All published reports on fluid flow enhancement and water slippage are associated with hydrophobic surfaces, such as carbon nanotubes. Here, we investigate water flow in hydrophilic alumina nanochannels with diameters ranging from 20 nm to 100 nm. For the smallest channels tested, the water permeability is more than double than the theoretical prediction using the Hagen-Poiseuille equation. Though such an enhancement is significantly smaller than what has been measured in carbon nanotubes, it clearly shows that flow enhancement and water slippage occurs on hydrophilic surfaces as well, contrary to existing theoretical models. To the authors' knowledge, it is the first experimental demonstration of water slippage on hydrophilic surfaces. The results show the dependence of the flow enhancement on the surface chemistry, diameter and length of the nanochannel.

In this focused progress review, the recent developments and trends of hydrogel‐forming microneedles (HFMs) and potential future directions are presented. Previously, microneedles (solid, hollow, coated, and dissolving microneedles) have primarily been used to enhance the effectiveness of transdermal drug delivery to facilitate a wide range of applications such as vaccinations and antibiotic delivery. However, the recent trend in microneedle development has resulted in microneedles formed from hydrogels which have the ability to offer transdermal drug delivery and, due to the hydrogel swelling nature, passively extract interstitial fluid from the skin, meaning they have the potential to be used for biocompatible minimally invasive monitoring devices. Thus, in this review, these recent trends are highlighted, which consolidate microneedle design considerations, hydrogel formulations, fabrication processes, applications of HFMs and the potential future opportunities for utilizing HFMs for personalized healthcare monitoring and treatment.

Since their discovery, carbon nanotubes have been considered as a potential material for filtration applications due to low tortuosity, smooth structure and the possibility of fine tuning their diameter. Measurements of fluid flow in nanotubes, with diameters ranging from 0.6 to 100 nm dramatically raised interest in them, with very high water flow rates promising to deliver orders-ofmagnitude higher performance compared to other membranes. This promise was based on reports of flow enhancement, defined as a ratio of the measured flow compared to a no-slip Poiseuille flow, ranging from 10 to 100,000 with the underlying assumption that commercial membranes would exhibit the no-slip behavior. The concept of flow enhancement, though, is of little help for actual filtration applications where one is interested in a membrane's performance in terms of selectivity and permeability. In this work, the flow enhancement and permeability of UF carbon nanotube-anodic alumina membranes (CNT-AAM) with a large range of diameters is reported. Using a recently developed model, it is shown that the permeability is directly related to the solidliquid molecular interactions between the liquid and the nanotubes. Finally, the performance of these CNT membranes and others in the literature has been analyzed in terms of permeability, comparing them to commercial membranes in the RO, NF and UF ranges. Results show that in fact, carbon nanotube membranes have a higher pure water permeability than commercial polymer membranes.

Graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) were exfoliated using a nondestructive chemical reduction method and subsequently decorated with polymers using two different approaches: graf ting f rom and graf ting to. Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) with varying molecular weights was covalently attached to the GNP layers using both methods. The grafting ratios were higher (44.6% to 126.5%) for the graf ting f rom approach compared to the grafting to approach (12.6% to 20.3%). The products were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis−mass spectrometry (TGA-MS), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The graf ting f rom products showed an increase in the grafting ratio and dispersibility in acetone with increasing monomer supply; on the other hand, due to steric effects, the graf ting to products showed lower absolute grafting ratios and a decreasing trend with increasing polymer molecular weight. The excellent dispersibility of the grafting f rom functionalized graphene, 900 μg/mL in acetone, indicates an increased compatibility with the solvent and the potential to increase graphene reinforcement performance in nanocomposite applications.

With nanotextured surfaces and interfaces increasingly being encountered in technological and biomedical applications, there is a need for a better understanding of frictional properties involving such surfaces. Here we report friction measurements of several nanostructured surfaces using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). These nanostructured surfaces provide well defined model systems on which we have tested the applicability of Amontons' laws of friction. Our results show that Amontonian behaviour is observed with each of the surfaces studied. However, no correlation has been found between measured friction and various surface roughness parameters such as average surface roughness (R(a)) and root mean squared (rms) roughness. Instead, we propose that the friction coefficient may be decomposed into two contributions, i.e., μ = μ(0) + μ(g), with the intrinsic friction coefficient μ(0) accounting for the chemical nature of the surfaces and the geometric friction coefficient μ(g) for the presence of nanotextures. We have found a possible correlation between μ(g) and the average local slope of the surface nanotextures.

Reductive grafting with mPEG is effective on a wide range of carbon nanomaterials. However, 2D forms are most effective as protein nucleants.

This paper investigates the effect of surface structure and chemistry on the wetting properties of nanostructured porous anodic alumina (PAA). Measurements of the equilibrium apparent contact angle (APCA) were first taken on as produced hydrophilic nanoporous alumina with a range of pore diameters from 10 to 170 nm, yielding a range of contact angles from 10 to 100°. The PAAs were then coated with a fluorosilane to change the surface chemistry of the nanostructures. The same trend was observed as in the hydrophilic case, but the contact angles increased from 106 to 150° for pores sizes ranging from 10 to 100 nm for the hydrophobic PAA. These results probe the limits of the current wetting models such as the Cassie-Baxter and Wenzel equations for nanostructured materials. A geometric model has been developed using the equation proposed by Marmur to explain the wetting properties of the bare-and silanized-PAA.

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