Latest ArticlesOwing to their high surface area, stable structure and easy fabrication, composite nanomaterials with encapsulation structures have attracted considerable research interest as sensing materials to detect volatile organic compounds. Herein, a hydrothermal route is designed to prepare foam shaped α-MoO3@SnS2 nanosheets that exhibit excellent sensing performance for triethylamine (TEA). The developed sensor, based on α-MoO3@SnS2 nanosheets, displays a high response of 114.9 for 100 ppm TEA at a low working temperature of 175 ℃ with sensitivity higher than many other reported sensors. In addition, the device shows a wide concentration detection range (from 500 ppb to 500 ppm), good stability after exposure to air for 80 days, and excellent selectivity. The superior sensing characteristics of the developed sensor are attributed to the high crystallinity of α-MoO3/SnS2, excessive and accessible active sites provided by the good permeability of porous SnS2 shells, and the excellent conductivity of the encapsulation heterojunction structure. Thus, the foam shaped α-MoO3@SnS2 nanosheets presented herein have promising practical applications in TEA gas sensing devices.
Carbon dots (CDs), as a new member of carbon nanostructures, have been widely applied in extensive fields due to their exceptional physicochemical properties. While, the emissions of most reported CDs are located in the blue to green range under the excitation of ultraviolet or blue light, which severely limits their practical applications, especially in photovoltaic and biological fields. Studies that focused on synthesizing CDs with long-wavelength (red to near-infrared) emission/excitation features (simply named L-w CDs) and exploring their potential applications have been frequently reported in recent years. In this review, we analyzed the key influence factors for the synthesis of CDs with long wavelength and multicolor (containing long wavelength) emissive properties, discussed possible fluorescence mechanism, and summarized their applications in sensing and cancer theranostics. Finally, the existing challenges and potential opportunities of L-w CDs are presented.
Thrombotic disease is a major problem that endangers human health. At present, MRI and CT are commonly used clinically to diagnose thrombosis, and thrombolytic drugs are used for treatment), but the diagnosis time is lagging, the utilization of drugs is low, and the resulting systemic toxicity problems such as side effects lead to poor treatment effects. Nanotechnology combining photoacoustic dynamics and chemical dynamics has shown great application value in tumor targeting, diagnosis, detection and treatment. It has also become a new direction in the diagnosis and treatment of thrombotic diseases, and has created new applications in the field of nanomaterials. This review summarizes the new progress of this combination in the diagnosis and treatment of thrombotic diseases according to the differences in the construction of the nanotherapy system, at the same time, we put forward some new problems and prospects for the integration of thrombosis diagnosis and treatment.
Point-of-care nucleic acid testing (POCNAT) has played an important role in the outbreak of infectious diseases (e.g., COVID-19) over recent years. POCNAT aims to realize the rapid, simple and automatic detection of nucleic acid. Thanks to the development of manufacturing technology, electronic information technology, artificial intelligence technology, and biological information technology in recent years, the development of the POCNAT device has led to significant advancement. Instead of the normal nucleic acid detection methods used in the laboratory, some novel experimental carriers have been applied, such as chips, cartridges and papers. The application of these experimental carriers has realized the automation and integration of nucleic acid detection. The entire process of nucleic acid detection is normally divided into three steps (nucleic acid extraction, target amplification and signal detection). All of the reagents required by the process can be pre-stored on these experimental carriers, without unnecessary manual operation. Furthermore, all of the processes are carried out in this experimental carrier, with the assistance of a specific control device. Although they are complicated to manufacture and precise in design, their application provides a significant step forwards in nucleic acid detection and realizes the integration of nucleic acid detection. This technology has great potential in the field of point-of-care molecular diagnostics in the future. This paper focuses on the relevant content of these experimental carriers.
Cancer is a serious threat to humans due to its high mortality. The efforts to fully understand cancer and to fight against it have never been stopped. The traditional therapies, such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, are useful but cannot meet the increasing demands of patients. As such, novel approaches against cancer are urgently required. It has been found that the acidic tumor microenvironment plays important roles in promoting the cancer progression. In recent years, sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), a simple inorganic salt, has been found to be able to reverse the pH of tumor microenvironment and inhibit the invasion, metastasis, immune evasion, drug resistance and hypoxia of tumor cells. Thus, NaHCO3-based therapy is a potential approach for the treatment of cancer, and the related studies have been increasingly reported. Herein, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the acidic tumor microenvironment and summarize the applications and mechanisms of NaHCO3 in cancer therapy. The combination of NaHCO3 with chemotherapy, immunotherapy or nanoparticles systems is discussed. In addition, the concerns of NaHCO3 in clinical use and the potential ways to use NaHCO3 for cancer therapy are also discussed.
