Primary water stress corrosion cracking inspection ranking scheme for alloy 600 components

The Palisades nuclear plant has developed a comprehensive inspection program to support safe, reliable, and cost-effective operation of all Alloy 600 nozzles and safe ends in the primary coolant system (PCS). As a part of the Palisades Alloy 600 Project, an inspection prioritization scheme was developed to help the plant focus its resources on high-risk components and plan appropriate inspection activities for the other components. The inspection prioritization scheme is based on the susceptibility of the components to primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC), component failure consequences, component leak detectability and component radiation exposure. The scheme provides a simple, systematic and technical base for selecting Alloy 600 components for inspection. The scheme, however, could be used to develop an inspection schedule or to select the highest priority components for mitigation or replacement.     

Ozone-mediated polyol synthesis from soybean oil

Polyols from vegetable oils can replace petroleumbased polyols in the preparation of polyurethanes and polyesters in a wide range of applications. However, previous preparation methods are either too costly, inefficient, or yield secondary alcohols, which are less reactive than the desired primary alcohols. The objectives of this study were to prepare primary soy-based polyols by a new catalytic ozonolysis process and to characterize the composition of the product mixture. In this new process, the polyols were prepared by passing ozone through a solution of soybean oil and ethylene glycol in the presence of an alkaline catalyst. Unlike conventional ozonolysis that yields aldehydes and carboxylic acids by spontaneous decomposition of the ozonide intermediates, the ozonides in our method reacted with the hydroxyl group of the glycol to form an ester linkage with a terminal hydroxy group. Statistical analysis of the product mixture indicates that the resulting polyol mixture is more uniform than the original TG mixture, having (2-hydroxy)nonanoate as the major component of the new hydroxyl functional TG. The chemical structure of the polyols produced was further characterized by iodine number and ¹³C NMR and FTIR spectroscopy, which confirmed the cleavage of the double bonds, the presence of hydroxyl groups, and the formation of new ester linkages.     

Physicochemical changes during the creaming reaction in acid curd fresh cheese: Water mobility and forced synaeresis

Water mobility changes during a structure building reaction of full‐fat cream cheese were studied by applying low‐resolution nuclear magnetic resonance. A significant decrease in mobility (T₂ relaxation times from 148 to 116 ms) was found in the mobile water phase during texture building. Furthermore, the results were compared to forced synaeresis of the same cheese, which was determined by applying a multistep centrifugation method. The plotted forced synaeresis results displayed the inverse shape of the structure building reaction: ~14.6% at the beginning (0 min), ~7.4% at peak (47 min) of the reaction and ended with ~9.9% (126 min).     

Polyacrylonitrile‐carbon Nanotube‐polyacrylonitrile: A Versatile Robust Platform for Flexible Multifunctional Electronic Devices in Medical Applications

Flexible multifunctional electronic devices are of high interest for a wide range of applications including thermal therapy and respiratory devices in medical treatment, safety equipment, and structural health monitoring systems. This paper reports a scalable and efficient strategy of manufacturing a polyacrylonitrile‐carbon nanotube‐polyacrylonitrile (PAN‐CNT‐PAN) robust flexible platform for multifunctional electronic devices including flexible heaters, temperature sensors, and flexible thermal flow sensors. The key advantages of this platform include low cost, porosity, mechanical robustness, and electrical stability under mechanical bending, enabling the development of fast‐response flexible heaters with a response time of ≈1.5 s and relaxation time of ≈1.7 s. The temperature‐sensing functionality is also investigated with a range of temperature coefficient of resistances from ?650 to ?900 ppm K^?1. A flexible hot‐film sensing concept is successfully demonstrated using PAN‐CNT‐PAN with a high sensitivity of 340 mV (m s^?1)^?1. The sensitivity enhancement of 50% W^?1 is also observed with increasing supply power. The low cost, porosity, versatile, and robust properties of the proposed platform will enable the development of multifunctional electronic devices for numerous applications such as flexible thermal management, temperature stabilization in industrial processing, temperature sensing, and flexible/wearable devices for human healthcare applications.     

pH-independent dissolution enhancement for multiple poorly water-soluble drugs by nano-sized solid dispersions based on hydrophobic–hydrophilic conjugates

