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Conductive hydrogels have recently attracted considerable attention as a class of soft medical materials with high water content to mimic the electrophysiological environment of biological tissues for tissue repair applications.

Freezing and dehydration together with interfacial failure are capable of causing the functional reduction of hydrogels for sensing applications. Herein, we develop a multifunctional bilayer that consists of a mussel-inspired adhesive layer and a functionally ionic layer that is composed of sodium

Herein, we designed and fabricated a biodegradable composite sponge which main component contained N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan (N,O-CS) and oxidized cellulose nanocrystals (TOCN) as a potential wound dressing for the prevention and treatment of postoperative adhesion. In order to improve antimicrobial properties of N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponges, natural antimicrobial agents (ε-Poly-l-Lysine，EPL) were successfully introduced and the EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponge exhibited excellent antibacterial properties and biological security. The EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponge can be degraded in vivo within 3 weeks. Finally, we analyzed the anti-adhesion performance of EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponge through a rat model of sidewall defect-cecum abrasion. These results demonstrated that EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN-treated group can effectively reduce the peritoneal adhesion formation than the commercial soluble gauze group and normal saline group, which mainly attribute to the excellent hemostatic function and tissue repair function of EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponge. It is believed that the EPL/N,O-CS/TOCN composite sponge will prove to be as a new medical device treat the internal tissue/organ repair and simultaneous prevention of postoperative adhesion.

Objective: To observe the clinical effect of modified Yu Rong San gel eye mask in the treatment of dark circles. Methods: 96 cases of patients with dark circles were randomly divided into treatment group and control group. In the control group and the treatment group, the common eye mask and the modified Yu Rong San gel eye mask were applied to the black circle area respectively. After 15min, water was used to wash the face, the application of the mask for one time a day, four weeks, one course, and three courses were observed. Results: After three courses of treatment, the total effective rate of the treatment group was higher than that of the control group (P

Surgical sutures are considered to be a medical device for wound closure in healthcare applications. Surgical sutures maybe cause natural body response and form inflammation at the wound site of skin or organs after surgery, which play a negative role on wound healing. Within this context, it is necessary to develop antimicrobial surgical sutures with infection prevention and wound healing which can effectively inhibit the bacterial multiplication and improve healing rate. Currently, function agents made from natural or synthetic are being loaded in suture devices by various technique (such as coating, melt spinning, wet-spinning, grafting, electrospinning and blending) to produce antimicrobial surgical sutures. However, the properties of suture material determine the different modification technique. In this Review, we elaborate the preparation of antimicrobial surgical sutures for infection prevention and wound healing. Currently, most of antimicrobial surgical sutures still at researching and developing stage and few applied in clinically trials. Therefore, it is necessary to develop better antimicrobial sutures for preventing wound infection and promoting wound healing. The antimicrobial surgical sutures as a medical device will play a crucial role in the field of the anti-inflammatory and wound healing which mainly attribute to its unique properties, such as good biocompatibility, excellent antimicrobial, effective drug carrier, and amenability to various materials-design and manufacturing requires.

Advanced application of the superwettable surface with intelligent stimulus-responsive property invents a new way for designing controllable and effective oil-water separation material. Here, a smart superwettable fabric with tunable wettability has been fabricated via a low-cost and eco-friendly approach. With synergistic effect of the well-define micro/nano-hierarchical structure and pH-sensitive undecylenic acid, the as-prepared superwettable coating exhibits an excellent switchable surface wettability, which can reversibly transit between superhydrophobicity and superhydrophilicity in accordance with pH values of the contacting aqueous water. By virtue of the special wetting property, the obtained superwettable coating can be exploited to controllably and efficiently separate various oil-water mixtures, showing attractive separation efficiency (99 %) and favorable durability. Moreover, the complex oil/water/oil three-phase system also can be successfully separated with the superwettable coating as separation membrane, revealing an excellent in situ pH-responsiveness. Besides, it is worth noting that the superwettable coating is competent to selectively remove organic from oil, which has been seldom reported in previous works and providing a viable strategy for separating organic from oil. In light of the above advantages, it is believed that the functionalized smart coating with controllable tunable surface wettability will be a promising candidate for oily wastewater remediation under various harsh settings.

