Topic Review
Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogel-Based Wound Dressing
Polymeric materials have found increasing use in biomedical applications. Among them, hydrogels represent the chosen class of materials to use in this field, in particular as wound dressings. They are generally non-toxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable, and they can absorb large amounts of exudates. Moreover, hydrogels actively contribute to skin repair promoting fibroblast proliferation and keratinocyte migration, allowing oxygen to permeate, and protecting wounds from microbial invasion. As wound dressing, stimuli-responsive systems are particularly advantageous since they can be active only in response to specific environmental stimuli (such as pH, light, ROS concentration, temperature, and glucose level). 
  • 161
  • 26 Sep 2023
Topic Review
2D Nanomaterial-Based Flame-Retardant PLA Materials
Poly (lactic acid) or polylactide (PLA) has gained widespread use in many industries and has become a commodity polymer. Its potential as a perfect replacement for petrochemically made plastics has been constrained by its extreme flammability and propensity to flow in a fire. Traditional flame-retardants (FRs), such as organo-halogen chemicals, can be added to PLA without significantly affecting the material’s mechanical properties.
  • 100
  • 13 Sep 2023
Topic Review
3D Braiding Technology
3D braiding technologies enable the production of structures with complex geometry, which are often used for lightweight solutions, for example in automotive engineering. In addition, medical technology offers wide-ranging applications for 3D braiding technology. 3D braided structures are defined as those with yarns that intersect in all three spatial directions. 3D braiding processes allow the fiber orientation to be easily influenced, thus ensuring high strength and stiffness with reduced mass.
  • 2.0K
  • 25 Aug 2021
Topic Review
3D Printing
Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology holds great potential to fabricate complex constructs in the field of regenerative medicine. Researchers in the surgical fields have used 3D printing techniques and their associated biomaterials for education, training, consultation, organ transplantation, plastic surgery, surgical planning, dentures, and more. In addition, the universal utilization of 3D printing techniques enables researchers to exploit different types of hardware and software in, for example, the surgical fields. To realize the 3D-printed structures to implant them in the body and tissue regeneration, it is important to understand 3D printing technology and its enabling technologies.
  • 1.7K
  • 20 Apr 2021
Topic Review
3D-(Bio)printed Hydrogels as Wound Dressings
Wound healing is a physiological process occurring after the onset of a skin lesion aiming to reconstruct the dermal barrier between the external environment and the body. Depending on the nature and duration of the healing process, wounds are classified as acute (e.g., trauma, surgical wounds) and chronic (e.g., diabetic ulcers) wounds. The latter take several months to heal or do not heal (non-healing chronic wounds), are usually prone to microbial infection and represent an important source of morbidity since they affect millions of people worldwide. Typical wound treatments comprise surgical (e.g., debridement, skin grafts/flaps) and non-surgical (e.g., topical formulations, wound dressings) methods. Modern experimental approaches include among others three dimensional (3D)-(bio)printed wound dressings.
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  • 29 Feb 2024
Topic Review
3DP Medicines and Medical Devices
Novel additive manufacturing (AM) techniques and particularly 3D printing (3DP) have achieved a decade of success in pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. Highly innovative personalized therapeutical solutions may be designed and manufactured through a layer-by-layer approach starting from a digital model realized according to the needs of a specific patient or a patient group. The combination of patient-tailored drug dose, dosage, or diagnostic form (shape and size) and drug release adjustment has the potential to ensure the optimal patient therapy. This document provides an overview on different 3DP techniques to produce personalized medicines and medical devices, highlighting, for each method, the critical printing process parameters, the main starting materials, as well as advantages and limitations.
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  • 17 May 2022
Topic Review
4D Printable Smart Hydrogels for Drug Delivery
Hydrogels are three-dimensional crosslinked polymer network structures that can absorb and hold a large quantity of water while retaining a distinct shape. Among modern drug formulations, stimuli-responsive hydrogels, also known as "smart hydrogels," has attracted enormous attention. The fundamental characteristic of these systems is the capacity to change their mechanical properties, swelling capacity, hydrophilicity, permeability of bioactive molecules, etc., in response to a wide range of stimuli, including temperature, pH, light irradiation, magnetic field, biological factors, etc. On the other hand, the expeditious development of 3D printing technologies has revolutionized the fabrication of hydrogel systems for biomedical applications. By combining these two aspects, 4D printing (i.e., 3D printing of smart hydrogels) has emerged as a new promising platform for the development of novel drug delivery systems, which release active ingredients in response to internal or external stimuli.
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  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
AB5 Derivatives of Cyclotriphosphazene
AB5 compounds issued from the reactivity of hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene are relatively easy to obtain using two ways: either first the reaction of one chloride with one reagent, followed by the reaction of the five remaining Cl with another reagent, or first the reaction of five chlorides with one reagent, followed by the reaction of the single remaining Cl with another reagent. This particular property led to the use of such compounds as core for the synthesis of dendrons (dendritic wedges), using the five functions for growing the dendritic branches. The single function can be used for the synthesis of diverse types of dendrimers (onion peel, dumbbell-shape, Janus), for covalent or non-covalent grafting to solid surfaces, providing nanomaterials, for grafting a fluorophore, especially for studying biological mechanisms, or for self-associations to get micelles.
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  • 04 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Acrylic Bone Cements
Acrylic bone cements (ABC) are widely used in orthopedics for joint fixation, antibiotic release, and bone defect filling, among others. Most of the commercial ABCs available today consist of two components, one solid, based mainly on poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and one liquid, based on methyl methacrylate (MMA), which are mixed and, through the polymerization reaction of the monomer, transformed into a hardened cement paste. 
  • 2.3K
  • 22 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Added-Value Chemicals from Lignin Oxidation
Lignocellulosic biomass, including hardwood, softwood, and herbaceous crops, is an abundant renewable resource mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The typical lignin content may vary from 18 to 33% in softwoods, 15 to 30% in hardwoods, and 5 to 30% in herbaceous crops. However, most biorefineries are currently focused on the valorization of cellulose and hemicellulose, a so-called sugar-based platform. In this context, lignin is usually considered as a low-value residual product and has significant potential as a renewable resource to produce bio-based materials, fuels, and valuable chemicals.
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  • 23 Aug 2021
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