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Single crystal metal-free halide perovskites have received great attention in recent years owing to their excellent piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties. However, the nanotoxicity and piezoelectricity within the nanoscale of such materials have yet been reported for the demonstration of practical applications. In this work, the observation of intrinsic piezoelectricity in metal-free perovskite (MDABCO-NH

Smart fabrics that can harvest ambient energy and provide diverse sensing functionality via triboelectric effects have evoked great interest for next-generation healthcare electronics. Herein, a novel borophene/ecoflex nanocomposite is developed as a promising triboelectric material with tailorability, durability, mechanical stability, and flexibility. The addition of borophene nanosheets enables the borophene/ecoflex nanocomposite to exhibit tunable surface triboelectricity investigated by Kelvin probe force microscopy. The borophene/ecoflex nanocomposite is further fabricated into a fabric-based triboelectric nanogenerator (B-TENG) for mechanical energy harvesting, medical assistive system, and wound healing applications. The durability of B-TENG provides consistent output performance even after severe deformation treatments, such as folding, stretching, twisting, and washing procedures. Moreover, the B-TENG is integrated into a smart keyboard configuration combined with a robotic system to perform an upper-limb medical assistive interface. Furthermore, the B-TENG is also applied as an active gait phase sensing system for instantaneous lower-limb gait phase visualization. Most importantly, the B-TENG can be regarded as a self-powered in vitro electrical stimulation device to conduct continuous wound monitoring and therapy. The as-designed B-TENG not only demonstrates great potential for multifunctional self-powered healthcare sensors, but also for the promising advancements toward wearable medical assistive and therapeutic systems.

This work examines the distributions of potentially toxic trace elements ( e.g. , Cu, Zn and As) and assesses the potential hazards of contaminants to environment. Trace elements are released from seawater desalination facility in the Penghu Islands, Taiwan. Temporal trends of trace element concentrations are investigated by comparing biannual concentrations for a 2-year period (2006–2007). Analytical results demonstrate that only As in seawater had an increasing trend after 2006. Further, a hazard index (HI) is applied to assess the potential hazard of contaminants to the environment. The HI (HI = C 95% /C allowable ) is defined as the ratio of the 95th percentile for a pollutant concentration (C 95% ) to an allowable concentration for each pollutant (C allowable ). The hazard index is used to establish a pollutant priority ranking and, then, serves as a useful screening tool for developing strategies for desalination pollution control. In this study, if the priority is to improve water quality, focus should be placed on Cu (HI = 0.32). On the other hand, if the priority is sediment quality, the As concentration (HI = 0.51) should be reduced. If the two HIs (seawater and sediment) are considered together, As (HI = 0.56) becomes the highest-ranking trace element, followed by Zn (HI = 0.54).