Recent advances in nanomaterial-enabled chemiresistive hydrogen sensors.

With the growing adoption of hydrogen energy and the rapid advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, there is an increasing demand for high-performance hydrogen gas (H) sensors. Among various sensor types, chemiresistive H sensors have emerged as particularly promising due to their excellent sensitivity, fast response times, cost-effectiveness, and portability. This review comprehensively examines the recent progress in chemiresistive H sensors, focusing on developments over the past five years in nanostructured materials such as metals, metal oxide semiconductors, and emerging alternatives.

Large-area grown ultrathin molybdenum oxides for label-free sensitive biomarker detection.

The rise of two-dimensional (2D) materials has provided a confined geometry and yielded methods for guiding electrons at the nanoscale level. 2D material-enabled electronic devices can interact and transduce the subtle charge perturbation and permit significant advancement in molecule discrimination technology with high accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, leaving a significant impact on disease diagnosis and health monitoring. However, high-performance biosensors with scalable fabrication ability and simple protocols have yet to be fully realized due to the challenges in wafer-scale 2D film synthesis and integration with electronics.

Remarkable water-mediated proton conductivity of two porous zirconium(IV)/hafnium(IV) metal-organic frameworks bearing porphyrinlcarboxylate ligands.

Obtaining crystalline materials with high structural stability as well as super proton conductivity is a challenging task in the field of energy and material chemistry. Therefore, two highly stable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with macro-ring structures and carboxylate groups, Zr-TCPP (1) and Hf-TCPP (2) assembled from low-toxicity as well as highly coordination-capable Zr(IV)/Hf(IV) cations and the multifunctional linkage, meso-tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphine (TCPP) have attracted our strong interest. Note that TCPP as a large-size rigid ligand with high symmetry and multiple coordination sites contributes to the formation of the two stable MOFs.

Pterostilbene alleviated cerebral ischemia/reperfusion-induced blood-brain barrier dysfunction inhibiting early endothelial cytoskeleton reorganization and late basement membrane degradation.

Pterostilbene, an important analogue of the star molecule resveratrol and a novel compound naturally occurring in blueberries and grapes, exerts a significant neuroprotective effect on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), but its mechanism is still unclear. This study aimed to follow the molecular mechanisms behind the potential protective effect of pterostilbene against I/R induced injury. For fulfilment of our aim, we investigated the protective effects of pterostilbene on I/R injury caused by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) .

In-situ mechanochemically tailorable 2D gallium oxyselenide for enhanced optoelectronic NO gas sensing at room temperature.

The adverse effects of NO on the environment and human health promote the development of high-performance gas sensors to address the need for monitoring. Two-dimensional (2D) metal chalcogenides have been considered an emerging group of NO-sensitive materials, while incomplete recovery and low long-term stability are the two major hurdles for their practical implementation. The transformation into oxychalcogenides is an effective strategy to alleviate these drawbacks, but usually requires multiple-step synthesis and lacks controllability.

Lavender essential oil accelerates lipopolysaccharide-induced chronic wound healing by inhibiting caspase-11-mediated macrophage pyroptosis.

Chronic wounds seriously affect the quality of life of the elderly, obese people, and diabetic patients. The excessive inflammatory response is a key driver of delayed chronic wound healing. Although lavender essential oil (EO [lav]) has been proven to have anti-inflammatory and accelerate wound curative effects, the specific molecular mechanism involved is still ambiguous.

High-Performance Directional Water Transport Using a Two-Dimensional Periodic Janus Gradient Structure.

Numerous materials in micro- or nanoscale hierarchical structures with surface gradients serve as the enablers in directional liquid transportation. However, concurrent high-speed and long-range liquid transport is yet to be fully realized so far. Here, an overall-improved approach is achieved in both water transport distance and velocity aspects using a 2D periodic Janus gradient structure, which is inspired by the Janus-wettable desert beetle back, tapered asymmetric cacti spine, and periodic Nepenthes alata microcavity.

Single-step salt-template-based scalable production of 2D carbon sheets heterostructured with nickel nanocatalysts for lowering overpotential of hydrogen evolution reaction.

Non-precious metals have been considered as suitable alternatives for high-performance hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). Although the incorporation of carbon substances is shown to improve the number of active sites, electron transfer pathways, and long-term stability, there have been rare reports on their single-step scalable production. Herein, we realize free-standing two-dimensional (2D) carbon sheets heterostructured with nickel (Ni) nanocatalysts by pyrolyzing ultrathin layers of acetate tetrahydrate (i.