Design and development of robust and advanced separation materials with superwettability for efficient oil/water separation are of great interest and significance because of the increasing serious oil pollution problems. Herein, we have fabricated a copper foam-based superwettable membrane material with intelligent switchable wettability, favorable durability and corrosion resistance via a facile and scalable method. Benefitting from the synergetic effect of the well-defined hierarchical 3D porous surface structure and appropriate chemistry containing pH responsive groups, the resulting superwettable material can exhibit two distinct durable surface wettabilities via pH-triggered change of dominant functional groups on its surface. By virtue of the reversible tunable superwettability, the as-prepared material is successfully exploited for intelligent and sustainable separation of multiple oil/water mixtures, especially the complex crude oil/water mixture and high concentration organic wastewater, showing superior separation performance, favorable oil/organic solvents recoverability and durability. It is well known that the application of superwettable membranes in treating complex chemical systems has been seldom reported in current works. Therefore, it is believed that the intelligent superwettable material can be widely scaled up to various oily wastewater treatment and oil spills cleanup, which will be of great significance for practical potential applications and sustainable development of ecological environment.

It is nowadays essential to avoid electromagnetic interferes (EMI) not only in electronic equipment but also in human health with the rapid development of electronic technology. Damage or invalid in complex and harsh environments is still one of the major challenges facing the field of EMI shielding materials, but superhydrophobic surface have recently shown potential to enhance mechanical stability and chemical durability for this material. As one of the vital research directions of superwetting field, superamphiphobic surface have been often used to solve problems of other fields to improve their surface properties. Therefore, combining the superamphiphobic surface to overcome the problems of electromagnetic shielding materials is the main work of this paper. Here, a superamphiphobic surface was introduced through constructing micro-nano structure with low surface energy, which was mainly contributed from 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane, micro-ordered array polypyrrole, multi-walled carbon nanotubes and silica. Finally, the as-prepared materials after 5000 times of kneading-releasing cycles, 60 min of ultrasonic, 50 times of abrasion by using sandpaper, 24 h of ultraviolet irradiation, and 10 h of immersion in acid, alkali and different organic solvents, still has superamphiphobic performance which means it can be used extreme environment to endow a widely applications for EMI shielding materials.

Skin-like ionogels have attracted much attention in artificial electronic skins and wearable sensors. However, it is challenging to develop ionogel-based multifunctional sensors that exhibit favorable durability, high sensitivity, and multisignal detection capability in diverse application environments. Herein, a mechanically durable, highly stretchable, and ultra-sensitive micronanostructured ionogel-based i-skin (MIS) with biomimetic hierarchical structures is fabricated. Moreover, with the highly conductive MIS as an ionic conductive layer, a MIS-based sensor with excellent superhydrophobicity has been developed by sandwiching the MIS film between two layers of acrylic elastomer film. By virtue of the well-designed surface structure and ingenious combination of various fascinating functions, the resultant MIS sensor features prominent sensing performance, including a wide sensing range of strain (0.1–400%), pressure (0.001–15 kPa), and temperature (25–95 °C), an ultralow detection limit (0.1% strain and 0.001 kPa pressure), a rapid response (67 ms), and ultra-durable stability (over 10 000 uninterrupted strain or compression cycles), showing competitive and even superior comprehensive performance to those of the existing ionogel sensors. Significantly, the versatile MIS sensor can not only be applied in wearable movement monitoring, multi-signal detection, and high-precision written stroke recognition, but is also capable of detecting subtle underwater vibrations caused by liquid drops or waves, a robotic fish, or human action, demonstrating its greater potential for diverse applications such as human health monitoring, human–machine interaction, marine environmental protection and biological research.

Linear 1,10-decanediamine was chosen as a modified monomer to prepare modified poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) with a low content of amide bonds through two different synthetic methods. To evaluate the effect of amide bonds on the properties of poly(ester amide) analogs (PETAs), the performance of this new type of PET was compared with 1,10-decanediol-modified PET as a control group. The formation of hydrogen bonds in the PETAs was confirmed, and the stability of hydrogen-bonding interactions based on the low content of amide bonds at high temperature was discussed. Interestingly, physical cross-linking networks formed by hydrogen-bonding interactions improved the thermal stability, rheology, and mechanical properties of the PETAs. The crystallization properties were studied in depth by a series of tests, the results of which illustrated that the low content of amide bonds acted as a critical crystallization accelerator in the PETAs. A feasible strategy to prepare high-performance PET, which may be used as a packaging material, was introduced in this work.

