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Topic Review
TiO2-Based Nanostructures for Microbial Inactivation
Pathogenic microorganisms can spread throughout the world population, as the current COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically demonstrated. In this scenario, a protection against pathogens and other microorganisms can come from the use of photoactive materials as antimicrobial agents able to hinder, or at least limit, their spreading by means of photocatalytically assisted processes activated by light—possibly sunlight—promoting the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can kill microorganisms in different matrices such as water or different surfaces without affecting human health. Here, we focus the attention on TiO2 nanoparticle-based antimicrobial materials, intending to provide an overview of the most promising synthetic techniques, toward possible large-scale production, critically review the capability of such materials to promote pathogen (i.e., bacteria, virus, and fungi) inactivation, and, finally, take a look at selected technological applications.
  • 1.7K
  • 08 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Surface-Functionalized Separator
The surface-modified separator plays a role in improving the electrolyte wettability, homogenizing Li+flux, and strengthening the mechanical/thermal property. Due to these favorable benefits, the formation of sharp Li dendrite is efficiently suppressed and the thermal stability of battery is greatly enhanced. In this article, separator-coating materials are classified into six categories in terms of material characteristics to show how each material has different electrochemical properties. We believe that the suggested approach would become a powerful strategy to improve the performance and stability of next-generation batteries such as lithium-metal batteries.
  • 1.7K
  • 23 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Carbon Nanotube Sheet-Synthesis and Applications
 This paper gives an overview of different approaches to synthesize CNTs and then focuses on the floating catalyst method to form CNT sheets. A method is also described in this paper to modify the properties of macroscale carbon nanotube sheets produced by the floating catalyst method. This paper also discusses manufacturing obstacles and the possible commercial applications of the CNT sheet and CNTH sheet. Applications for CNT sheet include air and water filtering, energy storage applications, and compositing CNTH sheets to produce apparel with anti-microbial properties to protect the population from infectious diseases. The paper also provides an outlook towards large scale commercialization of CNT material.
  • 1.7K
  • 11 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Highly Dispersed Metal Catalysts
Single-atom catalysts (SACs), consisting of metals atomically dispersed on a support, are considered as advanced materials bridging homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, representing the catalysis at the limit. The enhanced performance of these catalysts is due to the combination of distinct factors such as well-defined active sites, comprising metal single atoms in different coordination environments also varying its valence state and strongly interacting with the support, in this case porous carbons, maximizing then the metal efficiency in comparison with other metal surfaces consisting of metal clusters and/or metal nanoparticles.
  • 1.7K
  • 06 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Microwave-Assisted Preparation of Luminescent Materials
Luminescent inorganic materials are used in several technological applications such as light-emitting displays, white LEDs for illumination, bioimaging, and photodynamic therapy. Usually, inorganic phosphors (e.g., complex oxides, silicates) need high temperatures and, in some cases, specific atmospheres to be formed or to obtain a homogeneous composition. Low ionic diffusion and high melting points of the precursors lead to long processing times in these solid-state syntheses with a cost in energy consumption when conventional heating methods are applied. Microwave-assisted synthesis relies on selective, volumetric heating attributed to the electromagnetic radiation interaction with the matter. The microwave heating allows for rapid heating rates and small temperature gradients yielding homogeneous, well-formed materials swiftly. Luminescent inorganic materials can benefit significantly from microwave-assisted synthesis for high homogeneity, diverse morphology, and rapid screening of different compositions. The rapid screening allows for fast material investigation, whereas the benefits of enhanced homogeneity include improvement in the optical properties such as quantum yields and storage capacity.
  • 1.7K
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Nanoparticles in Polyelectrolyte Multilayer LbL
Originally regarded as auxiliary additives, nanoparticles have become important constituents of polyelectrolyte multilayers. They represent the key components to enhance mechanical properties, enable activation by laser light or ultrasound, construct anisotropic and multicompartment structures, and facilitate the development of novel sensors and movable particles.
