Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has emerged as a strong candidate for twodimensional (2D) material owing to its exciting optoelectrical properties combined with mechanical robustness, thermal stability, and chemical inertness. Super-thin h-BN layers have gained significant attention from the scientific community for many applications, including nanoelectronics, photonics, biomedical, anti-corrosion, and catalysis, among others. This review provides a systematic elaboration of the structural, electrical, mechanical, optical, and thermal properties of h-BN followed by a comprehensive account of stateof-the-art synthesis strategies for 2D h-BN, including chemical exfoliation, chemical, and physical vapor deposition, and other methods that have been successfully developed in recent years. It further elaborates a wide variety of processing routes developed for doping, substitution, functionalization, and combination with other materials to form heterostructures. Based on the extraordinary properties and thermal-mechanical-chemical stability of 2D h-BN, various potential applications of these structures are described.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under

Hunger and chronic undernourishment impact over 800 million people, which translates to ≈10.7% of the world's population. While countries are increasingly making efforts to reduce poverty and hunger by pursuing sustainable energy and agricultural practices, a third of the food produced around the globe still is wasted and never consumed. Reducing food shortages is vital in this effort and is often addressed by the development of genetically modified produce or chemical additives and inedible coatings, which create additional health and environmental concerns. Herein, a multifunctional bio‐nanocomposite comprised largely of egg‐derived polymers and cellulose nanomaterials as a conformal coating onto fresh produce that slows down food decay by retarding ripening, dehydration, and microbial invasion is reported. The coating is edible, washable, and made from readily available inexpensive or waste materials, which makes it a promising economic alternative to commercially available fruit coatings and a solution to combat food wastage that is rampant in the world.

Polymer dielectrics find applications in modern electronic and electrical technologies due to their low density, durability, high dielectric breakdown strength, and design flexibility. However, they are not reliable at high temperatures due to their low mechanical integrity and thermal stability. Herein, a self-assembled dielectric nanocomposite is reported, which integrates 1D polyaramid nanofibers and 2D boron nitride nanosheets through a vacuum-assisted layerby-layer infiltration process. The resulting nanocomposite exhibits hierarchical stacking between the 2D nanosheets and 1D nanofibers. Specifically, the 2D nanosheets provide a thermally conductive network while the 1D nanofibers provide mechanical flexibility and robustness through entangled nanofibernanosheet morphologies. Experiments and density functional theory show that the nanocomposites through thickness heat transfer processes are nearly identical to that of boron nitride due to synergistic stacking of polyaramid units onto boron nitride nanosheets through van der Waals interactions. The nanocomposite sheets outperform conventional dielectric polymers in terms of mechanical properties (about 4-20-fold increase of stiffness), light weight (density ≈1.01 g cm −3 ), dielectric stability over a broad range of temperature (25-200 °C) and frequencies (10 3 -10 6 Hz), good dielectric breakdown strength (≈292 MV m −1 ), and excellent thermal management capability (about 5-24 times higher thermal conductivity) such as fast heat dissipation.

creates a defect that intra-abdominal contents may protrude through. [1] The most common types of hernias are incisional, inguinal, femoral, umbilical and hiatal hernias. [2] Hernia repair for many defects is performed by the surgical implantation of a prosthetic mesh to firmly support and reinforce the damaged abdominal wall and facilitate the healing process (Figure 1A,B). Each year, over 400 000 incisional hernia repair surgeries are performed with a cost of ≈$15 billion in US healthcare expenditures. [3-5] Prosthetic hernia mesh implants are developed using synthetic, biologic, and coated materials. [6,7] Despite their specific advantages, these mesh implants are not very effective in minimizing potential adverse postsurgical complications. [8] Surgical hernia repair with mesh implants mostly fail due to the formation of visceral adhesions, hardening, and shrinking of the mesh after its implantation. Visceral adhesions are fibrous tissues developed from the underlying serosal membrane of stomach, intestine or colon, that attach to the implanted mesh. [9] These adhesions are mainly composed of collagen and fibroblasts that grow on the mesh and adhere to the nearby tissue, nerves and organs. [10] The mesh shrinks as the adhesions grow and scar tissue hardens, thus forming a hard, fibrous mass that may cause chronic pain, bowel obstruction, enteric fistula, infertility, poor quality of life, and failure of the surgical hernia repair. [11-13] To remove the failed hernia mesh, a complicated surgery needs to be performed, wherein the mesh must be peeled off bladder, stomach, intestine, colon, or a major blood vessel, that may adversely affect the clinical outcomes. [14] To minimize adhesions formation, graft contraction, and foreign body reactions, absorbable and biological meshes have been developed. However, these meshes are not significantly effective because of very high hernia recurrence rates. [15-17] Causative factors for adverse complications arising due to surgical mesh implantation are chronic inflammatory responses, poor mesh-tissue integration, rapid degradation of the materials, surface chemistry and topochemical design of the mesh. [18,19] We herein present the development of an intrinsically inflammation modulating 3D-fabricated biomaterial scaffold (bioscaffold) for soft tissue repair and demonstrate its in vivo efficacy in a rat ventral hernia Development of inflammation modulating polymer scaffolds for soft tissue repair with minimal postsurgical complications is a compelling clinical need. However, the current standard of care soft tissue repair meshes for hernia repair is highly inflammatory and initiates a dysregulated inflammatory process causing visceral adhesions and postsurgical complications. Herein, the development of an inflammation modulating biomaterial scaffold (bioscaffold) for soft tissue repair is presented. The bioscaffold design is based on the idea that, if the excess proinflammatory cytokines are sequestered from the site of injury by the surgical implantation of a bioscaffold,...

Diseases affecting the retina, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, and retinal vein occlusions, are currently treated by the intravitreal injection of drug formulations. These disease pathologies are driven by oxidative damage due to chronic high concentrations of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the retina. Intravitreal injections often induce retinal detachment, intraocular hemorrhage, and endophthalmitis. Furthermore, the severe eye pain associated with these injections lead to patient noncompliance and treatment discontinuation. Hence, there is a critical need for the development of a noninvasive therapy that is effective for a prolonged period for treating retinal diseases. In this study, we developed a noninvasive cerium oxide nanoparticle (CNP) delivery wafer (Cerawafer) for the modulation of ROS in the retina. We fabricated Cerawafer loaded with CNP and determined its SOD-like enzyme-mimetic activity and ability to neutralize ROS generated in vitro. We demonstrated Cerawafer's ability to deliver CNP in a noninvasive fashion to the retina in healthy mouse eyes and the CNP retention in the retina for more than a week. Our studies have demonstrated the in vivo efficacy of the Cerawafer to modulate ROS and associated downregulation of VEGF expression in the retinas of very-low-density lipoprotein receptor knockout (vldlr−/−) mouse model. The development of a Cerawafer nanotherapeutic will fulfill a hitherto unmet need. Currently, there is no such therapeutic available, and the development of a Cerawafer nanotherapeutic will be a major advancement in the treatment of retinal diseases.