Hemicellulose-Based Sensors: When Sustainability Meets Complexity.

Hemicelluloses (HCs) are promising sustainable biopolymers with a great natural abundance, excellent biocompatibility, and biodegradability. Yet, their potential sensing applications remain limited due to intrinsic challenges in their heterogeneous chemical composition, structure, and physicochemical properties. Herein, recent advances in the development of HC-based sensors for different chemical analytes and physical stimuli using different transduction mechanisms are reviewed and discussed.

Discrimination of serum samples of prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia with H-NMR metabolomics.

Prostate cancer continues to be a prominent health concern for men globally. Current screening techniques, primarily the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test and digital rectal examination (DRE), possess inherent limitations, with prostate biopsy being the definitive diagnostic procedure. The invasive nature of the biopsy and other drawbacks of current screening tests create the need for non-invasive and more accurate diagnostic methods.

The interactions between zeolite and two cellulose derivatives: A comprehensive analysis of liquid and solid phase properties.

This study investigates the impact of cellulose-derived polymers, anionic carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), and cationic cellulose (CC) on the colloidal and thermal stability of zeolite Na-X materials. By exploring polymer adsorption onto Na-X surfaces and characterising the resultant materials, using FT-IR, XPS, SEM, PSD, CHN, and zeta potential, the research unveils how CMC and CC modify zeolite properties. This investigation elucidates the potential roles of these polymers in colloidal systems with zeolites, revealing their promise for crafting organic-inorganic materials.

An Effective Health System Approach to End TB: Implementing the Double X Strategy in Vietnam.

Countries that are high burden for TB must reverse the COVID-19 pandemic's devastating effects to accelerate progress toward ending TB. Vietnam's Double X (2X) strategy uses chest radiography (CXR) and GeneXpert (Xpert) rapid diagnostic testing to improve early detection of TB disease. Household contacts and vulnerable populations (e.

Underwater Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube/Coacervate Composites.

Soft conductive materials are of interest for a wide range of applications, but their syntheses have remained difficult. Herein, we present a convenient route for underwater fabrication of a composite made of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and mussel-inspired complex coacervates. The key to success of this method is that CNTs were solubilized very effectively in protocoacervates, which are high-concentration solutions of polyelectrolytes at a pH where only one of them is charged, thereby impeding coacervate formation.

H-NMR-based urine metabolomics of prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are prevalent conditions affecting a significant portion of the male population, particularly with advancing age. Traditional diagnostic methods, such as digital rectal examination (DRE) and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, have limitations in specificity and sensitivity, leading to potential overdiagnosis and unnecessary biopsies.

Significance: This study explores the effectiveness of H NMR urine metabolomics in distinguishing PCa from BPH and in differentiating various PCa grades, presenting a non-invasive diagnostic alternative with the potential to enhance early detection and patient-specific treatment strategies.

A Further Study on Calcium Phosphate Gardens Grown from the Interface of κ-Carrageenan-based Hydrogels and Counterion Solutions.

Originating from the concept of classical chemical gardens, a new field coined 'chemobrionics' has recently emerged. In the present work, two chemobrionic systems grown from a hydrogel/liquid interface at different time scales (for 1, 7, 14 or 28 days) were investigated, i. e.

Analysis of urine using electronic tongue towards non-invasive cancer diagnosis.

Electronic tongues (e-tongues) have been broadly employed in monitoring the quality of food, beverage, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical products, and in diagnosis of diseases, as the e-tongues can discriminate samples of high complexity, reduce interference of the matrix, offer rapid response. Compared to other analytical approaches using expensive and complex instrumentation as well as required sample preparation, the e-tongue is non-destructive, miniaturizable and on-site method with little or no preparation of samples. Even though e-tongues are successfully commercialized, their application in cancer diagnosis from urine samples is underestimated.

Ultra-Fast Portable and Wearable Sensing Design for Continuous and Wide-Spectrum Molecular Analysis and Diagnostics.

