Photosensitive peptide hydrogels as smart materials for applications

Photosensitive supramolecular peptide hydrogels with the gelators forming by the integration of photosensitive moieties and peptides have been briefly summarized the hydrogelation capabilities, the expressing manner serving as smart materials, and practical applications.     

Review of Building Integrated Photovoltaics System for Electric Vehicle Charging

The transition to sustainable transportation has fueled the need for innovative electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions. Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) systems have emerged as a promising technology that combines renewable energy generation with the infra-structure of buildings. This paper comprehensively reviews the BIPV system for EV charging, focusing on its technology, application, and performance. The review identifies the gaps in the existing literature, emphasizing the need for a thorough examination of BIPV systems in the context of EV charging. A detailed review of BIPV technology and its application in EV charging is presented, covering aspects such as the generation of solar cell technology, BIPV system installation, design options and influencing factors. Furthermore, the review examines the performance of BIPV systems for EV charging, focusing on energy, economic, and environmental parameters and their comparison with previous studies. Additionally, the paper explores current trends in energy management for BIPV and EV charging, highlighting the need for effective integration and recommending strategies to optimize energy utilization. Combining BIPV with EV charging provides a promising approach to power EV chargers, enhances building energy efficiency, optimizes the building space, reduces energy losses, and decreases grid dependence. Utilizing BIPV-generated electricity for EV charging provides electricity and fuel savings, offers financial incentives, and increases the market value of the building infrastructure. It significantly lowers greenhouse gas emissions associated with grid and vehicle emissions. It creates a closed-loop circular economic system where energy is produced, consumed, and stored within the building. The paper underscores the importance of effective integration between Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) and Electric Vehicle (EV) charging, emphasizing the necessity of innovative grid technologies, energy storage solutions, and demand-response energy management strategies to overcome diverse challenges. Overall, the study contributes to the knowledge of BIPV systems for EV charging by presenting practical energy management, effectiveness and sustainability implications. It serves as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working towards sustainable transportation and energy systems.     

Robust and smart hydrogels based on natural polymers

This review summarizes recent progress of the robust and smart hydrogels prepared from natural polymers including polysaccharides,proteins,etc.These hydrogels exhibit outstanding mechanical properties due to their nanofibrous aggregated microstructures and special crosslinking networks.Furthermore,these hydrogels show some smart stimuliresponsive behaviors triggered by pH,temperature,light,electricity and magnetism.Hopefully,these hydrogels derived from natural polymers with inherent biodegradation and biocompatibility have great application potential in the fields of biomedicine,tissue engineering,soft robots and bio-machine.     

A smart surface in a microfluidic chip for controlled protein separation

The smart surface created in a microfluidic chip has shown the capability of adsorbing and releasing proteins under electrical control. The inner surface of the chip channel was first coated by a thin layer of Au through sputtering and was subsequently modified with loosely packed self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of thiols with terminal carboxylic or amino groups. Upon application of an external electric potential to the gold substrate, reversible conformational transformation between "bent" and "straight" states for the anchored mercapto chains could be modulated, through the electrostatic effect between the ionized terminal groups and the charged gold substrate. Thus, a hydrophobic or hydrophilic channel surface was established and could be reversibly switched electrochemically. Accordingly, the microchips prepared in this way can reversibly and selectively adsorb and release differently charged proteins under electrical control. Two model proteins, avidin and streptavidin, were demonstrated to be readily adsorbed by the smart chips under negative and positive potential, respectively. Also, more than 90 % of the adsorbed proteins could be released upon an electrical command. Furthermore, these chips were applied to the controlled separation of avidin and streptavidin mixtures with 1:1 and 1:1000 molar ratios. Under specific applied potentials, the chips adsorbed a certain protein from the mixture whereas the other protein was allowed to flow out, after which the adsorbed protein could be released by switching the applied potential. Thus, two eluted protein fractions were obtained and the separation of the two proteins was achieved. For the former mixture, each eluted fraction contained up to approximately 80-90 % avidin or streptavidin. For the latter mixture, the resulting separation efficiency indicated that the molar ratio of avidin and streptavidin could be increased from 1:1000 to about 32:1 after five run separations.     

