Rapid Impregnating Resins for Fiber-Reinforced Composites Used in the Automobile Industry.

As environmental regulations become stricter, weight- and cost-effective fiber-reinforced polymer composites are being considered as alternative materials in the automobile industry. Rapidly impregnating resin into the reinforcing fibers is critical during liquid composite molding, and the optimization of resin impregnation is related to the cycle time and quality of the products. In this review, various resins capable of rapid impregnation, including thermoset and thermoplastic resins, are discussed for manufacturing fiber-reinforced composites used in the automobile industry, along with their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, vital factors and perspectives for developing rapidly impregnated resin-based fiber-reinforced composites for automobile applications are discussed.

Development of Au8 nanocluster-based fluorescent strip immunosensor for sensitive detection of aflatoxin B1.

Gold clusters with intriguing chemical/physical properties have great promise in applications such as sensing and bio-imaging due to their fascinating photoluminescence character. In this study, an immunofluorescence sensor based on levonorgestrel protected atomically precise Au8 nanocluster (Au8NC) for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) detection was fabricated due to its strong carcinogenic and mutagenic effect on humans. The prepared polymer-Au8NC nanospheres displayed bright luminescence and good stability in aqueous solution. The obtained AFB1 fluorescent strip immunosensor achieved quantitative point-of-care detection of AFB1 in less than 15 min, with high selectivity and detection limits down to 0.27 ng/mL. In addition, the recovery rates of AFB1 from tea soup ranged from 96% to 105% with relative standard deviations less than 10%. This work not only realized high-sensitively fluorescent sensing for AFB1, but also expanded the bio-applications of atomic-precise metal clusters.

Challenges and advances in materials and fabrication technologies of small-diameter vascular grafts.

The arterial occlusive disease is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases, often requiring revascularization. Lack of suitable small-diameter vascular grafts (SDVGs), infection, thrombosis, and intimal hyperplasia associated with synthetic vascular grafts lead to a low success rate of SDVGs (< 6 mm) transplantation in the clinical treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The development of fabrication technology along with vascular tissue engineering and regenerative medicine technology allows biological tissue-engineered vascular grafts to become living grafts, which can integrate, remodel, and repair the host vessels as well as respond to the surrounding mechanical and biochemical stimuli. Hence, they potentially alleviate the shortage of existing vascular grafts. This paper evaluates the current advanced fabrication technologies for SDVGs, including electrospinning, molding, 3D printing, decellularization, and so on. Various characteristics of synthetic polymers and surface modification methods are also introduced. In addition, it also provides interdisciplinary insights into the future of small-diameter prostheses and discusses vital factors and perspectives for developing such prostheses in clinical applications. We propose that the performance of SDVGs can be improved by integrating various technologies in the near future.

Atomic-precise Pt2Cu4 cluster-based fluorescent sensor for rapid interleukin-6 detection.

Levonorgestrel protected Pt2Cu4 clusters were assembled with a polymer to prepare nanobeads (NBs) with intense red fluorescence. An immunofluorescence sensor based on Pt2Cu4NBs was established for the rapid and sensitive detection of interleukin-6 (IL-6) owing to its significance in inflammatory diseases, with a limit of detection of 42.66 pg mL-1. IL-6 spiked in serum was also accurately detected.

Extra Silver Atom Triggers Room-Temperature Photoluminescence in Atomically Precise Radarlike Silver Clusters.

Luminescent metal clusters show promise for applications in imaging and sensing. However, promoting emission from metal clusters at room temperature is a challenging task owing to the lack of an efficient approach to suppress the nonradiative decay process in metal cores. We report herein that the addition of a silver atom into a metal interstice of the radarlike thiolated silver cluster [Ag27 (St Bu)14 (S)2 (CF3 COO)9 (DMAc)4 ]⋅DMAc (NC1, DMAc=dimethylacetamide), which is non-emissive under ambient conditions, produced another silver cluster [Ag28 (AdmS)14 (S)2 (CF3 COO)10 (H2 O)4 ] (NC2) that displayed bright green room-temperature photoluminescence aided by the new ligand 1-adamantanethiol (AdmSH). The 28th Ag atom, which hardly affects the geometrical and electronic structures of the Ag-S skeleton, triggered the emission of green light as a result of the rigidity of the cluster structure.