No abstract

Fabrics are widely used in hospitals and many other settings for bedding, clothing, and face masks; however, microbial pathogens can survive on surfaces for a long time, leading to microbial transmission. Coatings of metallic particles on fabrics have been widely used to eradicate pathogens. However, current metal particle coating technologies encounter numerous issues such as nonuniformity, processing complexity, and poor adhesion. To overcome these issues, an easy‐to‐control and straightforward method is reported to coat a wide range of fabrics by using gallium liquid metal (LM) particles to facilitate the deposition of liquid metal copper alloy (LMCu) particles. Gallium particles coated on the fabric provide nucleation sites for forming LMCu particles at room temperature via galvanic replacement of Cu2+ ions. The LM helps promote strong adhesion of the particles to the fabric. The presence of the LMCu particles can eradicate over 99% of pathogens (including bacteria, fungi, and viruses) within 5 min, which is significantly more effective than control samples coated with only Cu. The coating remains effective over multiple usages and against contaminated droplets and aerosols, such as those encountered in facemasks. This facile coating method is promising for generating robust antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral fabrics and surfaces.

Two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum oxides at their various stoichiometries are promising candidates for generating plasmon resonances in visible light range. Herein, we demonstrate plasmonic 2D molybdenum oxide flakes for gas sensing applications, in which hydrogen (H2) is selected as a model gas. The 2D molybdenum oxide flakes are obtained using a grinding-assisted liquid exfoliation method and exposed to simulated sunlight to acquire its substoichiometric quasi-metallic form. After the exposure to H2 gas molecules, the quasi-metallic molybdenum oxide flakes are partially transformed into semiconducting states, thus gradually losing their plasmonic properties. The novel 2D plasmonic sensing platform is tested using different concentrations of H2 gas at various operating temperatures to comprehensively assess its sensing performance. The presented 2D plasmonic system offers great opportunities for future sensing and optical applications.

The conversion of layered transition metal carbides and/or nitrides (MXenes) into zero-dimensional structures with thicknesses and lateral dimensions of a few nanometers allows these recently discovered materials with exceptional electronic properties to exploit the additional benefits of quantum confinement, edge effects, and large surface area. Conventional methods for the conversion of MXene nanosheets and quantum dots, however, involve extreme conditions such as high temperatures and/or harsh chemicals that, among other disadvantages, lead to significant degradation of the material as a consequence of their oxidation. Herein, we show that the large surface accelerationon the order of 10 million g’sproduced by high-frequency (10 MHz) nanometer-order electromechanical vibrations on a chip-scale piezoelectric substrate is capable of efficiently nebulizing, and consequently dimensionally reducing, a suspension of multilayer Ti3C2T z (MXene) into predominantly monolayer nanosheets and quantum dots while, importantly, preserving the material from any appreciable oxidation. As an example application, we show that the high-purity MXene quantum dots produced using this room-temperature chemical-free synthesis method exhibit superior performance as electrode materials for electrochemical sensing of hydrogen peroxide compared to the highly oxidized samples obtained through conventional hydrothermal synthesis. The ability to detect concentrations as low as 5 nM is a 10-fold improvement to the best reported performance of Ti3C2T z MXene electrochemical sensors to date.