ABSTRACT
Percutaneous chemical ablation (PCA) is the oldest and most established technique for treating small solid tumors in organs. It has been widely used in clinics even on an outpatient basis. However, compared with the emerging microwave or magnetic hyperthermal ablation, PCA is faced with relatively poor necrosis results and needs to repeat multiple sessions. Inspired by the three effects in the bomb's explosive process, we herein expect to combine calcium carbide (CaC2) nanoparticles into the PCA technique to generate local explosion within tumor tissues, leading to three killing effects against tumors to further improve the ablation efficacy of PCA. Through an efficient wet milling procedure with poly(ethylene glycol), three kinds of nanobombs including CaC2, calcium oxide (CaO), and calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) were fabricated, and they all exhibited desirable suspension stability. Among these nanobombs, in particular CaC2 nanobombs showed a synergistic effect that the generation of ethyne gas bubbles could facilitate the most rapid diffusion of hyperthermia. Also, CaC2 nanobombs offered the powerful ability to cause the sudden rise of local high temperature and pH value. According to the in vivo mice tumor excision trial, the tumors of 75% of cases that received CaC2 treatment were destroyed and eradicated, exhibiting the excellent ablation ability of CaC2 nanobombs against small solid tumors planted in mice.
ABSTRACT
Detergents are steadily becoming one of the necessities in our daily life. However, synthetic detergents are threatening the global environment and human health, as most of them are derived from petrochemicals. Inspired by one of the ancient Asian traditions that the rice-washing water served as a natural detergent for bathing and washing, this work provides insights into the mechanism of the detergent effect of rice-washing water. It is proposed that starch granules existing in the rice-washing water are interfacially active, which can facilitate the formation of O/W Pickering emulsions. This principle is successfully extended to rice flour that is made by mechanical media milling in a large scale. Pickering emulsions loading different organic solvents as dispersed phase can be stabilized by these food-grade granules without adding other chemical additives. Practical trails of removing pesticide residues and meat cleaning confirm the possibilities to render these natural rice starch granules as sustainable detergents for food cleaning with high safety assurance.
ABSTRACT
Owing to a wide visual angle, few aberrations, and great depth of focus, flexible optoelectronics have become one subject of intense investigation for rescue equipment and endoscopy tools. Ionic liquids are rising as a kind of fluidic "semiconductor" with advantages of high flexibility and self-healing. However, challenges in the molecular design of photoresponsive ionic liquids impede the exploration of ionic liquids as intrinsic flexible liquid optoelectronics. This work demonstrated an imidazole-based ionic liquid covalently linked with a polypyrrole oligomer by alkyl chains. Such an ionic liquid has wide absorption from the visible light range to the near-infrared light range. The imidazole moiety acts as an electrical conductor which is thermally responsive. On the other hand, the polypyrrole segment serving as a light antenna is able to convert light energy to thermal heat. The alkyl linker tailors the energy transfer between polypyrrole and an imidazole cation. Negligible molecular aggregation and phase separation are attributed to the preservation of the fluidic nature at room temperature. This photoresponsive ionic liquid is successfully exploited as a flexible light detector that is adaptable to special sensing tests in bending states.