Plasmonic metal oxides and their biological applications.

Metal oxides modified with dopants and defects are an emerging class of novel materials supporting the localized surface plasmon resonance across a wide range of optical wavelengths, which have attracted tremendous research interest particularly in biological applications in the past decade. Compared to conventional noble metal-based plasmonic materials, plasmonic metal oxides are particularly favored for their cost efficiency, flexible plasmonic properties, and improved biocompatibility, which can be important to accelerate their practical implementation. In this review, we first explicate the origin of plasmonics in dopant/defect-enabled metal oxides and their associated tunable localized surface plasmon resonance through the conventional Mie-Gans model.

Identification of multi-target anti-cancer agents from TCM formula by in silico prediction and in vitro validation.

Cancer is a complex disease associated with multiple gene mutations and malignant phenotypes, and multi-target drugs provide a promising therapy idea for the treatment of cancer. Natural products with abundant chemical structure types and rich pharmacological characteristics could be ideal sources for screening multi-target antineoplastic drugs. In this paper, 50 tumor-related targets were collected by searching the Therapeutic Target Database and Thomson Reuters Integrity database, and a multi-target anti-cancer prediction system based on mt-QSAR models was constructed by using naïve Bayesian and recursive partitioning algorithm for the first time.

Hetero-metallic metal-organic frameworks for room-temperature NO sensing.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with exceptional features such as high structural diversity and surface area as well as controlled pore size has been considered a promising candidate for developing room temperature highly-sensitive gas sensors. In comparison, the hetero-metallic MOFs with redox-active open-metal sites and mixed metal nodes may create peculiar surface properties and synergetic effects for enhanced gas sensing performances. In this work, the Fe atoms in the Fe (Porous coordination network) PCN-250 MOFs are partially replaced by transition metal Co, Mn, and Zn through a facile hydrothermal approach, leading to the formation of hetero-metallic MOFs (FeM, M = Co, Mn, and Zn).

A room temperature all-optical sensor based on two-dimensional SnS for highly sensitive and reversible NO sensing.

Fiber-optic gas sensors have been considered a low-cost, effective, and robust approach for monitoring nitrogen dioxide (NO) gas which is a major toxic gaseous pollutant. The integration of functional nanoscale materials provides additional dimensions for realizing ultra-sensitive and selective NO detection, however, the trade-off is the need for sophisticated photonic structures or external non-optical peripherals (e.g.

Highly accurate and label-free discrimination of single cancer cell using a plasmonic oxide-based nanoprobe.

The detection of cancer cells at the single-cell level enables many novel functionalities such as next-generation cancer prognosis and accurate cellular analysis. While surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been widely considered as an effective tool in a low-cost and label-free manner, however, it is challenging to discriminate single cancer cells with an accuracy above 90% mainly due to the poor biocompatibility of the noble-metal-based SERS agents. Here, we report a dual-functional nanoprobe based on dopant-driven plasmonic oxides, demonstrating a maximum accuracy above 90% in distinguishing single THP-1 cell from peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) and human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 from human macrophage cell line U937 based on their SERS patterns.

Multiplex immunohistochemistry indicates biomarkers in colorectal cancer.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in males and the second in females, whose survival ratio and indicating biomarkers are limited. The rapid development of multiple immunofluorescences gives rise to widespread applications of this new advanced technology called multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC), which makes it possible to detect several fluorescent proteins on the same tumor tissue microarray (TMA) within the same time and spatial organization. By taking advantage of this mIHC technology, we detected three tumor-associated antigens (TAA) including the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), the cluster of differentiation 133 (CD133), the programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1), and one immune-associated macrophage marker, the cluster of differentiation 68 (CD68) in cancer tissues versus para-carcinomatous normal tissues derived from a cohort of 84 CRC patients.

Hexagonal metal oxide monolayers derived from the metal-gas interface.

Two-dimensional (2D) crystals are promising materials for developing future nano-enabled technologies. The cleavage of weak, interlayer van der Waals bonds in layered bulk crystals enables the production of high-quality 2D, atomically thin monolayers. Nonetheless, as earth-abundant compounds, metal oxides are rarely accessible as pure and fully stoichiometric monolayers owing to their ion-stabilized 'lamellar' bulk structure.

Plasmonic metal-organic framework nanocomposites enabled by degenerately doped molybdenum oxides.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) nanocomposites are under the limelight due to their unique electronic, optical, and surface properties for various applications. Plasmonic MOFs enabled by noble metal nanostructures are an emerging class of MOF nanocomposites with efficient solar light-harvesting capability. However, major concerns such as poor photostability, sophisticated synthesis processes, and high fabrication cost are raised.