High flux superwetting material has reverse wettability to oil or water phase, which plays an important part in oil–water separation and is one of the current research hotspots. Herein, we reported a ZIF-67@Cu(OH)2 nanowire array-coated metal mesh prepared using self-assembly and chemical oxidation method. These freshly prepared copper meshes with micro-/nanosecondary rough structure exhibit excellent underwater superoleophobicity and superhydrophilicity. Thus, the as-prepared mesh membrane has an excellent separation capability and can be used for oil–water separation. It shows extremely high efficiency oil–water separation function (99%), excellent cycling ability and high permeation flux (23,854 L m−2 h−1) in several typical oil–water separation processes. The mesh membrane also shows excellent underwater superoleophobicity in different pH values conditions. Besides, the as-prepared mesh membrane shows excellent durability and stability. Consequently, this work provides an economical and effective method for modification on metal substrate to prepare a underwater superoleophobicity/superhydrophilicity material to realize efficient separation of oil–water mixtures.

A large quantity of oil spills occurred have greatly endangered the natural environment and human survival health. Super-wetting materials with switchable wettability provide a good way to solve these problems efficiently and have been paid more and more attention. In this paper, we have successfully prepared an ethanol-triggered and highly stable superamphiphobic material with a switchable surface wettability by using zinc oxide (ZnO) particles and organic silane (PFDS) via a simple coating method. The superamphiphobic material can maintain high oil-repellent and water-repellent performances under various harsh conditions. Most importantly, the superamphiphobic material demonstrates the switchable wettability by ethanol treatment. In view of this fresh mechanism, it can separate various oil–water mixtures on-demand with high separation efficiency and flux. Surprisingly, the mixtures of highly corrosive liquids and oils can also be separated. In addition, the material also has excellent self-cleaning and anti-fouling capabilities and low surface adhesion, which can effectively avoid the pollution of pollutants in the air. All these advantages show that the as-prepared material can play a vital function in solving the related severe conditions of marine oil pollution and industrial wastewater.

Electrochemical water splitting for hydrogen production using cost-effective and high-efficiency electrocatalysts in alkaline electrolytes is of great significance for solving energy crisis and environmental pollution. Herein, we reported a superhydrophilic and underwater superaerophobic multistage layered micro-nano structure ofCo

When it comes to bonding in an aqueous environment, intertidal marine organisms such as mussels, sandcastle worms, barnacles and polychaetes are providing inspiration for the assembly of synthetic molecules into the polymeric adhesives. Although intense demands in various life or industrial applications and many mussel-inspired systems have been shown to develop coatings and hydrogels, exploring the mimetic mussel adhesive system through the control of composition and polymer molecular weight is demonstrated less often. In this report, we showed a simple approach to synthesize mussel-inspired adhesive, P(N-butyl acrylate-co-l-Dopa-methacrylate anhydride), which possesses characteristics of simple synthesis, easy-using, no extra-crosslinker need, and excellent adhesion behaviour on diverse substrates. Adhesion behaviour was examined using low- and high-surface-energy substrates (e.g. PTFE and steel, respectively). Furthermore, the fabricated adhesives exhibited excellent underwater adhesive behaviour for steel in various aqueous solutions, including ion ((IO4)− and Mn3+), acid and alkali solutions (pH = 4, 6.7 and 8, respectively). The outstanding fabricated adhesives take advantage of the catechol functionality and wettability of the resulting polymer. These insights should help us to design next-generation underwater adhesive systems as well as open up a number of future research designs for mussel-inspired adhesives with performance not accessed previously.

