Erratum: Tiwari, S., et al. Biosensors for Epilepsy Management: State-of-Art and Future Aspects. Sensors 2019, 19, 1525.

The authors wish to make the following correction to the above-mentioned published paper [...]

Prevalence and implications of microplastics in potable water system: An update

Synthetic plastics, which are lightweight, durable, elastic, mouldable, cheap, and hydrophobic, were originally invented for human convenience. However, their non-biodegradability and continuous accumulation at an alarming rate as well as subsequent conversion into micro/nano plastic scale structures via mechanical and physio-chemical degradation pose significant threats to living beings, organisms, and the environment. Various minuscule forms of plastics detected in water, soil, and air are making their passage into living cells. High temperature and ambient humidity increase the degradation potential of plastic polymers photo-catalytically under sunlight or UV-B radiations. Microplastics (MPs) of polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene, polystyrene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride have been detected in bottled water. These microplastics are entering into the food chain cycle, causing serious harm to all living organisms. MPs entering into the food chain are usually inert in nature, possessing different sizes and shapes. Once they enter a cell or tissue, it causes mechanical damage, induces inflammation, disturbs metabolism, and even lead to necrosis. Various generation routes, types, impacts, identification, and treatment of microplastics entering the water bodies and getting associated with various pollutants are discussed in this review. It emphasizes potential detection techniques like pyrolysis, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), micro-Raman spectroscopy, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT IR) spectroscopy for microplastics from water samples

High-Performance Soya Polyurethane Networked Silica Hybrid Nanocomposite Coatings

The projected fossil fuel deposits depletion by near future and detrimental effects of petroleum products on environment has led to the development of volatile organic compound (VOC) free low molecular weight sustainable polymers, with promising applications in field of inks, adhesives, paints, and coatings. In view of this, present study reports synthesis, characterization, and anticorrosive performance of SMG-PU and modified SMG-PU through <i>in situ</i> formed silica networks (SMG-PU-TEOS) OIH polymer nanocomposite coatings on CS. The size of ∼30 nm silica nanonetworks were formed within SMG-PU on addition of TEOS, inducing thermal stability, hydrophobic, improved physicomechanical and corrosion resistant properties to polymer nanocomposite coatings. The corrosion protective performance of these coatings in 5% NaCl (salt mist test), 3.5% NaCl, and 3.5% HCl solutions revealed very lower <i>I</i>_corr values (3.8891 × 10^–10 A cm^–2 and 6.8756 × 10^–9 A cm^–2) as compared to SMG-PU (1.8159 × 10^–8 A cm^–2 and 9.1396 × 10^–7 A cm^–2), bare CS (8.9131 × 10^–5 A cm^–2 and 8.1731 × 10^–4 A cm^–2), and other such reported systems

Biosensors for Epilepsy Management: State-of-Art and Future Aspects

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder which affects every aspect of patients&#8217; life, including added socio-economic burden. Unfortunately, only a few suppressive medicines are available, and a complete cure for the disease has not been found yet. Excluding the effectiveness of available therapies, the timely detection and monitoring of epilepsy are of utmost priority for early remediation and prevention. Inability to detect underlying epileptic signatures at early stage causes serious damage to the central nervous system (CNS) and irreversible detrimental variations in the organ system. Therefore, development of a multi-task solving novel smart biosensing systems is urgently required. The present review highlights advancements in state-of-art biosensing technology investigated for epilepsy diseases diagnostics and progression monitoring or both together. State of art epilepsy biosensors are composed of nano-enabled smart sensing platform integrated with micro/electronics and display. These diagnostics systems provide bio-information needed to understand disease progression and therapy optimization timely. The associated challenges related to the development of an efficient epilepsy biosensor and vision considering future prospects are also discussed in this report. This review will serve as a guide platform to scholars for understanding and planning of future research aiming to develop a smart bio-sensing system to detect and monitor epilepsy for point-of-care (PoC) applications

Iron nanoparticles augmented chemodynamic effect by alternative magnetic field for wound disinfection and healing

Utilizing the iron-carrying nanomaterials for Fenton chemistry mediation to catalyze decomposition of hydrogen peroxide and generate toxic hydroxyl radical (center dot OH) has drawn much attention in antimicrobial therapy field. However, these nanomaterials are usually with unsatisfactory catalytic efficacy and lack of the capacity to modulate the catalytic activity, which may give the bacteria opportunity in developing resistance against the antibacterial treatment. Herein, we systematically investigated the influence of alternating magnetic field (AMF) on the catalytic activity and antibacterial efficiency of the amorphous iron nanoparticles (AIronNPs). With rapidly ionized and the AMF augmented chemodynamic effect, the AIronNPs can convert low concentration of H2O2 into more center dot OH, the possible mechanism might be attributed to the accelerated ferrous iron ions releasing with AMF exposure. As a proof of concept, the AIronNPs and AMF synergetic antibacterial system have shown excellent broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties, 91.89% antibacterial efficiency is shown toward Escherichia coli and 92.65% toward Staphylococcus aureus. It also facilitated the formation of granulation tissue and accelerated wound healing on in vivo infected model, whereas AIronNPs alone have limited effect. We believe this work will broaden the thoughts for spatiotemporally manipulating the catalytic activity of nanomaterials and advance the development of magnetic nano-antibiotics in the antibacterial field

Nanocomposite Hydrogels: Advances in Nanofillers Used for Nanomedicine

The ongoing progress in the development of hydrogel technology has led to the emergence of materials with unique features and applications in medicine. The innovations behind the invention of nanocomposite hydrogels include new approaches towards synthesizing and modifying the hydrogels using diverse nanofillers synergistically with conventional polymeric hydrogel matrices. The present review focuses on the unique features of various important nanofillers used to develop nanocomposite hydrogels and the ongoing development of newly hydrogel systems designed using these nanofillers. This article gives an insight in the advancement of nanocomposite hydrogels for nanomedicine