Lithium-Ion Battery Separators for Ionic-Liquid Electrolytes: A Review.

Ionic liquids (ILs) are widely studied as a safer alternative electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries. The properties of IL electrolytes compared to conventional electrolytes make them more thermally stable, but they also have poor wetting with commercial separators. In a lithium-ion battery, the electrolyte should completely wet out the separator and electrodes to reduce the cell internal resistance. Investigations of cell materials with IL electrolytes have shown that the wetting issues in IL-electrolyte cells are most likely due to poor separator compatibility, not electrode compatibility. A compatible separator must be developed before IL electrolytes can be used in commercial lithium-ion batteries. Herein, separators for IL electrolytes, including commercial and novel separators, are reviewed. Separators with different processing methods, polymers, additives, and different IL electrolytes are considered. Collated, the separator studies show a strong correlation between ionic conductivity and membrane porosity, even more than the electrolyte type. The challenge of a suitable separator for IL electrolytes is not solved yet. Herein, it is revealed that a separator for IL electrolytes will most likely require a combination of high thermal and mechanical stability polymer, ceramic additives, and an optimized manufacturing process.

Detection of vapor-phase organophosphate threats using wearable conformable integrated epidermal and textile wireless biosensor systems.

Flexible epidermal tattoo and textile-based electrochemical biosensors have been developed for vapor-phase detection of organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents. These new wearable sensors, based on stretchable organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH) enzyme electrodes, are coupled with a fully integrated conformal flexible electronic interface that offers rapid and selective square-wave voltammetric detection of OP vapor threats and wireless data transmission to a mobile device. The epidermal tattoo and textile sensors display a good reproducibility (with RSD of 2.5% and 4.2%, respectively), along with good discrimination against potential interferences and linearity over the 90-300mg/L range, with a sensitivity of 10.7µA∙cm3∙mg-1 (R2 = 0.983) and detection limit of 12mg/L in terms of OP air density. Stress-enduring inks, used for printing the electrode transducers, ensure resilience against mechanical deformations associated with textile and skin-based on-body sensing operations. Theoretical simulations are used to estimate the OP air density over the sensor surface. These fully integrated wearable wireless tattoo and textile-based nerve-agent vapor biosensor systems offer considerable promise for rapid warning regarding personal exposure to OP nerve-agent vapors in variety of decentralized security applications.

Wearable Flexible and Stretchable Glove Biosensor for On-Site Detection of Organophosphorus Chemical Threats.

A flexible glove-based electrochemical biosensor with highly stretchable printed electrode system has been developed as a wearable point-of-use screening tool for defense and food security applications. This disposable-mechanically robust "lab-on-a-glove" integrates a stretchable printable enzyme-based biosensing system and active surface for swipe sampling on different fingers, and is coupled with a compact electronic interface for electrochemical detection and real-time wireless data transmission to a smartphone device. Stress-enduring inks are used to print the electrode system and the long serpentine connections to the wireless electronic interface. Dynamic mechanical deformation, bending, and stretching studies illustrate the resilience and compliance of the printed traces against extreme mechanical deformations expected for such on-glove sampling/sensing operation. An organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH)-based biosensor system on the index finger enables rapid on-site detection of organophosphate (OP) nerve-agent compounds on suspicious surfaces and agricultural products following their swipe collection on the thumb finger. The new wireless glove-based biosensor system offers considerable promise for field screening of OP nerve-agents and pesticides in defense and food-safety applications, with significant speed and cost advantages. Such "lab-on-a-glove" demonstration opens the area of flexible wearable sensors to future on-the-hand multiplexed chemical detection in diverse fields.

Continuous production of flexible fibers from transgenically produced honeybee silk proteins.

Flexible and solvent stable fibers are produced after concentrated recombinant honeybee protein solutions are extruded into a methanol bath, dried, drawn in aqueous methanol, then covalently cross-linked using dry heat. Proteins in solution are predominantly coiled coil. Significant levels of non-orientated ß-sheets form during drying or after coagulation in aqueous methanol. Drawing generally aligns the coiled coil component parallel with the fibre axis and ß-sheet component perpendicular to the fiber axis. The fibres are readily handled, stable in the strong protein denaturants, urea and guanidinium, and suitable for a range of applications such as weaving and knitting.

Combinatorial approach for the rapid determination of thermochromic behavior of binary and ternary cholesteric liquid crystalline mixtures.

A combinatorial approach was developed for the rapid determination of thermochromic behavior of a large number of binary and ternary sterol based thermochromic liquid crystalline formulations. A binary mixture containing cholesteryl oleyl carbonate and cholesteryl nonanoate, and ternary mixtures also containing a third component, either cholesteryl oleate, cholesteryl benzoate, cholesteryl 2,4-dichlorobenzoate or cholesteryl propionate, were formulated via solvent deposition into a black Teflon coated aluminum 96 well plate. The temperature of the well plate was then varied, and the color appearance of the deposited mixture in each well was recorded. This approach allowed expedient examination of the thermochromic behavior for a large range of liquid crystal formulations. The accuracy of the rapid combinatorial technique was validated on selected thermochromic liquid crystal mixture compositions by comparing well thermochromic output with that observed using UV-vis spectroscopy on material produced in gram quantities.

A comparison of the effects of fibre alignment of smooth and textured fibres in electrospun membranes on fibroblast cell adhesion.

A polyester polycaprolactone-based polyurethane elastomer (PU) and poly-(l-lactide) (PLLA), two common biomaterials, were electrospun to produce membranes with fibres either randomly orientated or aligned. PU was used to produce membranes consisting of smooth fibres. PLLA was used to prepare fibres with a textured surface. Contact angle measurements of the PU and PLLA cast films reveal that they were both below 90 degrees and fully wetted in less than 60 s. These membranes were investigated for the effect of fibre topography and fibre alignment on cell adhesion, using mouse L929 fibroblasts. It was found that the alignment of electrospun fibres controls the directional spreading of fibroblast independent of fibre being smooth or textured.