Pencil drawn paper based supercapacitors

© 2016 The Royal Society of Chemistry. This is the first comprehensive analysis of paper-based supercapacitors, P-SCs, that are produced utilising commercially available pencils to draw an interdigitated design upon common household printing paper, developing cheap, green and reliable low profile electrical conductors and electrodes. The P-SCs are optimised in terms of the composition of pencil used, the number of layers and the analysis of single or double sided interdigitated electrode designs; such a comprehensive study is seldom explored in previous literature. A full analysis of the physical and electrochemical properties of the pencil drawn electrodes has been performed, including the application of a new capacitive testing/evaluation circuit applied to charge/discharge measurements/analysis, which provides a revolutionary and unambiguous analysis of the capacitance of the fabricated electrodes; an easy to use experiment guide is presented. The P-SCs are benchmarked using 0.1 M H 2 SO 4 as the aqueous electrolyte. The P-SCs demonstrate a specific capacitance of ∼10.6 μF mg -1 at a charge current of 0.46 A g -1 . The P-SCs are integrated into a novel pouch design, providing a flexible, cheap and easily manufactured supercapacitor, which demonstrates a capacitance of ∼101.4 μF, exhibiting a specific capacitance of ∼42.4 μF g -1 at a current density of 0.46 A g -1 , exhibiting energy and power densities of ∼0.45 J mg -1 (0.125 mW h mg -1 ) and ∼0.03 W mg -1 respectively. The pouch cell, fabricated from P-SCs, utilises five parallel double-sided pencil drawn electrodes, with paper separators, and retains 82.2% of its maximum capacitance, after 5121 charge/discharge cycles at a current density of 0.09 A g -1 . Last, a solid state P-SC is developed utilising a PVA-H 2 SO 4 solid electrolyte, which demonstrates a specific capacitance of 141.8 μF g -1 , at a charging current of 4.33 μA g -1

Electrochemical Overview: A Summary of ACoxMnyNizO2 and Metal Oxides as Versatile Cathode Materials for Metal-Ion Batteries

Early LiCoO2 research provided the basis for the tremendous commercial success of Li+ batteries since their invention in the early 1990s. Today, LiNiMnCoO2 (Li-NMC) is one of the most widely used batteries in the rapidly evolving electronic vehicle industry. Li-NMC batteries continue to receive significant interest as research efforts aim to partially, or entirely, replace the use of scarcely available and toxic Co with elemental doping to form binary, ternary, and quaternary layered oxides. Furthermore, safety concerns and rising uncertainty for the future of Li supplies have resulted in growing curiosity toward non-Li+ rechargeable batteries such as Na+ and K+. Unfortunately, the success of Li+ host materials does not always directly transfer to Na+ and K+ batteries due to the difficulty of reversibly intercalating larger ions without irreparably distorting the host structure. Consequently, this report provides an overview of the Li-based materials surrounding the success of commercial Li-NMC and the subsequent progress of their lesser studied Na and K counterparts. The challenges for current cathode materials are highlighted, and the opportunities for progression are suggested. The summary presented in this review can be consulted to steer new and unique research avenues for layered oxide materials as metal-ion battery cathodes

Correction to: MoO2 Nanowire Electrochemically Decorated Graphene Additively Manufactured Supercapacitor Platforms (Adv. Energy Mater., (2021), 11, (2100433), 10.1002/10.1002/aenm.202100433)

Adv. Energy Mater. 2021, 11, 2100433 DOI: 10.1002/aenm.202100433 Figure 4 in the originally published article is incorrect in the original manuscript. The correct figure is displayed below. 4 Figure (Figure presented.) SEMs of A,B,C) MoO2-G/AME and D) G/AME. Electrochemical decoration parameters: −1.4 V, 600 s. This error does not affect the conclusions of the report. The authors apologize for any inconvenience caused

MoO2 Nanowire Electrochemically Decorated Graphene Additively Manufactured Supercapacitor Platforms

Additively manufactured (AM) supercapacitor platforms are fabricated from bespoke filaments, which are comprised of electro-conductive graphene (20 wt%) incorporated polylactic acid (80 wt%), via fused deposition modeling and denoted as G/AMEs. The G/AMEs are shown to be capable of acting as a template for the electrodeposition of metals/metal oxides, in particular MoO2 nanowires (MoO2-G/AMEs), which are subsequently explored as a capacitor within 1 m H2SO4, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate. Optimization of the MoO2-G/AMEs demonstrates capacitance up to 1212 F g–1 when used in a symmetric arrangement. The material science described herein represents a significant enhancement in unlocking AMs potential as a valid manufacturing route for device level capacitance architectures

Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis for diabetic nephropathy in type 1 diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND: Diabetic nephropathy is a serious complication of diabetes mellitus and is associated with considerable morbidity and high mortality. There is increasing evidence to suggest that dysregulation of the epigenome is involved in diabetic nephropathy. We assessed whether epigenetic modification of DNA methylation is associated with diabetic nephropathy in a case-control study of 192 Irish patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D). Cases had T1D and nephropathy whereas controls had T1D but no evidence of renal disease. METHODS: We performed DNA methylation profiling in bisulphite converted DNA from cases and controls using the recently developed Illumina Infinium(R) HumanMethylation27 BeadChip, that enables the direct investigation of 27,578 individual cytosines at CpG loci throughout the genome, which are focused on the promoter regions of 14,495 genes. RESULTS: Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) analysis indicated that significant components of DNA methylation variation correlated with patient age, time to onset of diabetic nephropathy, and sex. Adjusting for confounding factors using multivariate Cox-regression analyses, and with a false discovery rate (FDR) of 0.05, we observed 19 CpG sites that demonstrated correlations with time to development of diabetic nephropathy. Of note, this included one CpG site located 18 bp upstream of the transcription start site of UNC13B, a gene in which the first intronic SNP rs13293564 has recently been reported to be associated with diabetic nephropathy. CONCLUSION: This high throughput platform was able to successfully interrogate the methylation state of individual cytosines and identified 19 prospective CpG sites associated with risk of diabetic nephropathy. These differences in DNA methylation are worthy of further follow-up in replication studies using larger cohorts of diabetic patients with and without nephropathy

Features of mammalian microRNA promoters emerge from polymerase II chromatin immunoprecipitation data

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, non-coding RNA regulators of protein coding genes. miRNAs play a very important role in diverse biological processes and various diseases. Many algorithms are able to predict miRNA genes and their targets, but their transcription regulation is still under investigation. It is generally believed that intragenic miRNAs (located in introns or exons of protein coding genes) are co-transcribed with their host genes and most intergenic miRNAs transcribed from their own RNA polymerase II (Pol II) promoter. However, the length of the primary transcripts and promoter organization is currently unknown. Methodology: We performed Pol II chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-chip using a custom array surrounding regions of known miRNA genes. To identify the true core transcription start sites of the miRNA genes we developed a new tool (CPPP). We showed that miRNA genes can be transcribed from promoters located several kilobases away and that their promoters share the same general features as those of protein coding genes. Finally, we found evidence that as many as 26% of the intragenic miRNAs may be transcribed from their own unique promoters. Conclusion: miRNA promoters have similar features to those of protein coding genes, but miRNA transcript organization is more complex. © 2009 Corcoran et al

Thermal detection of cardiac biomarkers H-FABP and ST2 using a molecularly imprinted nanoparticle-based multiplex sensor platform

© 2019 American Chemical Society. This manuscript describes the production of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) for the cardiac biomarkers heart-fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP) and ST2 by solid-phase synthesis, and their use as synthetic antibodies in a multiplexed sensing platform. Analysis by Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) shows that the affinity of the nanoMIPs is similar to that of commercially available antibodies. The particles are coated onto the surface of thermo-couples and inserted into 3D-printed flow cells of different multiplexed designs. We demonstrate it is possible to selectively detect both cardiac biomarkers within the physiologically relevant range. Furthermore, the developed sensor platform is the first example of a multiplex format of this thermal analysis technique which enables simultaneous measurements of two different compounds with minimal cross selectivity. The format where three thermocouples are positioned in parallel exhibits the highest sensitivity, which is explained by modelling the heat flow distribution with-in the flow cell. This design is used in further experiments and proof-of-application of the sensor platform is provided by measuring spiked fetal bovine serum samples. Due to the high selectivity, short measurement time, and low-cost of this array format, it provides an interesting alternative to traditional immunoassays. The use of nanoMIPs enables a multi-marker strategy, which has the potential to contribute to sustainable healthcare by improving reliability of cardiac biomarker testing

Comparison of sequencing-based methods to profile DNA methylation and identification of monoallelic epigenetic modifications.

