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Recently, the membrane separation materials show promising applications in the fields of crude oil removal because of their low energy consumption and less secondary pollution. However, the membrane separation materials suffer problem of low separation efficiency due to the high viscosity of crude oil. Here, a superhydrophobic material with Joule heat and photothermal effect was prepared by decorating the delignified wood with reduced graphene oxide (GSH) and vinyl terminated polydimethylsiloxane (V-PDMS) through thiol-ene click reaction. The prepared PDMS@GSH wood exhibited stable superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 156°. Meanwhile, the GSH layer provided promising electrothermal effect that endowed the PDMS@GSH wood with excellent crude oil/water separation capability under the Joule heat with a surface temperature of 139 °C and separation rate of 1.78 × 105 kg m−3 h−1. Besides, the PDMS@GSH wood displayed a good photothermal effect that assisted with the Joule heat to heat the wood for crude oil removal to save energy. More importantly, the PDMS was crosslinked with GSH on the wood via thiol-ene click reaction, leading to the stable superhydrophobicity and electrical conductivity in strong acid or alkali environment. This material has broad application prospects in crude oil clean-up due to its high separation speed and easy large-scale production. [Display omitted] • A new strategy for fabricating superhydrophobic wood with heating property is proposed. • The wood presents stable superhydrophobicity and electrical conductivity. • The wood shows excellent Joule heat and photothermal effect. • The wood exhibits high separation rate for viscous crude oil wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Conductive superhydrophobic cotton fabric was fabricated by LBL assembly of CNTs. • The cotton fabric achieved high oil-water separation efficiency and great reusability. • The cotton fabric-based pressure sensor exhibited stable responses in human motion detection. • The pressure sensor could work even under wet and humid conditions. Conductive superhydrophobic cotton fabric was fabricated by assembling carboxylated and aminated multiwalled carbon nanotubes and modifying with polydimethylsiloxane. The cotton fabric possessed superhydrophobicity with a CA of 162°, and was successfully applied in oil-water separation with high separation efficiency and great reusability. Additionally, the conductive fabric-based pressure sensor exhibited stable and regular responses in human motion detection including finger bending, wrist movement, walking and running. Owing to the excellent water repellency of the fabric, the pressure sensor could work even under wet and humid conditions, which may pave a novel way to further broaden application field in high-performance electric sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional membranes with electrothermal/photothermal effects are considered an effective method for separating water/viscous crude oil mixtures. However, the loading of photothermal and electrothermal particles in polymeric membranes with poor compatibility will deteriorate the membrane performance, leading to the unstable photothermal/electrothermal effects. Therefore, we prepared a hydrophobic sandwich structure polyvinylidene fluoride/reduced graphene oxide/polydimethylsiloxane (PVDF/rGO/PDMS) composite membrane using a two-step electrospinning process, which improved the binding force between the photothermal/electrothermal particles and the matrix with the composite membrane exhibiting super fast electric heating and photothermal effect. The temperature of the composite membrane surface rapidly reached to 162.5 °C within 30 s at 25 V. In addition, the addition of graphene (GO) improved the mechanical properties of the composite membrane. Meantime, the composite membrane possessed stable hydrophobicity and lipophilicity, which was beneficial for separating water/viscous crude oil mixtures. Owing to the controllable pore structure and special wetting behavior, the water-in-oil emulsion was successfully separated. Importantly, the separation rates of the water/crude oil mixtures under the electrothermal effect was 2340 kg·m−2·h−1·bar−1. Thus, this study provides a new method for preparing hydrophobic sandwich-like PVDF/rGO/PDMS composite membrane with electrothermal/photothermal effects, which has significant potential for engineering applications in high-viscosity crude oil removal and water-in-oil emulsion separation. [Display omitted] • A hydrophobic sandwich structure PVDF/rGO/PDMS composite membrane was constructed. • Electrospinning promoted the binding of GO with PVDF membrane. • The composite membrane possessed super fast electric heating and photothermal conversion capability. • The composite membrane showed a high speed at separation viscous crude oil from water. • The effective separation of water-in-oil emulsion was successfully achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screening biological readouts in cell culture are increasing in frequency and throughput. In such assays, cell types may be rare and reagents or compounds may be expensive often resulting in a reduced number of conditions and/or replicates. “Tubeless” microfluidics offers a method to reduce this burden, as has been previously shown. In addition the In-Cell Western (ICW) has recently been adapted to microfluidic cultures allowing high throughput analysis of immunocytochemistry in microfluidic channels. Combining automated liquid handling in tubeless microfluidics with the ICW provides rapid and quantitative high throughput cell-based screens. Here, we validate this platform using three parameters: operational robustness (pipetting reliability), cell seeding consistency, and cell staining consistency (both nuclear and antibody). Integration of liquid handling with microfluidics was found to be more than 97% operationally robust. Cell seeding consistency between each microchannel and within each microchannel was found to be within a standard deviation of less than 5% and 6%, respectively. Finally, through optimization of liquid handling steps, uniformity among all the channels was found for both nuclear and antibody staining. These results lay the foundation to perform most standard ICW assays using automated tubeless microfluidics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

