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Given the escalating environmental and safety concerns, friendly protective materials with exceptional mechanical properties, biodegradability, and insensitivity to high temperature have received more and more attention. Here, we report a robust cellulosic gel through the multi-scale integration of cellulose molecular skeleton, nano-reinforced diatomite, and in situ polymerized polyacrylamide molecule. The bottom-up yet cross-scale approach facilitates the formation of cellulosic gel characterized by a highly interconnected hydrogen bond network and nano-enhanced domain, resulting in a tensile strength of up to 13.83 MPa, a Young's modulus exceeding 280 MPa, and an impact strength around 12.38 KJ m -1 . Furthermore, this gel exhibits structural stability at temperatures up to 130 °C, good flame retardancy, and complete biodegradability within a span of 35 days. The robust cellulosic gel, acting as a pliable protector, demonstrates exceptional protection for human joints. Our study presents a highly efficient and scalable pathway towards the development of sustainable and robust biomass gels, holding immense potential in intelligent-protective wearables and advanced materials science and engineering., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the experiment, a chemical oxidation method was used to prepare nano-divalent silver oxide powder with a particle size of about 10 nm. Compared with silver nanoparticles and monovalent silver compounds, nano‑silver oxide has better antibacterial properties. The cellulose antibacterial aerogel was prepared by combining it with cellulose nanofibrils and using freeze-thaw cycles and freeze-drying methods. The microscopic morphology, mechanical properties, in vitro release of silver ions, antibacterial properties and biodegradability of composite aerogels were studied. The porosity of the cellulose antibacterial aerogel can reach 94%, the swelling rate was greater than 1000%, and the pore size was between 13 and 15 nm, which showed a larger storage space and attachment site for the aerogel. The diameter of the inhibition zone of the aerogel against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus was 23 mm and 20 mm respectively, and the aerogels still exhibited significant antibacterial activities with more than 99.5% reductions in Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which shows highly effective antibacterial properties. This research proposes an economical and novel preparation method of antibacterial cellulose aerogel, making it a candidate material with high efficiency, broad-spectrum antibacterial and more suitable for life needs., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Cushioning and antibacterial packaging are the requirements of the storage and transportation of fruits and vegetables, which are essential for reducing the irreversible quality loss during the process. Herein, the composite of carboxymethyl nanocellulose, glycerin, and acrylamide derivatives acted as the shell and chitosan/AgNPs were immobilized in the core by using coaxial 3D-printing technology. Thus, the 3D-printed cushioning-antibacterial dual-function packaging aerogel with a shell-core structure (CNGA/C-AgNPs) was obtained. The CNGA/C-AgNPs packaging aerogel had good cushioning and resilience performance, and the average compression resilience rate was more than 90%. Although AgNPs was slowly released, CNGA/C-AgNPs packaging aerogel had an obvious antibacterial effect on E. coli and S. aureus . Moreover, the CNGA/C-AgNPs packaging aerogel was biodegradable. Due to the customization capabilities of 3D-printing technology, the prepared packaging aerogel can be adapted to more application scenarios by accurately designing and regulating the microstructure of aerogels, which provides a new idea for the development of food intelligent packaging.

A novel approach was introduced to prepare very low density, highly porous, economic, reusable, hydrophobic, and magnetic cellulose aerogels from hardwood dissolving pulp via a simple freeze-drying procedure. The aerogels showed outstanding adsorption efficiency for several oils and organic solvents and demonstrated excellent selectivity for absorbing oil from an oil/water mixture. Moreover, they were easily collected by an external magnet, indicating excellent recyclability and reusable for at least 10 cycles while still retaining supreme adsorption capacity (up to 181 g/g for silicone oil). This study proposes an economic and novel method for the large-scale preparation of hydrophobic and magnetic cellulose aerogels, making them a promising candidate for the efficient and sustainable cleaning of oils and chemical spills., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

