Power Generation from Moisture Fluctuations Using Polyvinyl Alcohol-Wrapped Dopamine/Polyvinylidene Difluoride Nanofibers

Emerging Trends of Nanofibrous Piezoelectric and Triboelectric Applications: Mechanisms, Electroactive Materials, and Designed Architectures

Over the past few decades, significant progress in piezo-/triboelectric nanogenerators (PTEGs) has led to the development of cutting-edge wearable technologies. Nanofibers with good designability, controllable morphologies, large specific areas, and unique physicochemical properties provide a promising platform for PTEGs for various advanced applications. However, the further development of nanofiber-based PTEGs is limited by technical difficulties, ranging from materials design to device integration. Herein, the current developments in PTEGs based on electrospun nanofibers are systematically reviewed. This review begins with the mechanisms of PTEGs and the advantages of nanofibers and nanodevices, including high breathability, waterproofness, scalability, and thermal-moisture comfort. In terms of materials and structural design, novel electroactive nanofibers and structure assemblies based on 1D micro/nanostructures, 2D bionic structures, and 3D multilayered structures are discussed. Subsequently, nanofibrous PTEGs in applications such as energy harvesters, personalized medicine, personal protective equipment, and human-machine interactions are summarized. Nanofiber-based PTEGs still face many challenges such as energy efficiency, material durability, device stability, and device integration. Finally, the research gap between research and practical applications of PTEGs is discussed, and emerging trends are proposed, providing some ideas for the development of intelligent wearables.

Electrospinning of Highly Bi-Oriented Flexible Piezoelectric Nanofibers for Anisotropic-Responsive Intelligent Sensing

Flexible piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) have gained substantial attention owing to their wearability, breathability, and sustainable self-powered supply. However, existing film PEHs cannot identify forces in different bending directions, limiting their applications in wearable electronics and artificial intelligence. This study constructs a fabric PEH for the first time by introducing piezoelectric anisotropic BaTi2 O5 nanorods (BT2-nr) into piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers with a bi-oriented architecture, in which BT2-nr uniformly aligns in the PVDF nanofiber during electrospinning. The dual-orientation feature endows the flexible PEH with anisotropy, which can sensitively identify the forces at different bending directions (e.g., bent vertically, parallelly, or twisted by 45° along the fiber orientations). Simultaneously, the composite PVDF/BT2 PEH containing 15 wt.% BT2-nr delivers an optimal piezoelectric output of 31.2 V with a high sensitivity of 5.22 V N-1 . The developed anisotropic PEH can be used as a self-powered pressure sensor for multimodal intelligent biomonitoring of human movement. This study provides a feasible strategy for fabricating self-powered flexible PEHs with high electromechanical conversion efficiency and multifunctionality for wearable piezoelectric pressure sensors.

Flexible Textile-Based Sweat Sensors for Wearable Applications

The current physical health care system has gradually evolved into a form of virtual hospitals communicating with sensors, which can not only save time but can also diagnose a patient's physical condition in real time. Textile-based wearable sensors have recently been identified as detection platforms with high potential. They are developed for the real-time noninvasive detection of human physiological information to comprehensively analyze the health status of the human body. Sweat comprises various chemical compositions, which can be used as biomarkers to reflect the relevant information of the human physiology, thus providing references for health conditions. Combined together, textile-based sweat sensors are more flexible and comfortable than other conventional sensors, making them easily integrated into the wearable field. In this short review, the research progress of textile-based flexible sweat sensors was reviewed. Three mechanisms commonly used for textile-based sweat sensors were firstly contrasted with an introduction to their materials and preparation processes. The components of textile-based sweat sensors, which mainly consist of a sweat transportation channel and collector, a signal-selection unit, sensing elements and sensor integration and communication technologies, were reviewed. The applications of textile-based sweat sensors with different mechanisms were also presented. Finally, the existing problems and challenges of sweat sensors were summarized, which may contribute to promote their further development.

Formulation and clinical advancement of nanourchins: a novel multibranched nanoparticulate drug-delivery system

Nanourchins are multibranched nanoparticles with unique optical properties and surface spikes. Because of their unique properties, gold nanourchins have advantages over gold nanoparticles. The most used nanourchins are gold, tungsten, carbon, vanadium and sea urchins. The synthesis of various nanourchins and their clinical advancement are discussed in this review. ZFNs, TALENs and CRISPR/Cas9 are discussed to facilitate understanding of advancements in nanourchins. Nanourchins have been studied for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and bioimaging. The synthesis of molybdenum diselenide nanourchins and their bioconjugations are also discussed. Nanourchins can be further explored to improve drug targeting and delivery. Researchers from several fields may contribute to the study of nanourchins as prospective nanocarriers with target specificity.

High-Sensitivity and Environmentally Friendly Humidity Sensors Deposited with Recyclable Green Microspheres for Wireless Monitoring

The reliable, high-sensitive, wireless, and affordable requirements for humidity sensors are needed in high-precision measurement fields. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) based on the piezoelectric effect can accurately detect the mass changes at the nanogram level. However, water-capture materials deposited on the surface of QCM generally show disadvantages in either cost, sensitivity, or recyclability. Herein, novel QCM-based humidity sensors (NQHSs) are developed by uniformly depositing green microspheres (GMs) of natural polymers prepared by the chemical synthesis of the emulsification/inner gel method on QCM as humidity-sensitive materials. The NQHSs demonstrate high accuracy and sensitivity (27.1 Hz/% RH) owing to the various hydrophilic groups and porous nano-3D deposition structure. Compared with the devices deposited with a smooth film, the frequency of the NQHSs shows almost no changes during the cyclic test and exhibits long-term stability. The NQHSs have been successfully applied to non-contact sensing human activities and remote real-time humidity monitoring via Bluetooth transmission. In addition, the deposited humidity-sensitive GMs and QCM substrate are fully recycled and reused (72% of the original value). This work has provided an innovative idea to construct environmental-friendly, high-sensitivity, and wireless humidity sensors.

Application of nanoarchitectonics in moist-electric generation

The consumption of energy is an important resource that cannot be ignored in modern society. Non-renewable forms of energy, such as coal, natural gas, and oil, have always been important strategic resources and are always facing a crisis of shortage. Therefore, there is an urgent need for green renewable forms of energy. As an emerging green energy source, the moist-electric generator (MEG) has been studied in recent years and may become an energy source that can be utilized in daily life. Along with the advancement of technological means, nanoarchitectonics play an important role in MEG devices. This review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the fundamentals of the MEG from the perspective of different material classifications and to provide guidance for future work in the field of MEGs. The effects of various parameters and structural designs on the output power, recent important literature and works, the mechanism of liquid-solid interactions at the nanoscale, and the application status and further potential of MEG devices are discussed in this review. It is expected that this review may provide valuable knowledge for future MEG research.