  • 1.7K
  • 15 May 2021
Topic Review
Heavy Metal Adsorption Using Magnetic Nanoparticles
Research on contamination of groundwater and drinking water is of major importance. Due to the rapid and significant progress in the last decade in nanotechnology and its potential applications to water purification, such as adsorption of heavy metal ion from contaminated water, a wide number of articles have been published. An evaluating frame of the main findings of recent research on heavy metal removal using magnetic nanoparticles, with emphasis on water quality and method applicability, is presented. A large number of articles have been studied with a focus on the synthesis and characterization procedures for bare and modified magnetic nanoparticles as well as on their adsorption capacity and the corresponding desorption process of the methods are presented.
  • 1.7K
  • 21 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Intranasal Liposomes for Vaccine Delivery
Liposomes are safe, biocompatible, and biodegradable spherical nanosized vesicles produced from cholesterol and phospholipids. Liposomes have been widely administered intranasally for systemic and brain delivery. Intranasal liposomes are also a potential approach for vaccine delivery. Liposomes can be used as a platform to load antigens and as vaccine adjuvants to induce a robust immune response. 
  • 1.7K
  • 29 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Optical Fiber-Integrated Metasurfaces
The advent of metasurface technology has revolutionized the field of optics and photonics in recent years due to its capability of engineering optical wavefronts with well-patterned nanostructures at the subwavelength scale. Meanwhile, inspired and benefited from the tremendous success of the “lab-on-fiber” concept, the integration of metasurface with optical fibers, due to its powerful function of light manipulation and shaping in the 2D version, has drawn particular interest, which truly establishes a novel technological platform for the development of “all-in-fiber" metasurface-based devices.
  • 1.7K
  • 06 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Hot Electrons in Plasmon-Sensitized TiO2
Hot carriers are electron-hole pairs formed by Landau damping or chemical interface damping of particle plasmons. The term “hot electrons” not only describes the individual electrons themselves, but also describes the Fermi–Dirac distribution of electrons in a solid albeit with an elevated effective temperature—the effective temperatures involved when considering the carrier kinetic energies and carrier densities in the solid, and not that of the solid itself- as opposed to thermal equilibrium. Typically, hot carriers lose their excess energy and relax to thermal equilibrium within a few picoseconds of formation due to a variety of scattering processes. Therefore, it is very difficult to extract useful work from hot carriers with thermodynamic efficiencies that are of interest for practical devices. However, heterojunctions of TiO2 with coinage metals have been consistently shown to be effective in utilizing hot carriers to perform useful work, such as driving a chemical reaction or generating an electric current. A secondary benefit of such TiO2-coinage metal heterojunctions is the "visible light sensitization" effect which allows broader harvesting of visible light. 
  • 1.7K
  • 24 May 2021
Topic Review
SAM-Based Electrodes
Self-assembled molecular monolayers (SAMs) are long recognized as crucial "bridges" between redox enzymes and solid electrode surfaces, on which the enzymes undergo direct electron transfer (DET)—for example, in enzymatic biofuel cells (EBFCs) and biosensors. SAMs possess a wide range of terminal groups that enable productive enzyme adsorption and fine-tuning in favorable orientations on the electrode. The tunneling distance, the SAM chain length, and the contacting terminal SAM groups are the most significant factors in SAM-controlled DET-type bioelectrocatalysis.
  • 1.7K
  • 08 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Photocatalytic Degradation of Antibiotics
Various methods, including carbon filtration, ozonation, catalytic membranes, Fenton-like catalysis, sorption, and biodegradation have been employed to eliminate such enduring antibiotic substances. As a result, wastewater accumulates effluents from corporations, clinics, and farmland. Sewage treatment is typically regarded as the preferred method for treating these antibiotics. Photocatalysis has gained a lot of interest as an effective method for eliminating antibiotic contaminants since it is inexpensive, effective, and environmentally benign as it eliminates antibiotics in sunlight and under ambient conditions. The reactions endured by a semiconductor and the potential to absorb photons with energies higher than its energy band gap is called “photocatalytic degradation”.
  • 1.7K
  • 02 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Nanopore Technology in Gene Sequencing
Nanopore technology refers to nano-scale holes embedded in a thin membrane structure to detect the potential change when charged biological molecules smaller than nanopore pass through the hole. Therefore, nanopore technology has the potential to sense and analyze single-molecule amino acid, DNA, RNA, etc.. In this review, we will focus on the applications of nanopore technology in gene sequencing.
