Research and Development Journey and Future Trends of Hollow Fiber Membranes for Purification Applications (1970-2020): A Bibliometric Analysis.

Hollow fiber membrane (HFM) technology has received significant attention due to its broad range separation and purification applications in the industry. In the current study, we applied bibliometric analysis to evaluate the global research trends on key applications of HFMs by evaluating the global publication outputs. Results obtained from 5626 published articles (1970-2020) from the Scopus database were further manipulated using VOSviewer software through cartography analysis. The study emphasizes the performance of most influential annual publications covering mainstream journals, leading countries, institutions, leading authors and author's keywords, as well as future research trends. The study found that 62% of the global HFM publications were contributed by China, USA, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia, followed by 77 other countries. This study will stimulate the researchers by showing the future-minded research directions when they select new research areas, particularly in those related to water treatment, biomedical and gas separation applications of HFM.

Sustainable and fast saliva-based COVID-19 virus diagnosis kit using a novel GO-decorated Au/FBG sensor.

Monitoring the COVID-19 virus through patients' saliva is a favorable non-invasive specimen for diagnosis and infection control. In this study, salivary samples of COVID-19 patients collected from 6 patients with the median age of 58.5 years, ranging from 34 to 72 years (2 females and 4 males) were analyzed using an Au/fiber Bragg grating (FBG) probe decorated with GO. The probe measures the prevalence of positivity in saliva and the association between the virus density and changes to sensing elements. When the probe is immersed in patients' saliva, deviation of the detected light wavelength and intensity from healthy saliva indicate the presence of the virus and confirms infection. For a patient in the hyperinflammatory phase of desease, who has virus density of 1.2 × 108 copies/mL in saliva, the maximum wavelength shift and intensity changes after 1600 s were shown to be 1.12 nm and 2.01 dB, respectively. While for a patient in the early infection phase with 1.6 × 103 copies/mL, these values were 0.98 nm and 1.32 dB. The precise and highly sensitive FBG probe proposed in this study was found a reliable tool for quick detection of the COVID-19 virus within 10 s after exposure to patients' saliva in any stage of the disease.