The nervous system is known as a crucial part of the body and derangement in this system can cause potentially lethal consequences or serious side effects. Unfortunately, the nervous system is unable to rehabilitate damaged regions following seriously debilitating disorders such as stroke, spinal cord injury and brain trauma which, in turn, lead to the reduction of quality of life for the patient. Major challenges in restoring the damaged nervous system are low regenerative capacity and the complexity of physiology system. Synthetic polymeric biomaterials with outstanding properties such as excellent biocompatibility and non-immunogenicity find a wide range of applications in biomedical fields especially neural implants and nerve tissue engineering scaffolds. Despite these advancements, tailoring polymeric biomaterials for design of a desired scaffold is fundamental issue that needs tremendous attention to promote the therapeutic benefits and minimize adverse effects. This review aims to (i) describe the nervous system and related injuries. Then, (ii) nerve tissue engineering strategies are discussed and (iii) physiochemical properties of synthetic polymeric biomaterials systematically highlighted. Moreover, tailoring synthetic polymeric biomaterials for nerve tissue engineering is reviewed.
The development of efficient and selective aerobic oxidation of alkylarenes to form more functional compounds by heterogeneously catalysed routes still presents a great challenge in the fine chemical industry and is a major research topic. In this work, gold nanoparticles supported on three-dimensional nitrogen-doped graphene-based frameworks (Au NPs@3D-(N)GFs) were successfully synthesized and found to have an impressive performance as bifunctional catalysts (nitrogen dopant as base and gold nanoparticles as active site) in the controlled oxidation of alkylarenes. The catalyst was found to be a simple bench top, stable, recyclable and selective catalytic system for the aerobic oxidation of various types of alkylarenes into their corresponding ketones at room temperature under environmentally friendly conditions with good yields and high selectivity.
Diminishing fuel resources and stringent emission mandates have demanded cleaner combustion and increased fuel efficiency. Three water addition rates, i.e., 2, 4, and 6 wt% in biodiesel-diesel blend (B5) was investigated herein. Combustion characteristics of the emulsified fuel blends were compared in a naturally-aspirated diesel engine at full load and different engine speeds. More specifically, biodiesel was produced from waste cooking oil (WCO) and to further increase waste utilization, recycled biodiesel wastewater was used as additive in B5. The result obtained showed that low-level water addition (i.e., 2 and 4 wt%) in B5 led to different results from those obtained using higher water addition rates (i.e., >5 wt%) reported by the previous studies. In more details, the findings of the present study revealed that low level water addition in B5 could considerably reduce CO, HC, CO 2 , and NO x emissions. Among water-containing B5 fuel emulsions, the optimal water addition level in terms of engine performance parameters and emissions was found at 4 wt%. In particular, the emitted CO 2 , HC, and NO x were decreased by over 8.5%, 28%, and 24%, respectively, at maximum speed of 2500 rpm.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.