Comparative Study of Different Operation Modes of Microbial Fuel Cells Treating Food Residue Biomass

Four multiple air–cathode microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were developed under the scope of using extracts from fermentable household food waste (FORBI) for the production of bioelectricity. The operation of the MFCs was assessed in batch mode, considering each cell individually. Τhe chemical oxygen demand (COD) efficiency was relatively high in all cases (>85% for all batch cycles) while the electricity yield was 20 mJ/gCOD/L of extract solution. The four units were then electrically connected as a stack, both in series and in parallel, and were operated continuously. Approximately 62% COD consumption was obtained in continuous stack operation operated in series and 67% when operated in parallel. The electricity yield of the stack was 2.6 mJ/gCOD/L of extract solution when operated continuously in series and 0.7 mJ/gCOD/L when operated continuously in parallel.     

Application of the lag-after-pulsed-separation (LAPS) flow meter to different protein solutions

A lag after pulsed separation (LAPS) meter was previously developed to measure flow rates of protein solutions. The LAPS meter operates on the time-of-flight principle. An upstream event (electrophoretic concentration of the particles in one section of the device) is detected downstream (by change in ac resistance). The time lag between the event and its detection is inversely proportional to the fluid flow rate. We demonstrate the ability of the LAPS meter to measure the flow rate of solutions containing one or more charged biomacromolecules or particles. A prototype of the LAPS meter was used to measure flow rates of solutions of model proteins [bovine serum albumin (BSA), lysozyme and hemoglobin] and mixtures of BSA and lysozyme. Flow rates of 10-50 microl min(-1)(average velocities of 0.24-1.2 mm s(-1)) were measured. When a single ac measurement was used, the results were solution-dependent, which we attribute to the interface between the protein solution and the ac electrodes. A differential mode, in which the signal from a positive and a negative dc pulse were subtracted from each other, eliminated interfacial effects and led to a single universal (solution-independent) calibration curve. The LAPS meter can be used as a non-invasive, no-moving-parts flow sensor in any microfluidic system (such as drug delivery devices or micro-reactor arrays) where one needs to measure the flow rate of a solution or a suspension containing charged species such as proteins or cells.     

Recent progress on the smart membranes based on two-dimensional materials

Inspired by the biosystems, the artificial smart membrane to control the mass transport and molecular conversion has attracted increasing attention in the fields of membrane separation, desalination, nanofiltration, healthcare and environmental remediation. However, the trade-off limitations in polymeric membranes greatly hinder the development of smart membranes with high permeability and manipulability. Recently, inspired by the unique physical/chemical properties of two-dimensional(2 D) mater...     

Towards CRISPR powered electrochemical sensing for smart diagnostics

Even though global health has been steadily improved, the global disease burden associated with communicable and non-communicable diseases extensively increased healthcare expenditure. The present COVID-19 pandemic scenario has again ascertained the importance of clinical diagnostics as a basis to make life-saving decisions. In this context, there is a need for developing next-generation integrated smart real-time responsive biosensors with high selectivity and sensitivity. The emergence of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas biosensing systems has shown remarkable potential for developing next-generation biosensors. CRISPR/Cas integrated electrochemical biosensors (E-CRISPR) stands out with excellent properties. In this opinionated review, we illustrate the rapidly evolving applications for E-CRISPR-integrated detection systems towards biosensing and the future scope associated with E-CRISPR based diagnostics.     

Development of an on-column affinity smart polymer gel glucose sensor

An on-column affinity smart polymer gel glucose sensor was developed as a non-enzymatic glucose sensor. A copolymer of 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid and acrylamide, the so called "smart polymer", was synthesized in situ in a 5 cm long capillary tube with a detection window to provide the on-column detection. The optical density of this semitransparent affinity smart polymer gel, coated inside the tube, decreased with increasing glucose concentration and was detected using a UV-vis detector at 500 nm. The capillary tube was incorporated into a flow injection system. Under optimum conditions, a linear dynamic range of 0.5-16.0mM with a limit of detection of 0.5mM (S/N ≥ 3) was obtained. A single coated affinity smart polymer gel had good stability for up to 250 consecutive injections with relative standard deviation of less than 5%. The analysis time for each injection was 6 min. Ten glucose samples prepared in distilled water were analyzed by the developed method and the results compared well with those obtained from the conventional dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method (P>0.05). Real urine samples with known glucose levels were analyzed and the developed sensor provided comparable results to those from the normal strip test technique. Acceptable percentage recoveries, ranging from 88 ± 2% to 103 ± 4% from the spiked urine sample, were obtained.     

