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Recent Advancement in Functional Polymers and Composites for Health and Environment Monitoring

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2020) | Viewed by 9303

Special Issue Editor

1. Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism, IMEM-CNR, Parco Area delle Scienze 37/A, 43124 Parma, Italy
2. Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: microsensors; microfluidics; polymeric 3D printing; graphene; organic semiconductive sensors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Conductive polymers, as polythiophenes, and polymer composites, as graphene-loaded polymers, have recently attracted researchers and encouraged the development and investigation of specific functionalities that are to be exploited in a new generation of sensors. This offer concerns the growing demand for low-cost, ultra-sensitive, easy-to-integrate sensors for health (physical, chemical, and biological parameters) and environment (aqueous medium, gases, and vapors) monitoring. Polymers provide enormous advantages in terms of cost and processability, since they are produced in high volume at a reasonable, low cost and, historically, have been employed easily in large-scale productions. The nature of polymers confers to these materials a wide range of capability, since molecules can be tailored for a specific interaction and function in order to achieve selectivity, wettability, high response, and proper transduction characteristics. In addition to this, the easiness to obtain a polymer composite using a simple blending procedure or other methods, to load functional materials, expands exponentially their potentiality and provides a continuous renewal of the characteristics that can be acquired. As a demonstration, recent literature shows several examples of polymer composites that are obtained by the introduction of nanomaterials, which are typical carbon-based (graphene, carbon nanotubes, etc.) and, in general, non-organic based materials (metal oxides, porous silicon, etc.). Moreover, emerging technologies that go under the name of additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing, stereolithography, and rapid prototyping) are successfully employing functional polymers in order to obtain smart objects.

In this Special Issue, the recent advancement in functional polymer and related composites with a special focus on the application for health and environment monitoring is considered. Correlated topics include novel approaches to nanomaterials incorporation, the optimization of the sensing properties, polymer flexible sensors, polymer tailoring and functionalization, and functional polymers for additive manufacturing.

Full papers, communications, and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Simone Luigi Marasso
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • functional polymers
  • polymer composites
  • polymer flexible sensors
  • nanomaterials
  • health and environment monitoring
  • polymer tailoring and functionalization
  • additive manufacturing
  • graphene
  • carbon nanotubes
  • metal oxides
  • porous silicon

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1830 KiB  
Article
PEDOT:PSS Morphostructure and Ion-To-Electron Transduction and Amplification Mechanisms in Organic Electrochemical Transistors
by Pasquale D’Angelo, Giuseppe Tarabella, Agostino Romeo, Simone Luigi Marasso, Alessio Verna, Matteo Cocuzza, Carlotta Peruzzi, Davide Vurro and Salvatore Iannotta
Materials 2019, 12(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12010009 - 20 Dec 2018
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6063
Abstract
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) represent a powerful and versatile type of organic-based device, widely used in biosensing and bioelectronics due to potential advantages in terms of cost, sensitivity, and system integration. The benchmark organic semiconductor they are based on is poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), [...] Read more.
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) represent a powerful and versatile type of organic-based device, widely used in biosensing and bioelectronics due to potential advantages in terms of cost, sensitivity, and system integration. The benchmark organic semiconductor they are based on is poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), the electrical properties of which are reported to be strongly dependent on film morphology and structure. In particular, the literature demonstrates that film processing induces morphostructural changes in terms of conformational rearrangements in the PEDOT:PSS in-plane phase segregation and out-of-plane vertical separation between adjacent PEDOT-rich domains. Here, taking into account these indications, we show the thickness-dependent operation of OECTs, contextualizing it in terms of the role played by PEDOT:PSS film thickness in promoting film microstructure tuning upon controlled-atmosphere long-lasting thermal annealing (LTA). To do this, we compared the LTA-OECT response to that of OECTs with comparable channel thicknesses that were exposed to a rapid thermal annealing (RTA). We show that the LTA process on thicker films provided OECTs with an enhanced amplification capability. Conversely, on lower thicknesses, the LTA process induced a higher charge carrier modulation when the device was operated in sensing mode. The provided experimental characterization also shows how to optimize the OECT response by combining the control of the microstructure via solution processing and the effect of postdeposition processing. Full article
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11 pages, 13345 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study on Mechanical and Sensing Properties of Smart Composite Prestressed Tendon
by Danhui Dan, Pengfei Jia, Guoqiang Li and Po Niu
Materials 2018, 11(11), 2087; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma11112087 - 25 Oct 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2882
Abstract
It is typically difficult for engineers to detect the tension force of prestressed tendons in concrete structures. In this study, a smart bar is fabricated by embedding a Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) in conjunction with its communication fiber into a composite bar surrounded [...] Read more.
It is typically difficult for engineers to detect the tension force of prestressed tendons in concrete structures. In this study, a smart bar is fabricated by embedding a Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) in conjunction with its communication fiber into a composite bar surrounded by carbon fibers. Subsequently, a smart composite cable is twisted by using six outer steel wires and the smart bar. Given the embedded FBG, the proposed composite cable simultaneously provides two functions, namely withstanding tension force and self-sensing the stress state. It can be potentially used as an alternative to a prestressing reinforcement tendon for prestressed concrete (PC), and thereby provide a solution to detecting the stress state of the prestressing reinforcement tendons during construction and operation. In the study, both the mechanical properties and sensing performance of the proposed composite cable are investigated by experimental studies under different force standing conditions. These conditions are similar to those of ordinary prestressed tendons of a real PC components in service or in a construction stage. The results indicate that the proposed smart composite cable under the action of ultra-high pretension stress exhibits reliable mechanical performance and sensing performance, and can be used as a prestressed tendon in prestressed concrete structures. Full article
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