[Display omitted] • Novel cyano-cinnamate derivatives based on MPC inhibitor UK-5099 have been designed and synthesized. • Single-crystal incubation was carried out to confirm the E-configuration of cyano-cinnamate derivatives. • Compound 4i showed better cellular lactate production activity than UK-5099. • Compound 4i also promoted obvious hair growth on mice. Mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) inhibitors promote the development of hair follicle stem cells without affecting normal cells, which is promising for the treatment of hair loss. Herein, a series of cyano-cinnamate derivatives of UK-5099 were designed and synthesized. All these new compounds have been tested for their ability to promote cellular lactate production in vitro. Compound 4i (LA content:0.322 μmol/106cell) showed better cellular lactate production activity than UK-5099 (LA content:0.185 μmol/106cell). Further compound 4i was also tested on shaved mice by topical treatment and promoted obvious hair growth on mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the crude oil spill has brought inevitable harm to the global ecological environment. Due to the high-viscosity crude oil, it is wise to take advantage of the photothermal/electrothermal effects of the membrane to separate the crude oil from the water. However, the functional separation membrane always suffers from low photothermal/electrothermal effects and poor stability. Herein, the vinyl polyvinylidene fluoride/mercapto carbon nanotubes@vinyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PVDF-a/CNT-s@PDMS) membrane with fast photothermal/electrothermal effects and organic absorption property was successfully prepared by electrospinning and multi-layer loading method. The prepared PVDF-a/CNT-s@PDMS membrane resisted a variety of liquids and had stable superhydrophobicity (WCA = 156°). Furthermore, the membrane maintained superhydrophobicity even suffer from water and milk under the applied voltage condition. After 100 wear resistance tests, the membrane maintained stable superhydrophobicity and the separation rate remained unchanged. The surface temperature of the membrane rapidly approached to the maximum temperature in 30 s, showing a rapid photothermal/electrothermal effects, and the average separation rate of crude oil was 1185 kg m−2 h−1·bar−1. Meanwhile, the membrane exhibited outstanding efficiency for separate immiscible oil-water mixtures. Importantly, the incorporation of the sulfhydryl group enhanced the special ability of the composite membrane to adsorb organic dyes from oil phase. Therefore, the PVDF-a/CNT-s@PDMS membrane has a wide range of potential application in the domain of oil-water separation. [Display omitted] • The superhydrophobic membrane exhibited high stability toward abrasion. • The obtained membrane possessed fast photothermal/electrothermal response. • The membrane effectively achieved various oil/water mixture separation. • The membrane possessed ability for the adsorption of organic dyes from the oil phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With oil spill accidents and oil industrial wastewater increasing, oil/water separation has attracted much attention in recent years. Herein, we report the fabrication of superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic thiol-ene/silica hybrid decorated fabrics for oil/water separation via vapor-liquid interfacial reaction. It is based on sol-gel reaction of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) to generate silica and thiol-ene reaction between poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) and trimethylolpropane tris(3-mercaptopropionate) (TTMP) to form crosslinked hydrophilic polymer on polyester fabric under the catalysis of butylamine/ammonia vapor. The chemical structure of the surfaces on thiol-ene/silica hybrid decorated fabric was confirmed by FTIR and XPS, and obvious micro-nano morphology and roughness were observed with SEM and AFM. The water contact angle of the fabric attained 0° in 0.36 s, and the underwater oil contact angle reached up to 160°. Importantly, the fabric exhibited high separation efficiency at 99.5%, fast water flux above 71600 Lm −2 h −1 and excellent recyclability in oil/water separation. Our findings open a new strategy to fabricate organic-inorganic hybrid superhydrophobic and underwater superoleophobic materials for oil/water separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the environmental pollution deteriorating, oil-water separation has attracted much attention in recent years. In this work, a facile method is proposed to fabricate superhydrophobic polyurethane sponge for oil-water separation via a simple dipping-drying process. It is based on the utilization of hydrophobic thiolated graphene (GSH) with the water contact angle (WCA) of 128° from graphene oxide through thiolation reaction. The WCAs of the as-prepared sponges were largely determined by the loading of GSH, and the WCAs reached 157.0° and 160.5° with GSH loadings at 5.0% and 7.5%, respectively. The GSH-based superhydrophobic sponge exhibited high absorption selectivity for different organic solvents and oils, the absorption capacity for chloroform attained 90 times and there was no decrease after 10 absorption cycles. Importantly, with the oil-water separation device composed of pump, rubber tubes and GSH-based sponge, the separation efficiency of toluene from water reached 99.7%, and still maintained 99.5% after 5 cycles. Additionally, GSH-based sponge also effectively shortened burning time and reduced black smoke in the combustion process, demonstrating good flame retardancy. Our findings provided a new strategy to fabricate superhydrophobic materials for oil-water separation, showing the great potential in large-scale practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]