As a kind of potential absorbent, polysaccharide materials are limited due to weak stability, low absorption and recovery rate. Herein, a novel composite adsorbent - the magnetic composite gel beads (CMC/SA/graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 ) were prepared by combining carboxymethyl chitosan (CMC), sodium alginate (SA) with graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 , and then utilized for the adsorption of Cu 2+ , Cd 2+ and Pb 2+ from the wastewater. The physicochemical property of CMC/SA/graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 beads were characterized in detail. The CMC/SA/graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 magnetic gel beads could separate easily from the wastewater and showed a higher stability due to the addition of graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 . The adsorption experiments show that the adsorption of Cu 2+ , Cd 2+ and Pb 2+ on the magnetic gel bead was well fitted with pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir isotherm model, and the maximum adsorption capacity of Cu 2+ , Cd 2+ and Pb 2+ reached 55.96, 86.28 and 189.04 mg/g, respectively. Moreover, the magnetic gel beads had selective adsorption toward Pb 2+ . In addition, the magnetic gel beads still obtained 90% of the adsorption rates after five cycles, and showed good adsorption efficiency in the simulated real environment. This work proves that the CMC/SA/graphene oxide@Fe 3 O 4 magnetic gel beads as the adsorbents have promising potential in wastewater treatment., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Here, a spotlight is shown on aqueous microgel particles which exhibit a great potential for various biomedical applications such as drug delivery, cell imaging, and tissue engineering. Herein, different synthetic methods to develop microgels with desirable functionality and properties along with degradable strategies to ensure their renal clearance are briefly presented. A special focus is given on the ability of microgels to respond to various stimuli such as temperature, pH, redox potential, magnetic field, light, etc., which helps not only to adjust their physical and chemical properties, and degradability on demand, but also the release of encapsulated bioactive molecules and thus making them suitable for drug delivery. Furthermore, recent developments in using the functional microgels for cell imaging and tissue regeneration are reviewed. The results reviewed here encourage the development of a new class of microgels which are able to intelligently perform in a complex biological environment. Finally, various challenges and possibilities are discussed in order to achieve their successful clinical use in future., (© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

In this study, popular soda lignin was modified with either furan or maleimide ring, and the modified lignins were subjected to reversible Diels-Alder reaction. A new process was proposed to prepare the functionalized lignin. A long chain was introduced to the hydroxyl groups of lignin, and then either the furan or maleimide ring was added to the other end of the chain. The test results confirmed that either the furan ring or the maleimide ring was bound to lignin. Furan- and maleimide-functionalized lignins were also combined to generate crosslinking via Diels-Alder [4+2] cycloaddition reaction. Under appropriate conditions, the formation of a gel was identified, which reverted to liquid state after retro Diels-Alder reaction upon heating at 120°C. This study reveals the significant versatility and potential of the developed strategy for the utilization of lignin-based recyclable networks., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A novel nanocomposite microgel based on nanocellulose and amphoteric polyvinylamine (PVAm) was fabricated via a two-step method. Firstly, cellulose nanocrystal was oxidized by sodium periodate to yield dialdehyde nanocellulose (DANC). DANC was then used as a crosslinker to react with PVAm to obtain a pH responsive microgel with high density of free amine groups. The microgel was characterized using FTIR, XRD, AFM and elemental analysis. AFM images revealed that the nanocomposite was microspherical particles with a diameter ranging from 200 to 300nm. The microgel was found to be effective in anionic dye removal at acidic conditions. The adsorption isotherms for congo red 4BS, acid red GR and reactive light yellow K-4G fit well with the Sips model, and the maximum adsorption capacities were 869.1mgg(-1), 1469.7mgg(-1) and 1250.9mgg(-1), respectively. The adsorption for these three anionic dyes all followed pseudo second order kinetics, indicating a chemisorption nature., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Owing to unique properties, including the wound healing effect, sericin gel and films have attracted significant attention in the biomedical and cosmetic fields. The structural characteristics and properties of sericin gels and films are especially important owing to their effect on the performance of sericin in biomedical and cosmetic applications. In the present study, the effect of temperature on the gelation behavior, gel disruption, and sol-gel transition of sericin was examined using rheometry. In addition, the effect of the drying temperature on the structural characteristics of the sericin film was determined via Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The strength of the sericin gel increased and the gelation process was prolonged with decreasing storage temperatures. FTIR and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results also revealed that the crystallinity and the thermal decomposition temperature of the sericin film increased with decreasing drying temperature. The sericin gels were disrupted at a storage time of 40min when they were stored at temperatures higher than 50°C, and the corresponding gel strength decreased with increasing temperature. Furthermore, the thermo-reversible nature of gel-sol transition of sericin was confirmed by rheological and FTIR measurements., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)