Insight on how biopolymers recovered from aerobic granular wastewater sludge can reduce the flammability of synthetic polymers

Eco-friendly flame retardants are greatly required to meet the expectations of low-toxicity, environmental compatibility and sustainability. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), the biopolymers recovered from excess granular wastewater sludge, have been successfully incorporated into poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) by a solution casting method...

Dopamine hydrochloride and carboxymethyl chitosan coatings for multifilament surgical suture and their influence on friction during sliding contact with skin substitute

In order to reduce the damage to tissue and fill the interstices between fibers, multifilament sutures are frequently treated with certain coating materials. The objective of this study was to create and characterize dopamine hydrochloride (DA) and carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) coatings on surgical sutures and investigate their effects on the...

Bone regeneration in critical-sized bone defects treated with additively manufactured porous metallic biomaterials: The effects of inelastic mechanical properties

Additively manufactured (AM) porous metallic biomaterials, in general, and AM porous titanium, in particular, have recently emerged as promising candidates for bone substitution. The porous design of such materials allows for mimicking the elastic mechanical properties of native bone tissue and showed to be effective in improving bone...

Perspectives for the microbial production of methyl propionate integrated with product recovery

A new approach was studied for bio-based production of methyl propionate, a precursor of methyl methacrylate. Recombinant E. coli cells were used to perform a cascade reaction in which 2-butanol is reduced to butanone using alcohol dehydrogenase, and butanone is oxidized to methyl propionate and ethyl acetate using a Baeyer-Villiger...

Multi-material 3D printed mechanical metamaterials: Rational design of elastic properties through spatial distribution of hard and soft phases

Up until recently, the rational design of mechanical metamaterials has usually involved devising geometrical arrangements of micro-architectures that deliver unusual properties on the macro-scale. A less explored route to rational design is spatially distributing materials with different properties within lattice structures to achieve the...

Synthetic Self-Assembled Materials in Biological Environments

Synthetic self-assembly has long been recognized as an excellent approach for the formation of ordered structures on the nanoscale. Although the development of synthetic self-assembling materials has often been inspired by principles observed in nature (e.g., the assembly of lipids, DNA, proteins), until recently the self-assembly of...

Octanol-assisted liposome assembly on chip

Liposomes are versatile supramolecular assemblies widely used in basic and applied sciences. Here we present a novel microfluidics-based method, octanol-assisted liposome assembly (OLA), to form monodisperse, cell-sized (5–20 μm), unilamellar liposomes with excellent encapsulation efficiency. Akin to bubble blowing, an inner aqueous phase and a...