Drug delivery systems (DDS) are used to deliver therapeutic drugs to improve selectivity and reduce side effects. With the development of nanotechnology, many nanocarriers have been developed and applied to drug delivery, including mesoporous silica. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have attracted a lot of attention for simple synthesis, biocompatibility, high surface area and pore volume. Based on the pore system and surface modification, gated mesoporous silica nanoparticles can be designed to realize on-command drug release, which provides a new approach for selective delivery of antitumor drugs. Herein, this review mainly focuses on the "gate keepers" of mesoporous silica for drug controlled release in nearly few years (2017–2020). We summarize the mechanism of drug controlled release in gated MSNs and different gated materials: inorganic gated materials, organic gated materials, self-gated drug molecules, and biological membranes. The facing challenges and future prospects of gated MSNs are discussed rationally in the end.
Diabetes is one of the most disturbing chronic diseases in the world. The improvement of treatment efficiency brought by self-monitoring of blood glucose can relieve symptoms and reduce complications, which is considered as the gold standard of diabetes diagnosis and nursing. Compared to the traditional finger pricking measurement with painful and discontinuous processes, continuous blood glucose monitoring (CGM) presents superior advantages in wearable and continuous assessment of blood glucose levels. However, widely used implantable CGM systems at present require implantation operation and are highly invasive, so it is hard to be accepted by users. Except for the blood, available fluids in humans, such as interstitial fluid (ISF), sweat, tears and saliva, also contain glucose associated with blood sugar and can be extracted more easily. Therefore, these more accessible fluids are expected to realize minimized traumatic blood glucose monitoring. This review introduces the latest development of wearable minimally-/non-invasive CGM device, focusing on the types of blood substitute biological fluid and suitable monitoring approaches. We also analysis the merits and drawbacks of each method, and discuss the properties such as sensitivity, stability and convenience of each meter. Beyond highlighting recent key work in this field, we discuss the future development trend of wearable minimally-/non-invasive glucose meters.
Photophysical properties of organic and organometallic luminophors are closely related with their molecular packings, enabling the exploitation of stimuli-responsive functional luminescent molecules. Mechanochromic molecules, which can change their luminescence characteristics after mechanical stimulus, have received an increasing interest due to their promising applications in multifunctional sensors and molecular switches. During the past two decades, the development of gold(I) chemistry has been attracting the attention of plenty of researchers. Indeed, a variety of gold(I) complexes with fascinating photophysical behaviors have been discovered. This review focuses on the research progress in the different types of mechanoluminochromic gold(I) complexes, including mono-, bi- and multi-nuclear gold(I) systems. Their interesting luminescence behaviors of these gold(I)-containing luminogens upon mechanical stimulus and the proposed mechanisms of their observed mechanochromic luminescence are summarized systematacially. Moreover, this review will put forward an outlook about the possible opportunities and challenges in this significative scientific field.
Supercapacitors (SCs) with high power density and long cycling span life are demanding energy storage devices that will be an attractive power solution to modern electronic and electrical applications. Numerous theoretical and experimental works have been devoted to exploring various possibilities to increase the functionality and the specific capacitance of electrodes for SCs. Non-carbon two-dimensional (2D) materials have been considered as encouraging electrode candidates for their chemical and physical advantages such as tunable surface chemistry, high electronic conductivity, large mechanical strength, more active sites, and dual non-faradaic and faradaic electrochemical performances. Besides, these 2D materials also play particular roles in constructing highway channels for fast ion diffusion. This concise review summarizes cutting-edge progress of some representative 2D non-carbon materials for the aqueous electrolyte-based SCs, including transition metal oxides (TMOs), transition metal hydroxides (TMHs), transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs), MXenes, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and some emerging materials. Different synthetic methods, effective structural designs and corresponding electrochemical performances are reviewed in detail. And we finally present a detailed discussion of the current intractable challenges and technical bottlenecks, and highlight future directions and opportunities for the development of next-generation high-performance energy storage devices.
Zn-ion batteries (ZIBs) have gained great attention as promising next-generation power sources, because of their low cost, enviable safety and high theoretical capacity. Recently, massive researches have been devoted to vanadium-based materials as cathodes in ZIBs, owing to their multiple valence states, competitive gravimetric energy density, but the capacity degradation, sluggish kinetics, low operating voltage hinder further optimization of their performance in ZIBs. This review summarizes recent progress to increase the interlayer spacing, structural stability, and the diffusion ability of the guest Zn ions, including the insertion of different ions, introduction of defects, design of diverse morphologies, the combination of other materials. We also focus on approaches to promoting the valuable performance of vanadium-based cathodes, along with the related ongoing scientific challenges and limitations. Finally, the future perspectives and research directions of vanadium-based aqueous ZIBs are provided.
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