Tribology is defined as the science and technology of interacting surfaces in relative motion, which can cover friction, wear and lubrication. Tribology has become an interdisciplinary area which includes materials, chemistry, physics, mechanics and even biology. The phenomena of tribology should be inevitably understood and controlled in any situation...
Organic semiconductors have gained significant attention as potential thermoelectric materials due to their inherently low thermal conductivity and the potential for low-cost production through low-temperature processing methods. In the field of organic thermoelectrics (OTEs), substantial progress has been made in both material development and device...
Which will freeze first, water at 90 or 18 Celsius degrees? Hot water comes first! The fact that hot water freezes faster than cold water under the same conditions was experimentally revealed. This fact was known by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle in the 4th century BC. This...
The increasing safety concerns and the escalating demands for higher energy density in lithium-ion batteries necessitate a transition from flammable organic liquid electrolytes with inorganic solid electrolytes (SEs). Several characteristics are crucial for SEs to be integrated into practical all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs); prominent among these...
Biomass is the only practical low-carbon feedstock that can be used to produce non-fossil sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials. Several attempts have been made to commercialize thermal-catalytic biomass valorization. These approaches have not been commercialized because: 1) biomass is a distributed feedstock that has low...
Stem cell technology has emerged as a powerful tool on the way to ultimate human health and it has been utilized in various biomedical fields including regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and in vitro physiological model systems. The key of stem cell technology is guiding the stem cells to have in vivo physiological cellular phenotype, functions, and behaviors. Among the various approaches to guide the stem cell fate and behaviors, providing the in vivo-like microenvironments to the stem cells based on the nano-/micro manufacturing processes has been highlighted as a promising method for the last decades. Though the nano-/micro- manufacturing processes have been greatly contributed to developing functional and biomimetic culture scaffolds, however, it is still difficult but desired to develop an advanced culture scaffold possessing in vivo-like complex microenvironments including biophysical, biochemical, and/or structural cues. We suggest several nano-manufacturing solutions to develop microphysiological scaffolds providing in vivo-like microenvironments to the stem cells by elaborately utilizing nanofibrous membranes. The...
