Hemostatic and antibacterial PVA/Kaolin composite sponges loaded with penicillin-streptomycin for wound dressing applications.

Hemorrhage is the major hindrance over the wound healing, which triggers microbial infections and might provoke traumatic death. Herein, new hemostatic and antibacterial PVA/Kaolin composite sponges were crosslinked using a freeze-thawing approach and boosted by penicillin-streptomycin (Pen-Strep). Physicochemical characteristics of developed membranes were analyzed adopting Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), a thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Furthermore, the impacts of kaolin concentrations on porosity, swelling behavior, gel fraction, and degradation of the membranes were investigated. SEM analyses revealed a spongy-like structure of hydrogels associated with high dispersion of kaolin inside PVA matrix. The thermal characteristics of PVA/Kaolin were significantly ameliorated compared to the prime PVA. Moreover, the results exhibited significant variations of swelling performance, surface roughness and pore capacity due to the alterations of kaolin contents. Besides, the adhesive strength ability was manifestly enhanced for PVA-K0.1 sponge. Biomedical evaluations including antibacterial activity, blood clotting index and thrombogenicity of the membranes were studied. The contact of PVA/Kaolin to blood revealed notable augmentation in blood clotting. Furthermore, the incorporation of kaolin into PVA presented mild diminution in antibacterial activities. Moreover, PVA/Kaolin composites illustrated no cellular toxicity towards fibroblast cells. These remarkable features substantiate that the PVA-K0.1 sponge could be applied as a multifunctional wound dressing.

Inorganic-organic mesoporous hybrid segregators for selective and sensitive extraction of precious elements from urban mining.

This study aimed to develop a highly selective extraction protocol for gold (AuIII) ions from electronic urban waste (EUW) using simple, low-cost Inorganic-organic mesoporous hybrid segregators. The unique features of mesoporous hybrid segregator architectures are of particular to ensure effective adsorption system in terms of selective and sensitive recovery of AuIII ions from EUW. The segregator platform featured 3D micrometric, mesocage double-serrated plant-leaf-like γ-Al2O3 sheets with hierarchy surfaces containing tri-modal mesopores interiorly and uniformly arranged toothed edges of ~20-40 and ~15 nm groove width and depth at the exterior surfaces, respectively. Rational incorporation of actively organic chelates into hierarchical γ-Al2O3 sheet platforms leads to the production of a couple of selective segregators 1 and 2 (namely, SC1 and SC2) for AuIII ions at specific conditions by applying batch and fixed-bed columnar techniques. The mesocage SC segregators offer a selective extraction approach of AuIII ions from mixed element contents released from a computer motherboard (CMB). Our finding indicated that the textural and hierarchal features of the mesocage SC segregators played key roles in the selective adsorption/recovery of AuIII ions at pH 2-2.5 with high capacity (136-141 mg/g range) and effective reusability ≫10 consecutive cycles. In general, the developed SCs could be utilized as a real extractor of AuIII recovery from spent CMBs.

Anisotropic alignments of hierarchical Li2SiO3/TiO2 @nano-C anode//LiMnPO4@nano-C cathode architectures for full-cell lithium-ion battery.

We report on low-cost fabrication and high-energy density of full-cell lithium-ion battery (LIB) models. Super-hierarchical electrode architectures of Li2SiO3/TiO2@nano-carbon anode (LSO.TO@nano-C) and high-voltage olivine LiMnPO4@nano-carbon cathode (LMPO@nano-C) are designed for half- and full-system LIB-CR2032 coin cell models. On the basis of primary architecture-power-driven LIB geometrics, the structure keys including three-dimensional (3D) modeling superhierarchy, multiscale micro/nano architectures and anisotropic surface heterogeneity affect the buildup design of anode/cathode LIB electrodes. Such hierarchical electrode surface topologies enable continuous in-/out-flow rates and fast transport pathways of Li+-ions during charge/discharge cycles. The stacked layer configurations of pouch LIB-types lead to excellent charge/discharge rate, and energy density of 237.6 Wh kg-1. As the most promising LIB-configurations, the high specific energy density of hierarchical pouch battery systems may improve energy storage for long-driving range of electric vehicles. Indeed, the anisotropic alignments of hierarchical electrode architectures in the large-scale LIBs provide proof of excellent capacity storage and outstanding durability and cyclability. The full-system LIB-CR2032 coin cell models maintain high specific capacity of ∼89.8% within a long-term life period of 2000 cycles, and average Coulombic efficiency of 99.8% at 1C rate for future configuration of LIB manufacturing and commercialization challenges.