The Effect of Carbon Black on the Properties of Plasticised Wheat Gluten Biopolymer

Wheat gluten biopolymers generally become excessively rigid when processed without plasticisers, while the use of plasticisers, on the other hand, can deteriorate their mechanical properties. As such, this study investigated the effect of carbon black (CB) as a filler into glycerol-plasticised gluten to prepare gluten/CB biocomposites in order to eliminate the aforementioned drawback. Thus, biocomposites were manufactured using compression moulding followed by the determination of their mechanical, morphological, and chemical properties. The filler content of 4 wt% was found to be optimal for achieving increased tensile strength by 24%, and tensile modulus by 268% along with the toughness retention based on energy at break when compared with those of glycerol-plasticised gluten. When reaching the filler content up to 6 wt%, the tensile properties were found to be worsened, which can be ascribed to excessive agglomeration of carbon black at the high content levels within gluten matrices. Based on infrared spectroscopy, the results demonstrate an increased amount of beta -sheets, suggesting the formation of more aggregated protein networks induced by increasing the filler contents. However, the addition of fillers did not improve fire and water resistance in such bionanocomposites owing to the high blend ratio of plasticiser to gluten

Advanced Hydrogels for Cartilage Tissue Engineering: Recent Progress and Future Directions

Cartilage is a tension- and load-bearing tissue and has a limited capacity for intrinsic self-healing. While microfracture and arthroplasty are the conventional methods for cartilage repair, these methods are unable to completely heal the damaged tissue. The need to overcome the restrictions of these therapies for cartilage regeneration has expanded the field of cartilage tissue engineering (CTE), in which novel engineering and biological approaches are introduced to accelerate the development of new biomimetic cartilage to replace the injured tissue. Until now, a wide range of hydrogels and cell sources have been employed for CTE to either recapitulate microenvironmental cues during a new tissue growth or to compel the recovery of cartilaginous structures via manipulating biochemical and biomechanical properties of the original tissue. Towards modifying current cartilage treatments, advanced hydrogels have been designed and synthesized in recent years to improve network crosslinking and self-recovery of implanted scaffolds after damage in vivo. This review focused on the recent advances in CTE, especially self-healing hydrogels. The article firstly presents the cartilage tissue, its defects, and treatments. Subsequently, introduces CTE and summarizes the polymeric hydrogels and their advances. Furthermore, characterizations, the advantages, and disadvantages of advanced hydrogels such as multi-materials, IPNs, nanomaterials, and supramolecular are discussed. Afterward, the self-healing hydrogels in CTE, mechanisms, and the physical and chemical methods for the synthesis of such hydrogels for improving the reformation of CTE are introduced. The article then briefly describes the fabrication methods in CTE. Finally, this review presents a conclusion of prevalent challenges and future outlooks for self-healing hydrogels in CTE applications

Engineering next-generation bioinks with nanoparticles: moving from reinforcement fillers to multifunctional nanoelements

The application of additive manufacturing in the biomedical field has become a hot topic in the last decade owing to its potential to provide personalized solutions for patients. Different bioinks have been designed trying to obtain a unique concoction that addresses all the needs for tissue engineering and drug delivery purposes, among others. Despite the remarkable progress made, the development of suitable bioinks which combine printability, cytocompatibility, and biofunctionality is still a challenge. In this sense, the well-established synthetic and functionalization routes to prepare nanoparticles with different functionalities make them excellent candidates to be combined with polymeric systems in order to generate suitable multi-functional bioinks. In this review, we briefly discuss the most recent advances in the design of functional nanocomposite hydrogels considering their already evaluated or potential use as bioinks. The scientific development over the last few years is reviewed, focusing the discussion on the wide range of functionalities that can be incorporated into 3D bioprinted constructs through the addition of multifunctional nanoparticles in order to increase their regenerative potential in the field of tissue engineering.Authors acknowledge financial support from the ERC Grant CoG MagTendon nr 772817; FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia for the PhD grant of SMB (PD/BD/129403/2017), for the contract to MGF (CEECIND/01375/2017); and for project SmarTendon (PTDC/NAN-MAT/30595/2017). AP is grateful to Xunta de Galicia for his postdoctoral grant ED481B2019/025. Some figures were created with BioRender.com

