Oil sorbents play a very important part in the remediation processes of oil spills. To enhance the oil-sorption properties and simplify the oil-recovery process, various advanced oil sorbents and oil-collecting devices based on them have been proposed recently. Here, we firstly discuss the design considerations for the fabrication of oil sorbents and describe recently developed oil sorbents based on modification strategy. Then, recent advances regarding oil sorbents mainly based on carbon materials and swellable oleophilic polymers are also presented. Subsequently, some additional properties are emphasized, which are required by oil sorbents to cope with oil spills under extreme conditions or to facilitate the oil-collection processes. Furthermore, some oil-collection devices based on oil sorbents that have been developed recently are shown. Finally, an outlook and challenges for the next generation of oil-spill-remediation technology based on oil-sorbents materials are given.

Tumor organoids maintain cell–cell interactions, heterogeneity, microenvironment, and drug response of the sample they originate from. Thus, there is increasing interest in developing tumor organoid models for drug development and personalized medicine applications. Although organoids are in principle amenable to high-throughput screenings, progress has been hampered by technical constraints and extensive manipulations required by current methods. Here we introduce a miniaturized method that uses a simplified geometry by seeding cells around the rim of the wells (mini-rings). This allows high-throughput screenings in a format compatible with automation as shown using four patient-derived tumor organoids established from two ovarian and one peritoneal high-grade serous carcinomas and one carcinosarcoma of the ovary. Using our automated screening platform, we identified personalized responses by measuring viability, number, and size of organoids after exposure to 240 kinase inhibitors. Results are available within a week from surgery, a timeline compatible with therapeutic decision-making.

Flexible pressure sensors as electronic skins have attracted wide attention to their potential applications for healthcare and intelligent robotics. However, the tradeoff between their sensitivity and pressure range restricts their practical applications in various healthcare fields. Herein, a cost‐effective flexible pressure sensor with an ultrahigh sensitivity over an ultrawide pressure‐range is developed by combining a sandpaper‐molded multilevel microstructured polydimethylsiloxane and a reduced oxide graphene film. The unique multilevel microstructure via a two‐step sandpaper‐molding method leads to an ultrahigh sensitivity (2.5–1051 kPa−1) and can detect subtle and large pressure over an ultrawide range (0.01–400 kPa), which covers the overall pressure regime in daily life. Sharp increases in the contact area and additional contact sites caused by the multilevel microstructures jointly contribute to such unprecedented performance, which is confirmed by in situ observation of the gap variations and the contact states of the sensor under different pressures. Examples of the flexible pressure sensors are shown in potential applications involving the detection of various human physiological signals, such as breathing rate, vocal‐cord vibration, heart rate, wrist pulse, and foot plantar pressure. Another object manipulation application is also demonstrated, where the material shows its great potential as electronic skin intelligent robotics and prosthetic limbs.

Superelastic carbon aerogels have been widely explored by graphitic carbons and soft carbons. These soft aerogels usually have delicate microstructures with good fatigue resistance but ultralow strength. Hard carbon aerogels show great advantages in mechanical strength and structural stability due to the sp3‐C‐induced turbostratic “house‐of‐cards” structure. However, it is still a challenge to fabricate superelastic hard carbon‐based aerogels. Through rational nanofibrous structural design, the traditional rigid phenolic resin can be converted into superelastic hard carbon aerogels. The hard carbon nanofibers and abundant welded junctions endow the hard carbon aerogels with robust and stable mechanical performance, including superelasticity, high strength, extremely fast recovery speed (860 mm s−1), low energy‐loss coefficient (<0.16), long cycle lifespan, and heat/cold‐endurance. These emerging hard carbon nanofiber aerogels hold a great promise in the application of piezoresistive stress sensors with high stability and wide detection range (50 kPa), as well as stretchable or bendable conductors.

Flexible pressure sensors that can robustly mimic the function of slow-adapting type I (SA-I) mechanoreceptors are essential for realizing human-like object manipulation in artificial intelligent (AI) robots or amputees. Here, we report a straightforward approach to highly sensitive and robust flexible pressure sensors with fast response time and low operating voltage based on conductive micropyramids made of polydimethylsiloxane/carbon nanotube composites. Both numerical simulations and experimental studies show that the pressure-sensing properties of the devices can be systematically tuned by the spatial arrangement of micropyramids. In particular, by tailoring the ratio between the spacing and the pyramidal base length, the optimal pressure sensors can be achieved with a combination of high sensitivity in both low-pressure (<10 kPa) and medium-pressure (10–100 kPa) regimes, rapid response, high mechanical robustness, low operating voltage, and low power consumption, along with linear response and low hysteresis in the medium-pressure regimes. The optimized pressure sensor is further used for constructing a wearable pressure-sensing system that can convert the amplitude of pressure to wirelessly transmittable frequency signals (spikes) with nearly linear response, closely mimicking SA-I mechanoreceptors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the high uniformity and scalability of the pressure sensors enable large-area pressure-sensing arrays for spatially resolved pressure mapping.

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Polymer crosslinking imbues chemical stability to thin films at the expense of lower molecular transportation rates. Here in this work we deployed molecular dynamics simulations to optimise the selection of crosslinking compounds that overcome this trade-off relationship. We validated these simulations using a series of experiments and exploited this finding to underpin the development of a pervaporation (PV) desalination thin-film composite membrane with water fluxes reaching 234.9 ± 8.1 kg m −2 h −1 and salt rejection of 99.7 ± 0.2 %, outperforming existing membranes for pervaporation and membrane distillation. Key to achieving this state-of-the-art desalination performance is the spray coating of 0.73 μm thick crosslinked dense, hydrophilic polymers on to electrospun nanofiber mats. The desalination performances of our polymer nanocomposites are harnessed here in this work to produce freshwater from brackish water, seawater and brine solutions, addressing the key environmental issue of freshwater scarcity.

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been exploited in a diverse range of products in the past decade or so. However, the biosafety/environmental impact or legislation pertaining to this newly created, highly functional composites containing NPs (otherwise called nanomaterials) is generally lagging behind their technological innovation. To advance the agenda in this area, our current primary interest is focused on using crops as model systems as they have very close relationship with us. Thus, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the biological effects of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles towards watermelon seedlings. We have systematically studied the physiological effects of Fe2O3 nanoparticles (nano-Fe2O3) on watermelon, and present the first evidence that a significant amount of Fe2O3 nanoparticles suspended in a liquid medium can be taken up by watermelon plants and translocated throughout the plant tissues. Changes in important physiological indicators, such as root activity, activity of catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), chlorophyll and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, ferric reductase activity, root apoplastic iron content were clearly presented. Different concentrations of nano-Fe2O3 all increased seed germination, seedling growth, and enhanced physiological function to some degree; and the positive effects increased quickly and then slowed with an increase in the treatment concentrations. Changes in CAT, SOD and POD activities due to nano-Fe2O3 were significantly larger than that of the control. The 20 mg/L treatment had the most obvious effect on the increase of root activity. Ferric reductase activity, root apoplastic iron content, and watermelon biomass were significantly affected by exposure to nano-Fe2O3. Results of statistical analysis showed that there were significant differences in all the above indexes between the treatment at optimal concentration and the control. This proved that the proper concentration of nano-Fe2O3 could not only increase seed germination and seedling growth, but also ultimately improve physiological function and resistance to environmental stresses of watermelon.