Usability of an Eye Drop Delivery Aid for Single-Dose Instillation: Results from a Market Research Study.

Background: One of the challenges of treating chronic ocular diseases like vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC), glaucoma, and ocular surface disease is patient adherence to topical medication. To support correct eye drop instillation, a variety of delivery aids have been developed for both single-dose and conventional multi-dose containers. Methods: To evaluate Dropaid™ Single-dose, an eye drop delivery aid designed for single-dose containers, a usability study was conducted on 30 parents and caregivers of patients with VKC. After assessing the ability to squeeze a single eye drop from the single-dose container onto the eye of a pediatric medical dummy, the delivery aid was evaluated using an 11-point Likert scale on a variety of characteristics: from "very difficult" (-5) to "very easy" (+5). Results: The majority of participants rated the task of opening the single-dose units (SDUs), preparing, and positioning the Dropaid™ Single-dose device as "very easy". When providing a single eye drop from the container, 87% of participants rated the Dropaid™ Single-dose device as either "very easy" or "easy", with a median rating score of +5.0 (interquartile range [IQR], 4.0-5.0). For general ease of use, 84% considered the delivery aid as either "very easy" or "easy", with a median score of +4.0 (IQR, 3.0-5.0). Most participants (93%) rated Dropaid™ Single-dose as either "very comfortable" or "comfortable" to hold, with a median score of +5.0 (IQR, 4.0-5.0). Conclusion: The Dropaid™ Single-dose delivery aid demonstrated rapid learning and ease of use across all stages of application, including opening the container, eye drop administration, and handling comfort. Although designed for use with single-dose containers to help eye drop instillation in patients with VKC, Dropaid™ Single-dose may provide a wider utility across a range of other ocular diseases such as glaucoma and dry eye.

Effects of polyethylene oxide particles on the photo-physical properties and stability of FA-rich perovskite solar cells.

In this paper, we use Polyethylene Oxide (PEO) particles to control the morphology of Formamidinium (FA)-rich perovskite films and achieve large grains with improved optoelectronic properties. Consequently, a planar perovskite solar cell (PSC) is fabricated with additions of 5 wt% of PEO, and the highest PCE of 18.03% was obtained. This solar cell is also shown to retain up to 80% of its initial PCE after about 140 h of storage under the ambient conditions (average relative humidity of 62.5 ± 3.25%) in an unencapsulated state. Furthermore, the steady-state PCE of the PEO-modified PSC device remained stable for long (over 2500 s) under continuous illumination. This addition of PEO particles is shown to enable the tuning of the optoelectronic properties of perovskite films, improvements in the overall photophysical properties of PSCs, and an increase in resistance to the degradation of PSCs.

Waste-to-wealth application of wastewater treatment algae-derived hydrochar for Pb(II) adsorption.

Hydrochar, as an energy-lean solid waste, is generated from an advanced biofuel conversion technique hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) and always leads to environmental pollution without appropriate disposal. In this study, HTL-derived hydrochar is recycled and prepared as adsorbent used for Pb(Ⅱ) removal from wastewater. As the original porous structure of hydrochar is masked by oily volatiles remained after HTL, two types of oil-removal pretreatment (Soxhlet extraction and CO2 activation) are explored. The result shows that CO2 activation significantly enhances the adsorption capacity of Pb(Ⅱ), and the maximum adsorption capacity is 12.88 mg g-1, as evaluated using Langmuir adsorption model. Further, apart from oily volatiles, most inorganic compounds derived from wastewater-grown algae is enriched in hydrochar, causing a smaller surface area of hydrochar. An ash-removal alkali treatment following CO2 activation is introduced to dramatically increase the adsorption capacity to 25.00 mg g-1 with an extremely low Pb(II) equilibrium concentration of 5.1×10-4 mg L-1, which is much lower than the maximum level of Pb concentration in drinking water (set by World Health Organization). This work introduces an approach to reuse HTL-hydrochar as an inexpensive adsorbent in Pb-contaminated water treatment, which not only provides another possible renewable adsorbent candidate applied in the field of lead adsorption, but also finds an alternative route to reduce solid waste effluent from HTL process.

Open-Circuit Photovoltage Exceeding 950 mV with an 840 mV Average at Sb2S3-Thianthrene+/0 Junctions Enabled by Thioperylene Anhydride Back Contacts.

Covalently attached perylene monolayers serve as back contacts for Sb2S3 photoelectrochemical cells with a thianthrene+/0 front, rectifying contact. Covalent attachment of perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride, PTCDA, to Si(111) utilizes an anhydride-to-imide conversion at surface-attached amines. For Sb2S3 solar absorbers, we hypothesized that a terminal thioperylene anhydride, i.e., S=C-O-C=S, formed from thionation of the terminal perylene anhydride would serve as a soft, electron-selective and hole-blocking back contact. We explored several routes to convert carbonyls to thiocarbonyls on surface-attached perylene anhydrides including Lawesson's reagent, P4S10, and a P4S10-pyridine complex. Here, P4S10 in toluene yielded the highest conversion as quantified by thioperylene-anhydride-S-to-imide-N ratios in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Spectra demonstrated minimal residual reagent as determined by the absence of quantifiable phosphorus following sonication and rinsing. Photoelectrochemistry yielded an average |V oc| = 840 ± 90 mV with the highest value of 952 mV under ELH-simulated AM1.5G illumination for chemical-bath-deposited Sb2S3 in the strongly oxidizing thianthrene+/0 redox couple when thioperylene-anhydride-tethered surfaces formed the back contact. Sb2S3 absorbers in which perylene anhydride, esters, thionoesters, and thiols form the back contact yielded significantly decreased |V oc| magnitudes vs Sb2S3 on perylene-thioanhydride-terminated surfaces. We attribute the large V oc to the combination of favorable sulfur-functionalized surfaces for deposition, charge transfer properties of the perylene layer, and use of the thianthrene+/0 redox couple.

Quantification of Surface Reactivity and Step-Selective Etching Chemistry on Single-Crystal BiOI(001).

To bridge the gap between the cleanliness of a freshly cleaved surface of 2D BiOI and that available from a purely chemical-etching means, we subjected single-crystal BiOI to a series of surface treatments and quantified the resulting chemical states and electronic properties. Vapor transport syntheses included both physical vapor transport from single-source BiOI, as well as chemical vapor transport from Bi2O3 + BiI3 and from Bi + I2 + Bi2O3. Surface treatments included tape cleaving, rinsing in water, sonication in acetone, an aqueous HF etch, and a sequential HF etch with subsequent sonication in acetone. X-ray diffraction, XRD, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, XPS, probed the resulting bulk crystalline species and interfacial chemical states, respectively. In comparison with overlayer models of idealized oxide-terminated or iodide-terminated BiOI, angle-resolved XPS elucidated surface terminations as a function of each treatment. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, UPS, established work-function, and Fermi-level energies for each treatment. Data reveal that HF etching yields interfacial BiI3 at BiOI steps that is subsequently removed with acetone sonication. UPS establishes n-type behavior for the vapor-transport-synthesized BiOI, and surface work function and Fermi level shifts for each chemical treatment under study. We discuss the implications for processing BiOI nanofilms for energy-conversion applications.