Design, Construction, and Evaluation of Rubber Friction Tester

Coeffcient of  friction  (COF)  for  rubber parts  is one of  the key parameters in their interaction with solid rough surfaces (micrometer to millimeter scales),  such  as  tire-road  interactions. COF  of  rubber  depends  on  viscoelastic properties of rubber, roughness characteristics of the counter-part surface, and process variables such as contact nominal pressure and sliding speed. Due to the need for measuring COF  for  rubber,  a  new  friction  tester, with  continuous  variation  of nominal pressure and sliding speed, was designed and constructed in order to assess the effect of above mentioned parameters. Tire tread compounds, as the most common rubber part  in  the feld of  rubber  tribology, was used  for  this purpose. Viscoelastic properties of compounds were varied by changing composition of styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and butadiene rubber (BR) in the blend. Effect of surface roughness was evaluated by using silicon-carbide papers with different roughness parameters. By statistical analysis it was shown that the designed friction tester has high accuracy in measuring the coeffcient of friction of rubber and differentiating the effective parameters. Increasing the nominal pressure led to reduction of COF and increase in sliding speed forced it through a maximum. In conclusion, the loss factor of the compound and asymmetry in roughness distribution of the counter-surface are considered as the most effective parameters on COF of rubber

Insight Into the Current Directions in Functionalized Nanocomposite Hydrogels

10.3389/fmats.2020.00025Frontiers in Materials72

Corrosion Resistance Evaluation of Self-Healing Epoxy Coating Based on Dual-Component Capsules Containing Resin and Curing Agent

In this study, a self-healing epoxy coating was prepared by incorporating a dual capsule healing system including epoxy resin and its amine-based curing agent. The emulsion electrospray technique was used for encapsulating the healing agents in poly(styrene co-acrylonitrile) (SAN) as shell material. Characterizing the prepared microcapsules (MCs) by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) revealed their spherical morphology with the particle size of 827 nm and 749 nm for epoxy and amine cores, respectively. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results confirmed successful encapsulation with no side chemical reaction between the encapsulated core and shell materials. The effects of embedding MCs on the physical and mechanical properties of the epoxy coating matrix were studied by pull-off adhesion, conical mandrel bending, and gloss tests. In addition, the prepared coatings’ self-healing performance was evaluated by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (Tafel) experiments. The results revealed that the coating sample containing 1 wt% of core-shell MCs (a mixture of epoxy and amine-containing MCs with a 50 : 50 weight ratio) showed the best corrosion performance with 99% self-healing efficiency

A New Variation of Omohyoid Muscle: A Case Report

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The omohyoid muscle is one of the muscles among the infrahyoid muscles. Due to the connections and proximity of this muscle to the brachial plexus, carotid sheath, phrenic nerve and sternocleidomastoid muscle, it is very important to be aware of all possible variations of this muscle in terms of anatomic, clinical and surgical factors. CASE REPORT: During the dissection of posterior carotid triangle on the left side of the neck of a 55-year-old male cadaver (who had been purchased about two years ago from Tehran University of Medical Sciences) for master's students of anatomy in the dissection room of Babol University of Medical Sciences, it was observed that instead of passing under the sternocleidomastoid muscle, the intermediate tendon of the omohyoid muscle passes through its two origins connected to the sternum and the clavicle. CONCLUSION: This type of variation of the omohyoid muscle can be very important due to the proximity of this muscle to the surrounding elements and its effect on the large vessels of the carotid sheath and surrounding tissues

Effect of neat and reinforced polyacrylonitrile nanofibers incorporation on interlaminar fracture toughness of carbon/epoxy composite

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an experimental investigation on fracture behavior of epoxy resin-carbon fibers composites interleaved with both neat polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers and Al2O3-PAN nanofibers. In particular, the paper focuses on the effect of adding Al2O3 nanopartiles in PAN nanofibers, which were incorporated in unidirectional (UD) laminates. The effectiveness of adding a thin film made of Al2O3-PAN on the fracture behavior of the carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) has been addressed by comparing the energy release rates, obtained by testing double cantilever beam (DCB) samples under mode I loading condition. A general improvement in interlaminar fracture energy of the CFRP is observed when the both neat PAN nanofibers and Al2O3-PAN nanofibers are interleaved. However, higher interlaminar strength has been observed for the samples with a thin film of Al2O3-PAN nanofibers, suggesting a better stress distribution and stress transformation from resin-rich area to reinforcement phase of hybrid composites. Keywords: Carbon fiber reinforced polymer, Delamination, Fracture test, Nanofibers, Al2O3. nanoparticle