pH计检定仪期间核查方法

介绍pH计检定仪的4种期间核查方法:传递比较法、多台对比法、留样测量法、实验室间比对法。传递比较法能直接反应pH计检定仪的变化,适用于已建立pH计检定仪检定装置的单位;多台对比法与留样测量法方便、快捷,可操作性强,适合大多数单位进行pH计检定仪的期间核查;实验室间比对法对设备要求较低,但需要协调的单位较多,周期较长,费用较高,实用性差。     

Selection of smart aptamers by equilibrium capillary electrophoresis of equilibrium mixtures (ECEEM)

We coin a term of "smart aptamers", which describes aptamers with predefined binding parameters of their interaction with the target. Here, we introduce a method for selection of smart aptamers with predefined values of Kd: equilibrium capillary electrophoresis of equilibrium mixtures (ECEEM). Conceptually, a mixture of a target with a DNA (RNA) library is prepared and equilibrated. A plug of the equilibrium mixture is injected into a capillary prefilled with a run buffer containing the target at the concentration identical to the target concentration in the equilibrium mixture. The components of the equilibrium mixture are separated by capillary electrophoresis while equilibrium is maintained between the target and aptamers. The unique feature of ECEEM is that aptamers with different Kd values migrate with different and predictable mobilities. Thus, collecting fractions with different mobilities results in smart aptamers with different and predefined Kd values. In this proof-of-principle work, we used ECEEM to select smart aptamers for MutS protein, for which aptamers have never been previously selected. Three rounds of ECEEM-based selection were sufficient to obtain smart aptamers with Kd values approaching theoretically predicted ones. ECEEM is the first method for aptamer selection whose ability to generate smart aptamers has been experimentally proven.     

Open computing grid for molecular science and engineering

Grid is an emerging infrastructure for distributed computing that provides secure and scalable mechanisms for discovering and accessing remote software and data resources. Applications built on this infrastructure have great potential for addressing and solving large scale chemical, pharmaceutical, and material science problems. The article describes the concept behind grid computing and will present the OpenMolGRID system that is an open computing grid for molecular science and engineering. This system provides grid enabled components, such as a data warehouse for chemical data, software for building QSPR/QSAR models, and molecular engineering tools for generating compounds with predefined chemical properties or biological activities. The article also provides an overview about the availability of chemical applications in the grid.     

Nitrate and chloride transport through a smart membrane

To develop membranes having ionic selective properties under control of external stimuli is a challenge of the membrane and material scientific community. Conducting polymers swell and shrink under electrochemical control, so they are good candidates to prepare such smart membranes. The ionic transport through a new free-standing polypyrrole film working as a membrane in a diffusion cell was studied. The driving forces were transversal electric fields or concentration gradients across the film. The obtained ionic conductivity was dependent on both the electrolyte nature and concentration, as well as on the oxidation degree of the film, which was controlled by the applied external electric potential. Reverse and continuous changes of up to one order of magnitude on the transversal ionic conductivity are obtained when the membrane is in stationary oxidation states attained by polarisations at a constant potential in the range between −0.6 V and +0.4 V, respectively. A prevalent conductivity of anions (t₋ = 0.94) was obtained from Donnan potential measurements. The experimental results indicate that the oxidised film behaves as a nanoporous membrane highly permeable to nitrate ions, while the rejection of these ions is very high in the reduced film. The free-standing polypyrrole film works then as a smart membrane selective to nitrate ions under concentration gradient.     

Advanced electro-optical smart window based on PSLC using a photoconductive TiOPc electrode

This study demonstrates an electro-optical controllable smart window based on a liquid crystal device. The device integrates a photoconductive electrode based on TiOPc films into a liquid crystal shutter based on polymer-stabilised homeotropic aligned nematic liquid crystals (PSLC) connecting in series. The PSLC light shutter is transparent in electric field-off state; it scatters light as it switches to multi-domain structures in electric field-on states. The TiOPc film has an optically controllable impedance that manipulates the electric field on the PSLC film. The window transits into multi-transmission states according to the intensities of exposure light with an extra applied bias voltage.     

