Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Wearable electronics have an array of potential uses from fashion to monitoring health, but washing them is far from straightforward. This prompted scientists in South Korea to return to a millennia old drawing board, where they discovered that calligraphy ink might solve the problem.

Interested in finding out more? The fully story can be read in Chemistry World.

The original article can be read below:

Calligraphic ink enabling washable conductive textile electrodes for supercapacitors
Do Van Lam, Kyungmin Jo, Chang-Hyun Kim, Sejeong Won, Yun Hwangbo, Jae-Hyun Kim, Hak-Joo Lee and Seung-Mo Lee*
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2016, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C6TA01341D

An online global news service, EurekAlert! has highlighted research from chemists at the University of Texas at Arlington that promotes ‘green fuel’ by using more efficient materials for solar fuel cells.

The findings have been compiled in a mini-review published in ChemElectroChem Europe along with a companion article titled: ‘Decoration of ultra long carbon nanotubes with Cu₂O nanocrystals: a hybrid platform for photoelectrochemical CO₂ reduction‘ which has been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

The full article can be read here.

A paper which was originally published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A has been explored in further detail on a scientific web hub. Ales Styskalik one of the co authors of a paper titled: Control of micro/mesoporosity in non-hydrolytic hybrid silicophosphate xerogels has written an article which features an accompanying video to further explain his work. The original article can be read below:

Control of micro/mesoporosity in non-hydrolytic hybrid silicophosphate xerogels
Ales Styskalik, David Skoda, Zdenek Moravec, Michal Babiak, Craig E. Barnes and Jiri Pinkas*
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 7477-7487
DOI: 10.1039/C4TA06823H

Details of the article on the website External Diffusion can be found here along with the video.

Scientists in China have flexed their muscles with a new steam-driven actuator made from a carbon nanotube and silicone rubber composite. Potential applications of this design include artificial hearts, sensors and soft robots.

Actuators convert energy in various forms directly to mechanical energy, in this case behaving like muscles in response to a stimulus. The biomedical community anticipates using actuators to replace damaged muscles. However, actuators’ complexity and poor durability have hindered their foray into the clinical world.

Interested? The full story can be read in Chemistry World.

The actuator's silicone membrane expands to six times its original size

The original article can be read below:

A large-deformation phase transition electrothermal actuator based on carbon nanotube–elastomer composites
Zhiwei Zhou, Qingwei Li, Luzhuo Chen, Changhong Liu and Shoushan Fan
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2016, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5TB02715B

Scientists in China and Canada have developed a way to treat hair loss using stem cells. The cells are enclosed within a cytokine-containing layer that circumvents the difficulties in regenerating new hair follicles on bald skin.

Hu's and Xing's teams coated the stem cells with serval polymer layers to both protect them and provide them with hair-inductive properties

Hair loss, or alopecia, is a common problem caused by aging, diseases and medicines. Although not life-threatening, the emotional effects of hair loss can be damaging. Currently, treatments include drugs and hair transplants, however these are expensive and regenerating new hair follicles after treatment remains challenging. Dermal papilla cells, a type of mesenchymal stem cell located in hair follicles, are responsible for hair-follicle morphogenesis and hair cycling. Although potentially useful for treating alopecia, they suffer from loss of function in vitro.

Interested? The full article can be read in Chemistry World.

The original article can be read below and is free to access until 2^nd February 2016.:

Cytokine loaded layer-by-layer ultrathin matrices to deliver single dermal papilla cells for spot-by-spot hair follicle regeneration
Zhi-qi Hu and Malcolm Xing et al.
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2016, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5TB02265G