Most of the artificial superhydrophobic surfaces easily lose their good water repellency once they are chemically or mechanically damaged, which seriously hinders their practical application. Durable superhydrophobic materials with recyclability, low-temperature resistance, and self-cleaning properties were successfully prepared by employing silica particles and polytetrafluoroethylene via a simple drop-coating method. The as-prepared superhydrophobic materials not only show excellent superhydrophobicity but also display fascinating durability and chemical stability after a series of rigorous tests. Importantly, the debris scraped from the superhydrophobic materials can be recycled and easily reused to prepare new superhydrophobic materials. This facile strategy may pave the way for the scalable and recyclable robust superhydrophobic materials in practical applications.

Large amount of oil leakage and organic wastewater discharge have greatly harmed the natural environment and human health. Therefore, researchers urgently need an effective method to address this problem. Superwetting materials can provide people with a good way to solve the problem because of their special selective wettability. In this report, a kind of green, fluorine-free, durable and low-cost superhydrophobic magnetic sponge was prepared by Fe3O4 particles and stearic acid. It can be controlled by changing the magnetic field to avoid direct contact with toxic and harmful solvents by the operator. The prepared material can be soaked for 7 days under harsh conditions of an acid solution, an alkali solution and a salt solution, and still maintain superhydrophobic property. Moreover, it is loaded with a weight of 200 g for 80 cycles of extrusion deformation (the compressive strain is 75%), and then with superhydrophobic properties. The sponge can be used for the separation of oil–water mixtures and oil–water emulsion purification with a separation efficiency of over 90%. It is worth mentioning that crude oil emulsion can be separated and purified by this material. The magnetic superhydrophobic sponge is prepared by simple and easy-to-operate method, which can be prepared in large scale. These results provide useful avenue utilization for the sponge, demonstrating the potential applications for oil–water separation, sewage purification, emulsion purification and oil spill collection.

Purpose This paper aims to study the wear properties of electron beam melted Ti6Al4V (EBM-Ti6Al4V) in simulated body fluids for orthopedic implant biomedical applications compared with wrought Ti6Al4V (Wr-Ti6Al4V). Design/methodology/approach Wear properties of EBM-Ti6Al4V compared with Wr-Ti6Al4V against ZrO2 and Al2O3 have been investigated under dry friction and the 25 Wt.% newborn calf serum (NCS) lubricated condition using a ball-on-disc apparatus reciprocating motion. The microstructure, composition and hardness of the samples were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction and a hardness tester, respectively. The contact angles with 25 Wt.% NCS were measured by a contact angle apparatus. The wear parameters, wear 2D and 3D morphology were obtained using a 3D white light interferometer and SEM. Findings EBM-Ti6Al4V yields a higher contact angle than the Wr-Ti6Al4V with the 25 Wt.% NCS. EBM-Ti6Al4V couplings exhibit lower coefficients of friction compared with the Wr-Ti6Al4V couplings under both conditions. There is only a slight difference in the wear resistance between the Wr-Ti6Al4V and EBM-Ti6Al4V alloys. Both Wr-Ti6Al4V and EBM-Ti6Al4V suffer from similar friction and wear mechanisms, i.e. adhesive and abrasive wear in dry friction, while abrasive wear under the NCS condition. The wear depth and wear volume of the ZrO2 couplings are lower than those of the Al2O3 couplings under both conditions. Originality/value This paper helps to establish baseline bio-tribological data of additively manufactured Ti6Al4V by electron beam melting in simulated body fluids for orthopedic applications, which will promote the application of additive manufacturing in producing the orthopedic implant.

Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) was grafted onto the surface of carbon fibres (CFs) to fabricate carbon fibre/epoxy (CF/EP) composites with improved interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and atomic oxygen (AO) erosion resistance. POSS-CF was prepared by reacting amine groups on the pretreated CF surface with the POSS to form a continuous uniform layer of siloxane oligomers. X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy demonstrated that POSS was successfully grafted onto the CF surface. The ILSS and AO erosion resistance of the POSS-treated CFs and CF-EP interface were improved because a SiO2 passivation layer formed with AO exposure, especially with POSS-EP0409. This is an effective solution for enhancing the interfacial bonding force and interfacial AO erosion resistance for the low-Earth orbit environment.

1,6-Hexylenediamine (HMDA) was chosen to replace part of ethylene glycol to develop a novel poly(ethylene terephthalate) structure with amide bonds. Four kinds of poly(ester amide)analogues (p-ETA)...