Edge-oriented and steerable hyperbolic polaritons in anisotropic van der Waals nanocavities.

Highly confined and low-loss polaritons are known to propagate isotropically over graphene and hexagonal boron nitride in the plane, leaving limited degrees of freedom in manipulating light at the nanoscale. The emerging family of biaxial van der Waals materials, such as α-MoO and VO, support exotic polariton propagation, as their auxiliary optical axis is in the plane. Here, exploiting this strong in-plane anisotropy, we report edge-tailored hyperbolic polaritons in patterned α-MoO nanocavities via real-space nanoimaging.

DL0410 ameliorates cognitive disorder in SAMP8 mice by promoting mitochondrial dynamics and the NMDAR-CREB-BDNF pathway.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a worldwide problem and there are no effective drugs for AD treatment. Previous studies show that DL0410 is a multi-target, anti-AD agent. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic effect of DL0410 and its action mechanism in SAMP8 mice.

Liquid metal-based synthesis of high performance monolayer SnS piezoelectric nanogenerators.

The predicted strong piezoelectricity for monolayers of group IV monochalcogenides, together with their inherent flexibility, makes them likely candidates for developing flexible nanogenerators. Within this group, SnS is a potential choice for such nanogenerators due to its favourable semiconducting properties. To date, access to large-area and highly crystalline monolayer SnS has been challenging due to the presence of strong inter-layer interactions by the lone-pair electrons of S.

Atomically thin TiO nanosheets synthesized using liquid metal chemistry.

The library of true two-dimensional materials is limited since many transition metal compounds are not stratified and can thus not be easily isolated as nanosheets. Here, micron-sized ultrathin rutile TiO2 nanosheets featuring uniform thickness (2 ± 0.5 nm) with dielectric constant (ε⊥ = 24) have been synthesized via a liquid metal synthesis strategy.

Exciton-Driven Chemical Sensors Based on Excitation-Dependent Photoluminescent Two-Dimensional SnS.

Excitation wavelength-dependent photoluminescence (PL) in two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal chalcogenides enables a strong excitonic interaction for high-performance chemical and biological sensing applications. In this work, we explore the possible candidates in the domain of post-transition-metal chalcogenides. Few-layered 2D p-type tin monosulfide (SnS) nanoflakes with submicrometer lateral dimensions are synthesized from the liquid phase exfoliation of bulk crystals.

Investigation of the surface of Ga⁻Sn⁻Zn eutectic alloy by the characterisation of oxide nanofilms obtained by the touch-printing method.

Ga⁻Sn⁻Zn eutectic alloy is a non-toxic liquid metal alloy which could be used in a multitude of applications, including as a heat transfer agent, in gas sensing, and in medicine. Alloys containing gallium readily oxidise in air, forming a thin oxide layer that influences the properties of liquid metals and which has not been studied. In this study, the oxide layer formed on Ga⁻Sn⁻Zn alloy was transferred at room temperature onto three substrates-quartz, glass and silicon.

An Ultrasensitive Silicon Photonic Ion Sensor Enabled by 2D Plasmonic Molybdenum Oxide.

Silicon photonics has demonstrated great potential in ultrasensitive biochemical sensing. However, it is challenging for such sensors to detect small ions which are also of great importance in many biochemical processes. A silicon photonic ion sensor enabled by an ionic dopant-driven plasmonic material is introduced here.

Wafer-Sized Ultrathin Gallium and Indium Nitride Nanosheets through the Ammonolysis of Liquid Metal Derived Oxides.

We report the synthesis of centimeter sized ultrathin GaN and InN. The synthesis relies on the ammonolysis of liquid metal derived two-dimensional (2D) oxide sheets that were squeeze-transferred onto desired substrates. Wurtzite GaN nanosheets featured typical thicknesses of 1.

Exfoliation Behavior of van der Waals Strings: Case Study of BiS.

The family of crystals constituting covalently bound strings, held together by van der Waals forces, can be exfoliated into smaller entities, similar to crystals made of van der Waals sheets. Depending on the anisotropy of such crystals, as well as the spacing between their strings in each direction, van der Waals sheets or ribbons can be obtained after the exfoliation process. In this work, we demonstrate that ultrathin nanoribbons of bismuth sulfide (BiS) can be synthesized via a high-power sonication process.