Emergy Based Analysis of Italian Electricity Production System

The continuously increasing demand for electric power together with the demand of environmental friendly technologies require a deep acknowledgement of the directions to give to electric power production in order to satisfy both necessities. The aim of this work is to evaluate the sustainability of Italian electric system by using the emergy function, a methodology developed in the early80s by Odum, and its correlated indices. Emergy is a thermodynamic based function that calculates all the fluxes of energy requested to obtain a product going backward to the solar energy invested. We analyzed all the inputs concurring to the yield of electricity taking into account not only the final phases of the production but also all the sources and materials that had been necessary for the system to operate. We have performed a wide analysis of all the different types of production focusing on thermoelectric sector. We have obtained not only a thermodynamic analysis of electricity production but also an evaluation of the sustainability of the entire process and a scenario for a correct exploitation of resources. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

智能响应材料在磷酸化肽和糖肽富集中的应用

蛋白质的磷酸化和糖基化作为研究最广泛的两种翻译后修饰(PTMs),在疾病的早期无创诊断、预后和治疗评估中表现出越来越大的潜力。蛋白质的异常磷酸化和糖基化经常被用于临床蛋白质组学研究和疾病相关生物标志物的发现。目前已有多种材料被开发用于磷酸化肽和糖肽的富集研究,其中,智能响应材料由于具有独特的响应特性,已被陆续报道用于磷酸化肽和糖肽的富集。智能响应材料可对外界刺激做出响应,发生结构和性质上的变化,将光、电、热、机械等信号转化为生物化学信号。响应分子是决定智能响应材料响应特性的先决条件,它们在不同刺激条件下(如温度、pH、光、机械应力、电磁场等)的可逆异构化将导致材料的宏观物理和化学性质的动态变化。与传统材料相比,智能响应材料可以可逆地“打开”和“关闭”,具有更好的可调控性。由于引起智能材料响应的刺激信号对其性能具有重要的影响,综述根据施加的刺激种类对智能响应材料进行分类,具体分为外源性响应材料和内源性响应材料,且分别总结了外源性响应材料、内源性响应材料以及内外源共同响应材料在磷酸化肽和糖肽富集方面的工作。此外,综述对智能响应材料在磷酸化肽和糖肽富集方面的发展前景进行了展望,并且提出了智能响应材料在其他蛋白质翻译后修饰方面的应用中存在的挑战。     

Regeneration by Membrane Electrolysis of an Etching Solution Based on Copper Chloride

Regeneration of an acid solution for copper etching, based on copper(II) chloride, hydrochloric acid, and ammonium chloride, by membrane electrolysis was studied. The concentrations of copper(I, II) ions in the cathode and anode spaces, current efficiency, degree of copper recovery, and specific consumption of electric power at different quantities of electricity passed through the electrolyzer were measured. The influence exerted by the current density on the electric power expenditure for recovery of metallic copper was examined. The anode current efficiency by chlorine was determined with a spent etching solution and an H₂SO₄ solution used as anolyte.     

Development of a portable survey meter system for the studies of uranium discovery

In this study, a portable radiation measurement system which has a microprocessor-controller was developed for uranium discovery. The developed system has the feature of saving the counting data from a Geiger–Mueller detector and position data from a global positioning system. The pulses obtained from the detector were transferred into a counting input of a microprocessor via a pulse shaper. Evaluation of the pulses has been performed by microprocessor’s software. The results obtained from the developed radiation detection system were compared with those of a calibrated reference detector system. The developed system has some important features such as low current consumption, low cost, small size and lightness.     

Polydiacetylenes: supramolecular smart materials with a structural hierarchy for sensing, imaging and display applications

While a large variety of conjugated polymers exist, polydiacetylenes (PDAs) remain a major research area among scientists due to their interesting optical, spectral, electronic, and structural properties. Heavily reviewed in regards to their stimuli responsive properties, much is known about the assortment of sensing and detection capabilities of PDAs. In this article, we look more upon the structural diversities of polydiacetylenes that have been achieved in recent years, particularly from a hierarchical perspective of 1, 2, and 3-dimensional configurations. In addition, we examine how these different dimensional arrangements of PDAs have heralded clear applications in several key areas. Successful integration of these stimuli-responsive "smart" materials into various geometries has required researchers to have a comprehensive understanding of both the fabrication and synthesis processes, as well as the signalling mechanism for the optical, fluorogenic or spectral transitions. The on-going discovery of new PDA formulations continues to provide interesting structural manifestations such as liposomes, tubes, fibres, organic/inorganic incorporated hybrids and composite structures. By highlighting some of the recent conceptual and technological developments, we hope to provide a measure of the current pace in new PDA derivative development as core components in efficient sensor, imaging and display systems.