Analysis of DNA methylation patterns relies increasingly on sequencing-based profiling methods. The four most frequently used sequencing-based technologies are the bisulfite-based methods MethylC-seq and reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS), and the enrichment-based techniques methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (MeDIP-seq) and methylated DNA binding domain sequencing (MBD-seq). We applied all four methods to biological replicates of human embryonic stem cells to assess their genome-wide CpG coverage, resolution, cost, concordance and the influence of CpG density and genomic context. The methylation levels assessed by the two bisulfite methods were concordant (their difference did not exceed a given threshold) for 82% for CpGs and 99% of the non-CpG cytosines. Using binary methylation calls, the two enrichment methods were 99% concordant and regions assessed by all four methods were 97% concordant. We combined MeDIP-seq with methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme (MRE-seq) sequencing for comprehensive methylome coverage at lower cost. This, along with RNA-seq and ChIP-seq of the ES cells enabled us to detect regions with allele-specific epigenetic states, identifying most known imprinted regions and new loci with monoallelic epigenetic marks and monoallelic expression

Trisomy of human chromosome 21 enhances amyloid-β deposition independently of an extra copy of APP

Down syndrome, caused by trisomy of chromosome 21, is the single most common risk factor for early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Worldwide approximately 6 million people have Down syndrome, and all these individuals will develop the hallmark amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's disease by the age of 40 and the vast majority will go on to develop dementia. Triplication of APP, a gene on chromosome 21, is sufficient to cause early-onset Alzheimer's disease in the absence of Down syndrome. However, whether triplication of other chromosome 21 genes influences disease pathogenesis in the context of Down syndrome is unclear. Here we show, in a mouse model, that triplication of chromosome 21 genes other than APP increases amyloid-β aggregation, deposition of amyloid-β plaques and worsens associated cognitive deficits. This indicates that triplication of chromosome 21 genes other than APP is likely to have an important role to play in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis in individuals who have Down syndrome. We go on to show that the effect of trisomy of chromosome 21 on amyloid-β aggregation correlates with an unexpected shift in soluble amyloid-β 40/42 ratio. This alteration in amyloid-β isoform ratio occurs independently of a change in the carboxypeptidase activity of the γ-secretase complex, which cleaves the peptide from APP, or the rate of extracellular clearance of amyloid-β. These new mechanistic insights into the role of triplication of genes on chromosome 21, other than APP, in the development of Alzheimer's disease in individuals who have Down syndrome may have implications for the treatment of this common cause of neurodegeneration

Small RNAs Targeting Transcription Start Site Induce Heparanase Silencing through Interference with Transcription Initiation in Human Cancer Cells

Heparanase (HPA), an endo-h-D-glucuronidase that cleaves the heparan sulfate chain of heparan sulfate proteoglycans, is overexpressed in majority of human cancers. Recent evidence suggests that small interfering RNA (siRNA) induces transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) in human cells. In this study, transfection of siRNA against −9/+10 bp (siH3), but not −174/−155 bp (siH1) or −134/−115 bp (siH2) region relative to transcription start site (TSS) locating at 101 bp upstream of the translation start site, resulted in TGS of heparanase in human prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and gastric cancer cells in a sequence-specific manner. Methylation-specific PCR and bisulfite sequencing revealed no DNA methylation of CpG islands within heparanase promoter in siH3-transfected cells. The TGS of heparanase did not involve changes of epigenetic markers histone H3 lysine 9 dimethylation (H3K9me2), histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) or active chromatin marker acetylated histone H3 (AcH3). The regulation of alternative splicing was not involved in siH3-mediated TGS. Instead, siH3 interfered with transcription initiation via decreasing the binding of both RNA polymerase II and transcription factor II B (TFIIB), but not the binding of transcription factors Sp1 or early growth response 1, on the heparanase promoter. Moreover, Argonaute 1 and Argonaute 2 facilitated the decreased binding of RNA polymerase II and TFIIB on heparanase promoter, and were necessary in siH3-induced TGS of heparanase. Stable transfection of the short hairpin RNA construct targeting heparanase TSS (−9/+10 bp) into cancer cells, resulted in decreased proliferation, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis of cancer cells in vitro and in athymic mice models. These results suggest that small RNAs targeting TSS can induce TGS of heparanase via interference with transcription initiation, and significantly suppress the tumor growth, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis of cancer cells