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Funder: Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials, Surface/interfacial engineering is an essential technique to explore the fiber materials properties and fulfil new functionalities. An extensive scope of current physical and chemical treating methods is reviewed here together with a variety of real-world applications. Moreover, a new surface/interface engineering approach is also introduced: self-assembly via π-π stacking, which has great potential for the surface modification of fiber materials due to its nondestructive working principle. A new fiber family member, metal-oxide framework (MOF) fiber shows promising candidacy for fiber based wearable electronics. The understanding of surface/interfacial engineering techniques on fiber materials is advanced here and it is expected to guide the rational design of future fiber based wearable electronics.

Steam-cured concrete is widely used in precast element production due to its high early strength and efficiency, but its long-term performance is often poor. Integrating phase change materials (PCMs) into steam-cured samples is a potential solution. The influences of six PCMs on the fluidity, mechanical strength, toughness, water absorption, and pore structure of steam-cured mortars are investigated by a series of experiments. PCMs employed are paraffin (P-45 and P-58), fatty acids (lauric acid, LA and myristic acid, MA), and polyethylene glycol (PEG1500 and PEG4000). The results show that PEG powder can improve the fluidity of fresh mortar, while the fluidity reduces as the amount of LA or MA increases. The addition of appropriate PCMs slightly reduces the strength of steam-cured mortar but effectively improves the toughness. Incorporating proper PCMs significantly decreases the capillary water absorption of the steam-cured mortar due to the modification of the surface characteristics of pore walls by paraffin and fatty acids. Compared with specimens containing PEG and fatty acids in this study, mortar containing paraffin have higher strength, especially for the one-day early strength. Employing an appropriate amount (not more than 5%) of paraffin is an excellent way to develop high-performance steam-cured cement-based materials, which extend the service life and reduce an environmental load of steam-cured cement-based materials.

ITO nanopowder of the high purity was prepared by self-desigred fabricated arc plasma apparatus. The crystal structure, morphology, particle size distribution and purity were characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) , transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Action Emission Spectrum(ICP-AES). Effects of parameters on output was studied. The results show that The results revealed that the average size of ITO powder is in the range from 30 to 80nm and the purity is 99.994%, powders have square crystal structures with higher dispersion and purity. This new technology can use simple process to produce high quality boron powders, and is feasible for industrial production.

This paper deals with the enantioseparation of racemic propranolol containing S, S-di-n-dodecylltartrate as a chiral carrier using hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC). A mathematical mass transfer model of enantioseparation process for chiral compounds was deduced, factors such as the observed partition coefficient between the feed phase and the hollow fibers, the stripping phase and the hollow fiber module, transportation resistance of boundary layers in the stripping phase and the feed phase, the diffusion resistance in the membrane phase are considered in this mathematical mass transfer model.

Remarkable mechanical performance and chiral nematic liquid crystal behavior make sulfate cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) attractive for many researchers. However, CNCs at a low content in the composite lost their liquid crystal characters because the lyotropic mesogens of rod-like negative-charged CNCs were easily affected by external forces, such as hydrogen bonding interactions with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) in the composite. In present study, the electrolyte, sodium sulfate, was introduced to induce nematic mesophases of CNCs during the coagulation process of wet-spun PVA/CNCs composite fibers. We investigated the morphology, structure and mechanical properties of the spun fiber and hypothesized a scheme to establish the mechanism of formation for the liquid crystal domain and illustrate the specific mechanical properties caused by the resultant phase separation. The recognized ionic induction effects will be quite helpful to fabricate functional liquid crystal fabrics for future industrial applications.