  • 1.7K
  • 02 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Application Fields of Silver Nanoparticles
New antiviral drugs and new preventive antiviral strategies are a target of intense scientific interest. Thanks to their peculiar properties, nanomaterials play an important role in this field, and, in particular, among metallic materials, silver nanoparticles were demonstrated to be effective against a wide range of viruses, in addition to having a strong antibacterial effect. Although the mechanism of antiviral action is not completely clarified, silver nanoparticles can directly act on viruses, and on their first steps of interaction with the host cell, depending on several factors, such as size, shape, functionalization and concentration. 
  • 1.7K
  • 24 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Metal Ion Detection by Glutathione
Low cost, sensitive, selective, and rapid methods for heavy metal ion (HMI) detection are of growing demand, and HMI biosensors have great potential in meeting this need due to their timeliness, cost-effectiveness and convenience in operation. The most widely reported peptide probe for HMI detection is glutathione (GSH), especially in case of lead ion (Pb2+) detection. GSH is highly stable, cost-effective, and easy to immobilize on a sensor. 
  • 1.7K
  • 10 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Graphene-Based Strategies for Viral Diseases
The occurrence of new pandemic  viruses, such as SARS-CoV-1 (2003), MERS-CoV (2012) and SARS-CoV-2 (2019) has  indicated an urgent need for diagnostic tools able to reliably identify infected individuals and to determine if the infection is in the acute phase. Although nanotechnology based on graphene has been poorly applied for the rapid diagnosis of viral diseases, the extraordinary properties of graphene have been recently exploited for the diagnosis of COVID-19. Novel graphene-based field-effect transistor (GFET) biosensors were developed for the quantitative detection of viral RNA and viral spike protein. The fabrication of COVID-19 FET sensor for spike protein recognition is based on the integration of the SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody with graphene, whereas the GFET sensor for viral RNA recognition exploited the CRISPR/Cas biotechnology.
  • 1.7K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Antibacterial Agents for Concrete
Concrete is the most used material for the construction of millions of structures around the world. Cementitious structures are often exposed to high humidity environments and the attack of atmospheric agents, such as acid rain, which make them vulnerable to microbial attachment with consequent colonization and deterioration over time. In the light of these considerations, the researchers turned their attention to designing green and sustainable alternative materials that exhibit similar characteristics to the traditional concrete by using nanotechnologies.
  • 1.7K
  • 10 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Methanol
As an energy source, methanol presents the advantage of being liquid at environmental temperature, which makes it easier to transport and store.
  • 1.7K
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Nanomaterials in Cosmetic
Skin aging is described as dermatologic changes either naturally occurring over the course of years or as the result of the exposure to environmental factors (e.g., chemical products, pollution, infrared and ultraviolet radiations). The production of collagen and elastin, the main structural proteins responsible for skin strength and elasticity, is reduced during aging, while their role in skin rejuvenation can trigger a wrinkle reversing effect. Elasticity loss, wrinkles, dry skin, and thinning are some of the signs that can be associated with skin aging. To overcome skin aging, many strategies using natural and synthetic ingredients are being developed aiming to reduce the signs of aging and/or to treat age-related skin problems (e.g., spots, hyper- or hypopigmentation). Among the different approaches in tissue regeneration, the use of nanomaterials loaded with cosmeceuticals (e.g., phytochemicals, vitamins, hyaluronic acid, and growth factors) has become an interesting alternative. Based on their bioactivities and using different nanoformulations as efficient delivery systems, several cosmeceutical and pharmaceutical products are now available on the market aiming to mitigate the signs of aged skin.
  • 1.7K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Nanomaterials Application in Endodontics
The medical procedures in endodontics are time-consuming and mostly require several visits to be able to achieve the proper result. In this field of dentistry, there are still major issues about the removal of the mostly bacterial infection from the dental root canals. It has been confirmed that nanoparticles are much more efficient than traditional materials and appear to have superior properties when it comes to surface chemistry and bonding. Their unique antibacterial properties are also promising features in every medical procedure, especially in endodontics. High versatility of use of nanomaterials makes them a powerful tool in dental clinics, in a plethora of endodontic procedures, including pulp regeneration, drug delivery, root repair, disinfection, obturation and canal filling. 
  • 1.7K
  • 22 Nov 2021
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