized by a facile hydrothermal process with the assistance of l‐cysteine. We varied the mass ratio of sodium molybdate (the in situ Mo source) to SWNTs, this method provides a well‐defined pathway to enable the morphological control over the evolution of MoS2 from nanospheres to nanofilaments, nanorods, and nanosheets. Among the as‐obtained samples, the MoS2/SWNTs (1:1) hybrids, which displayed a 3 D architecture that consisted of nanorods, exhibited the highest activity in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Compared with pure MoS2, the MoS2 nanosheets that decorate the SWNTs have more highly exposed active edges, and the SWNTs in the center of the MoS2/SWNTs nanorods can enhance the conductivity. We regulated the ratio between MoS2 and SWNTs to obtain a balance between the number of active sites and the conductivity of MoS2/SWNTs. Here, MoS2/SWNTs nanorods exhibited a low overpotential of 195 mV at 20 mA cm−2 and a low Tafel slope of 41 mV dec−1 for MoS2‐based HER catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic layered ion-exchangers have received extensive attention in the field of environmental remediation due to their high chemical, thermal and radiolytic stability, large surface areas, and excellent ion exchange capacities. These materials have been widely investigated as adsorbents for decontamination of toxic metal pollutants, such as heavy metals and nuclear waste related metal ions in aquatic systems. In this review, we describe the most important inorganic layered ion-exchangers including layered double hydroxides, layered metal oxides, and layered metal sulfides in terms of their structural features and ion exchange properties as well as potential applications in remediation of metal polluted aquatic systems. Furthermore, the future challenges and outlooks for these materials are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electrodeposition method for fabrication of CuTe and Cu2Te thin films is presented. The films’ growth is based on the epitaxial electrodeposition of Cu and Te alternately with different electrochemical parameter, respectively. The deposited thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electronic microscopy (FE-SEM) with an energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyzer, and FTIR studies. The results suggest that the epitaxial electrodeposition is an ideal method for deposition of compound semiconductor films for photoelectric applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been widely used as a powerful diagnostic tool in clinics because it can provide high-resolution 3D tomography of the anatomic structure based on the distinctive X-ray absorptions between different tissues. Currently, CT contrast agents are mainly small iodinated molecules, which suffer from drawbacks such as short bloodretention time, nonspecific in vivo biodistribution, and renal toxicity. Utilization of nanoparticles as potential CT contrast agents to overcome the aforementioned issues has advanced rapidly. In this mini review, we introduce current research efforts in the development of nanoparticulate CT contrast agents and discuss the challenges for additional breakthroughs in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]