The design and characterization of spatiotemporal nano-/micro-structural arrangement that enable real-time and wide-spectrum molecular analysis is reported and demonestrated in new horizons of biomedical applications, such as wearable-spectrometry, ultra-fast and onsite biopsy-decision-making for intraoperative surgical oncology, chiral-drug identification, etc. The spatiotemporal sesning arrangement is achieved by scalable, binder-free, functionalized hybrid spin-sensitive (<↑| or <↓|) graphene-ink printed sensing layers on free-standing films made of porous, fibrous, and naturally helical cellulose networks in hierarchically stacked geometrical configuration (HSGC). The HSGC operates according to a time-space-resolved architecture that modulate the mass-transfer rate for separation, eluation and detection of each individual compound within a mixture of the like, hereby providing a mass spectrogram.

A review on conjugated polymer-based electronic tongues.

Electronic tongues (e-tongues) are analytical technologies that mimic the biological tongues which are non-specific, low-selective, and cross-sensitive taste systems. The e-tongues consist of an array of sensors, being able to produce electrical signals that correspond to particular chemical compositions of a sample solution. The performance and efficiency of e-tongues have been optimized for many years via the development of novel materials and technologies.

Synthesis, characterization, and humidity-responsiveness of guar gum xanthate and its nanocomposite with copper sulfide covellite.

A novel conjugation of guar gum with xanthate groups via facile aqueous xanthation reaction has been reported. Density of grafted xanthate on guar gum product (GG-X) is as high as 4.4%, thus GG-X is conceivably characterized and confirmed by various spectrometric, electrochemical, thermogravimetric, and microscopic methods.

Synthesis, characterization and biocompatibility of guar gum-benzoic acid.

A novel chemical functionalization of guar gum (GG) by benzoic acid (BA) via nucleophilic substitution reaction in aqueous solution has been reported. BA moieties are chosen due to coordination chemistry of carboxylic acid moieties, hydrophobicity and intermolecular interaction of aromatic rings. The presence of conjugated BA on guar gum-benzoic acid (GG-BA) with grafting density of 5.

Biodegradable Active Packaging as an Alternative to Conventional Packaging: A Case Study with Chicken Fillets.

Innovative active packaging has the potential to maintain the food quality and preserve the food safety for extended period. The aim of this study was to discover the effect of active films based on commercially available polylactic acid blend (PLA) and natural active components on the shelf life and organoleptic properties of chicken fillets and to find out; to what extent they can be used as replacement to the traditional packaging materials. In this study, commercially available PLA was compounded with citral and cinnamon oil.

Colorimetric Hydrogel from Natural Indicators: A Tool for Electrochemistry Education.

The electrolysis of water is popular both as lab work and as a demonstration. In this activity, the electrolysis of water in the presence of a pH indicator is used to produce text and symbols. This report describes the design of an environmentally friendly setup of a writing board utilizing the electrolysis of water in a hydrogel environment.

Time-space-resolved origami hierarchical electronics for ultrasensitive detection of physical and chemical stimuli.

Recent years have witnessed thriving progress of flexible and portable electronics, with very high demand for cost-effective and tailor-made multifunctional devices. Here, we report on an ingenious origami hierarchical sensor array (OHSA) written with a conductive ink. Thanks to origami as a controllable hierarchical framework for loading ink material, we have demonstrated that OHSA possesses unique time-space-resolved, high-discriminative pattern recognition (TSR-HDPR) features, qualifying it as a smart sensing device for simultaneous sensing and distinguishing of complex physical and chemical stimuli, including temperature, relative humidity, light and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

A Freestanding Stretchable and Multifunctional Transistor with Intrinsic Self-Healing Properties of all Device Components.

A flexible and stretchable field-effect transistor (FET) is an essential element in a number of modern electronics. To realize the potential of this device in harsh real-world conditions and to extend its application spectrum, new functionalities are needed to be introduced into the device. Here, solution-processable elements based on carbon nanotubes that empower flexible and stretchable FET with high hole-mobility (µ ≈ 10 cm V s ) and relatively low operating voltages (<8 V) and that retain self-healing properties of all FET components are reported.

Autonomous Flexible Sensors for Health Monitoring.

A concise, although admittedly non-exhaustive, didactic summary is given of some of the main concepts and approaches related to recent advances and developments to enable autonomous detection and monitoring of the likelihood or existence of a health risk state in continuous and real-time modes. To give a comprehensive statement, different aspects of these advanced materials and related devices are presented and discussed, such as: flexible sensors used for non-invasive detection of health-related physiological markers; self-powered materials to enable extended usage periods by harvesting energy from body movement and temperature; and self-healing properties of the materials used on the wearable devices to enable extended usage periods if scratched or cut. The linkage of these advanced materials and technologies together is particularly specified.