The objective of this study was to achieve an optimal formulation of hydrophilic–hydrophobic conjugates for nano-sized solid dispersions (SDs) with enhanced dissolution of multiple drugs in different gastrointestinal (GI) tract environments. A new conjugate powder with an optimized process was used to fabricate SDs that contained three poorly water-soluble drugs that were also poorly soluble in different dissolution media. The self-assembled nanoparticle formation, drug crystallinity and SD molecular interactions were investigated by measuring the particle size during dissolution testing and physicochemical property analysis (powder X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy). Drug release studies indicated that SD containing conjugated powder significantly improved the dissolution rates of these poorly water-soluble drugs in the GI tract. In addition, particle size analysis showed nano-sized particles in the dissolution media in the early stage with a tendency to reduce smaller particles over time. Physicochemical characterizations demonstrated almost amorphous drug states and hydrogen bonding interactions between the drugs and conjugates in the SD. This study optimized a promising material for SD, and the material was shown to have a promising performance under various pH medium conditions with poorly water-soluble drugs.     

A smartphone attachment for remote ophthalmic slit lamp examinations

Microsystem Technologies - A low-cost, self-imaging smartphone attachment has been developed for remote slit lamp examination of the human eye. The device is designed with off-the-shelf optical...     

Advances in Rational Design and Materials of High‐Performance Stretchable Electromechanical Sensors

Stretchable and wearable sensor technology has attracted significant interests and created high technological impact on portable healthcare and smart human–machine interfaces. Wearable electromechanical systems are an important part of this technology that has recently witnessed tremendous progress toward high‐performance devices for commercialization. Over the past few years, great attention has been paid to simultaneously enhance the sensitivity and stretchability of the electromechanical sensors toward high sensitivity, ultra‐stretchability, low power consumption or self‐power functionalities, miniaturisation as well as simplicity in design and fabrication. This work presents state‐of‐the‐art advanced materials and rational designs of electromechanical sensors for wearable applications. Advances in various sensing concepts and structural designs for intrinsic stretchable conductive materials as well as advanced rational platforms are discussed. In addition, the practical applications and challenges in the development of stretchable electromechanical sensors are briefly mentioned and highlighted.     

Exosomes and Nanoengineering: A Match Made for Precision Therapeutics

Targeted exosomal delivery systems for precision nanomedicine attract wide interest across areas of molecular cell biology, pharmaceutical sciences, and nanoengineering. Exosomes are naturally derived 50–150 nm nanovesicles that play important roles in cell-to-cell and/or cell-to-tissue communications and cross-species communication. Exosomes are also a promising class of novel drug delivery vehicles owing to their ability to shield their payload from chemical and enzymatic degradations as well as to evade recognition by and subsequent removal by the immune system. Combined with a new class of affinity ligands known as aptamers or chemical antibodies, molecularly targeted exosomes are poised to become the next generation of smartly engineered nanovesicles for precision medicine. Here, recent advances in targeted exosomal delivery systems engineered by aptamer for future strategies to promote human health using this class of human-derived nanovesicles are summarized.     

Tailored Heterojunction Active Sites for Oxygen Electrocatalyst Promotion in Zinc-Air Batteries

Rechargeable zinc-air batteries (ZABs) are promising energy storage systems due to their low-cost and safety. However, the working principle of ZABs is based on oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which display sluggish kinetic and low stability. Herein, this work proposes a novel method to design a heterogeneous CoP/CoO electrocatalyst on mesopore nanobox carbon/carbon nanotube (CoP/CoO@MNC-CNT) that enriched active sites and synergistic effect. Moreover, the well-defined heterointerfaces could lower the energy barrier for intermediate species adsorption and promote OER and ORR electrochemical performances. The CoP/CoO@MNC-CNT electrocatalyst presents a high half-wave potential of 0.838 V for ORR and a small overpotential of 270 mV for OER. The ZABs-based CoP/CoO@MNC-CNT air-cathode shows an open-circuit voltage of 1.409 V, the long-term cycle life of 500 h with a small voltage difference change of 7.7%. Additionally, the flexible ZABs exhibit highly mechanical stability, demonstrating their application potential in wearable electronic devices.