Evaluation of dielectric elastomers to develop materials suitable for actuation.

Electroactive polymers based on dielectric elastomers are stretchable and compressible capacitors that can act as transducers between electrical and mechanical energies. Depending on the targeted application, soft actuators, sensors or mechanical-energy harvesters can be developed. Compared with conventional technologies, they present a promising combination of properties such as being soft, silent, light and miniaturizable.

A simple label-free electrochemical sensor for sensitive detection of alpha-fetoprotein based on specific aptamer immobilized platinum nanoparticles/carboxylated-graphene oxide.

A label-free electrochemical aptamer-based sensor has been fabricated for alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) detection. Platinum nanoparticles on carboxylated-graphene oxide (PtNPs/GO-COOH) modified screen-printed graphene-carbon paste electrode (SPGE) was utilized as an immobilization platform, and the AFP aptamer was employed as a bio-recognition element. The synthesized GO-COOH helps to increase the surface area and amounts of the immobilized aptamer.

Reversible Assembly of Microgels by Metallo-Supramolecular Chemistry.

The combination of supramolecular chemistry and soft colloids as microgels represents an ambitious way to develop multi-versatile colloidal assemblies. Hereafter, terpyridine-functionalized poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNiPAM) microgel building blocks are shown to undergo an assemble-freeze-disassemble process. The microgel assemblies, which are controlled by monitoring the attractive and repulsive potentials between the soft colloidal particles, are then frozen by forming inter-particle metal-terpyridine bis-complexes upon addition of the metallic cation (such as Fe , Co ).

Highly sensitive voltammetric immunosensor for the detection of prostate specific antigen based on silver nanoprobe assisted graphene oxide modified screen printed carbon electrode.

In this work, we developed an effective voltammetric immunosensing platform for the sensitive detection of prostate specific antigen (PSA) utilizing a graphene oxide (GO) modified screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) hybridized with the ex-situ prepared silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as a probe and signal transducer. The sensing platform comprises a direct-type immunoassay involving the selective interaction of PSA with anti-PSA. The surface morphology and analytical performance of the modified SPCE were characterized through relevant instrumentations.

Single-Step Synthesis of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube Forest on Aluminium Foils.

Vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) forests are promising for supercapacitor electrodes, but their industrialisation requires a large-scale cost-effective synthesis process suitable to commercial aluminium (Al) foils, namely by operating at a low temperature (<660 °C). We show that Aerosol-Assisted Catalytic Chemical Vapour Deposition (CCVD), a single-step roll-to-roll compatible process, can be optimised to meet this industrial requirement. With ferrocene as a catalyst precursor, acetylene as a carbon source and Ar/H as a carrier gas, clean and dense forests of VACNTs of about 10 nm in diameter are obtained at 615 °C with a growth rate up to 5 µm/min.