The fast consumption of fossil energy accompanied by the ever-worsening environment urge the development of a clean and novel energy storage system. As one of the most promising candidates, the supercapacitor owns unique advantages, and numerous electrodes materials have been exploited. Hence, biomass-derived porous carbon materials (BDPCs), at low cost, abundant and sustainable, with adjustable dimension, superb electrical conductivity, satisfactory specific surface area (SSA) and superior electrochemical stability have been attracting intense attention and highly trusted to be a capable candidate for supercapacitors. This review will highlight the recent lab-scale methods for preparing BDPCs, and analyze their effects on BDPCs' microstructure, electrical conductivity, chemical composition and electrochemical properties. Future research trends in this field also will be provided.

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on gold have been employed as model substrates to investigate the effects of surface chemistry on cell behavior. However, few studies were dedicated to substrates with controlled wettability in studying the stem cell fate. Here, mixed hydroxyl (–OH) and methyl (–CH₃) terminated SAMs were prepared to form substrates with varying wettability, which were used to study the effects of wettability on the adhesion, spreading, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from human and mouse origins. The numbers of adhered human fetal MSCs (hMSCs) and mouse bone marrow MSCs (mMSCs) were maximized on –OH/–CH₃ mixed SAMs with water contact angles of 40–70° and 70–90°, respectively. Hydrophilic mixed SAMs with a water contact angle of 20–70° also promoted the spreading of both hMSCs and mMSCs. Proliferation of both hMSCs and mMSCs was most favored on hydrophilic SAMs with a water contact angle around 70°. In addition, a moderate hydrophilic surface (with a contact angle of 40–90° for hMSCs and 70° for mMSCs) promoted osteogenic differentiation in the presence of biological stimuli. Hydrophilic mixed SAMs with a moderate wettability tended to promote the expression of α_vβ₁ integrin of MSCs, indicating that the tunable wettability of the mixed SAMs may guide osteogenesis through mediating the α_vβ₁ integrin signaling pathway. Our work can direct the design of biomaterials with controllable wettability to promote the adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of MSCs from different sources.

Hollow hydroxyapatite microspheres with a hierarchical porous structure have been fabricated hydrothermally with the aid of citrate ions as a regulating agent. A possible formation mechanism was proposed. The high drug-loading capability and superior sustained release properties make it a promising carrier for drug delivery system.

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) particles with different morphology but similar physicochemical properties were prepared by a novel and facile route. The interaction between the particles with BMSCs was investigated, and results revealed that particles’ shape has a strong influence on cellular behavior.

In this paper, a systematic study of the influence of various experimental parameters on morphology and size of hydroxyapatite (HAp) was investigated under hydrothermal conditions in the presence of sodium citrate. The Ca/citrate ratio, the pH value and the reaction temperature were important factors for the morphologenesis of HAp. The morphologies of the products were transformed from nanoparticles (plate, rod) to microparticles (dumbbell, flower and sphere like particle) accompanied with the alteration of experimental conditions. The interaction between citrate and HAp crystals was carefully demonstrated, and a possible formation mechanism of different nanostructures was proposed.