The Combination of Hydrogen and Methanol Production through Artificial Photosynthesis-Are We Ready Yet?

Because 100 % quantum efficiency for the photosynthetic production of H from H O under visible illumination has been achieved recently, the oxidation of H O to O remains the bottleneck to the overall water-splitting reaction. Oxidation of CH to CH OH might be combined with water reduction instead, so that H and CH OH chemical fuels can be simultaneously produced through a one-step process under solar illumination. This combination would be a promising approach towards a more sustainable future of chemistry, in which developing different strategies for artificial photosynthesis is of paramount importance.

Advanced Materials for Use in Soft Self-Healing Devices.

Devices integrated with self-healing ability can benefit from long-term use as well as enhanced reliability, maintenance and durability. This progress report reviews the developments in the field of self-healing polymers/composites and wearable devices thereof. One part of the progress report presents and discusses several aspects of the self-healing materials chemistry (from non-covalent to reversible covalent-based mechanisms), as well as the required main approaches used for functionalizing the composites to enhance their electrical conductivity, magnetic, dielectric, electroactive and/or photoactive properties.

Programmed Transfer of Sequence Information into a Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for Hexakis(2,2'-bithien-5-yl) DNA Analogue Formation toward Single-Nucleotide-Polymorphism Detection.

A new strategy of simple, inexpensive, rapid, and label-free single-nucleotide-polymorphism (SNP) detection using robust chemosensors with piezomicrogravimetric, surface plasmon resonance, or capacitive impedimetry (CI) signal transduction is reported. Using these chemosensors, selective detection of a genetically relevant oligonucleotide under FIA conditions within 2 min is accomplished. An invulnerable-to-nonspecific interaction molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) with electrochemically synthesized probes of hexameric 2,2'-bithien-5-yl DNA analogues discriminating single purine-nucleobase mismatch at room temperature was used.

Self-Healable Sensors Based Nanoparticles for Detecting Physiological Markers via Skin and Breath: Toward Disease Prevention via Wearable Devices.

Flexible and wearable electronic sensors are useful for the early diagnosis and monitoring of an individual's health state. Sampling of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) derived from human breath/skin or monitoring abrupt changes in heart-beat/breath rate should allow noninvasive monitoring of disease states at an early stage. Nevertheless, for many reported wearable sensing devices, interaction with the human body leads incidentally to unavoidable scratches and/or mechanical cuts and bring about malfunction of these devices.

Sensors: A Highly Sensitive Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Ambipolar Transistor for Selective Detection and Discrimination of Xylene Isomers (Adv. Mater. 21/2016).

An ambipolar organic field-effect transistor (OFET) based on poly(diketopyrrolopyrrole-terthiophene) (PDPPHD-T3) is shown by P. Sonar, H. Haick, and co-workers on page 4012 to sensitively detect xylene isomers at low to 40 ppm level in multiple sensing features.

A Highly Sensitive Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Ambipolar Transistor for Selective Detection and Discrimination of Xylene Isomers.

An ambipolar poly(diketopyrrolopyrrole-terthiophene)-based field-effect transistor (FET) sensitively detects xylene isomers at low ppm levels with multiple sensing features. Combined with pattern-recognition algorithms, a sole ambipolar FET sensor, rather than arrays of sensors, can discriminate highly similar xylene structural isomers from one another.

An electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymer for selective carnosine sensing with impedimetric capacity.

A chemosensor with a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) film as the recognition unit selective to a carnosine biomarker was molecularly engineered, devised and fabricated. The molecular structure of the pre-polymerization complex of the carnosine template with the carboxy and 18-crown-6 ether derivatives of bis(2,2'-bithien-5-yl)methane functional monomers was thermodynamically optimized by density functional theory (DFT) at the B3LYP/6-31g(d) level. The calculated high negative Gibbs free energy change, ΔG = -227.

Self-Healing, Fully Functional, and Multiparametric Flexible Sensing Platform.

A non-biological and flexible self-healing platform has tailored sensitivity toward one or a combination of pressure, strain, gas analytes, and temperature. For demonstration, a complete self-healing device is described in the form of a bendable and stretchable chemiresistor, where every part is self-healing.