Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporator using Hydrogel Modified Carbon-Based Biomass with Abundant Microchannels.

The conventional sea water desalination technologies are not yet adopted worldwide, especially in the third world countries due to their high capital cost as well as large energy requirement. To solve this issue in a sustainable way an interfacial solar water evaporation device is designed and proposed in this article using the branches of Prunus serrulata (PB). The PB has abundant microchannels and shows excellent photothermal conversion capability after carbonization. Moreover, the easy access to raw materials and the facile fabrication process makes the solar water evaporating device very cost effective for seawater desalination application. Experiments show that in the presence of the fabricated evaporator the evaporation rate of water can reach 3.5 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun, which is superior to many similar experimental devices. In addition, its advantages, such as effective sewage purification capability, low cost, and environmental friendliness, make this evaporator highly competitive in the extensive promotion of this technology and can be considered as a new sustainable solution for seawater desalination with great application potential and prospects.

Infinite Self-Propulsion of Circularly On/Discharged Droplets.

Self-propulsion of droplets in a controlled and long path at a high-speed is crucial for organic synthesis, pathological diagnosis and programable lab-on-a-chip. To date, extensive efforts have been made to achieve droplet self-propulsion by asymmetric gradient, yet, existing structural, chemical, or charge density gradients can only last for a while (<50 mm). Here, this work designs a symmetrical waved alternating potential (WAP) on a superhydrophobic surface to charge or discharge the droplets during the transport process. By deeply studying the motion mechanisms for neutral droplets and charged droplets, the circularly on/discharged droplets achieve the infinite self-propulsion (>1000 mm) with an ultrahigh velocity of meters per second. In addition, after permutation and combination of two motion styles of the droplets, it can be competent for more interesting work, such as liquid diode and liquid logic gate. Being assembled into a microfluidic chip, the strategy would be applied in chemical synthesis, cell culture, and diagnostic kits.

[Early diagnosis and treatment of acute mesentric ischemia for 42 cases in single center].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the early diagnosis and treatment of acute mesenteric ischemia. METHODS: Forty-two patients with acute mesenteric ischemia from June 2007 to November 2011 were reviewed retrospectively. All patients were diagnosed with DSA and (or) CT and (or) surgery. In this group, there were 32 cases of acute occlusion of meseteric ischemia (AOMI), 9 cases of superior mesenteric venous thrombosis (SMVT) and 1 case of non-occlusive mesenteric ischemia. The patients were treated using comprehensive treatment including early intervention treatment and application of the principle of damage control. The survival of all patients was followed up for 6 months or more in outpatient. RESULTS: (1) Of the 32 AOMI cases, 4 cases healing by systemic anticoagulation; The 19 cases received interventional treatment, including 10 cases received simply interventional treatment, surgery after the failure of intervention in 5 cases, 3 patients died without surgery and postoperative interventional treatment one cases were cured; Eight cases received surgery treatment; One case gave up. (2) Of the 9 SMVT cases, 2 cases healing by systemic anticoagulation; The 6 cases received interventional treatment, including 1 cases received simply interventional treatment, surgery after the failure of intervention in 1 cases, 4 cases to consider intestinal necrosis received interventional treatment again after surgery; One patient died without treatment. (3) Eight cases received delay abdomen close treatment with the principle of damage control surgery. The overall mortality rate of 23.8% (10/42). Interventional treatment of 26 cases, 4 deaths, a mortality rate of 15.3%; The abdomen delayed close of 8 cases, 1 death. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that early diagnosis and treatment is critical to reduce AMI mortality. Comprehensive treatment of early intervention treatment and application of the principle of damage control can significantly reduce the mortality of AMI.

Slippery Surface Based on Photoelectric Responsive Nanoporous Composites with Optimal Wettability Region for Droplets' Multifunctional Manipulation.

The development of responsive slippery surfaces is important because of the high demand for such materials in the fields of liquid manipulation on biochips, microfluidics, microreactions, and liquid-harvesting devices. Although great progress has been achieved, the effect of substrate wettability on slippery surfaces stability is overlooked by scientists. In addition, current responsive slippery surfaces generally function utilizing single external stimuli just for imprecisely controlling liquid motion, while advanced intelligences are always expected to be integrated into one smart interface material for widespread multifunctional applications. Therefore, designing slippery surfaces that collaboratively respond to complex external stimuli and possess sophisticated composite function for expanding applications from controlling droplets motion to patterned writing is urgently needed but remains a challenge. Here, a photoelectric cooperative-responsive slippery surface based on ZnO nanoporous composites is demonstrated. First, the effect of composite surface wettability on slippery surface stability is systematically researched and the optimum wettability region for fabricating stable slippery surfaces is determined. Furthermore, controllable droplet motion and patterned writing are realized on the same slippery surfaces under photoelectric cooperative stimuli, and the related response mechanism is also deeply studied. This kind of material has potential applications in biochips, microfluidics, in situ patterning, and water-harvesting systems.

Multiphase Media Antiadhesive Coatings: Hierarchical Self-Assembled Porous Materials Generated Using Breath Figure Patterns.

The cleaning of interface pollutants typically consumes a large amount of energy. Therefore, the development of multiphase media antiadhesive materials is urgently required to meet the demand of energy savings and environmental protection. In this study, the antiadhesive properties toward several liquid droplets and bubbles in multiple media are demonstrated on a porous Fe2O3 coating, which is prepared via a facile spin-coating-assisted breath figure approach and a phase separation strategy. The prominent antiadhesive characteristic of these porous surfaces lies in their high-surface-energy hierarchical micro/nanoscale structure, which easily entraps one medium (oil or water) in the pore and repels other unmixable liquids and air bubbles. In addition, we successfully demonstrate an antifouling application of the coating, which shows excellent antiadhesive and super-antiwetting characteristics under multiple liquids. Our work extends relevant antiadhesion research from a single medium to multiple media and promises to broaden the applications of antiadhesive materials in sophisticated activities performed under complicated liquid environments, such as marine antifouling or pipeline transportation.

Biomimetic heterogeneous multiple ion channels: a honeycomb structure composite film generated by breath figures.

We design a novel type of artificial multiple nanochannel system with remarkable ion rectification behavior via a facile breath figure (BF) method. Notably, even though the charge polarity in the channel wall reverses under different pH values, this nanofluidic device displays the same ionic rectification direction. Compared with traditional nanochannels, this composite multiple ion channel device can be more easily obtained and has directional ionic rectification advantages, which can be applied in many fields.