Lignin is an abundant renewable natural biopolymer. Moreover, a significant development in lignin pretreatment and processing technologies has opened a new window to explore lignin and lignin-based bionanomaterials. In the last decade, lignin has been widely explored in different applications such as drug and gene delivery, tissue engineering, food science, water purification, biofuels, environmental, pharmaceuticals, nutraceutical, catalysis, and other interesting low-value-added energy applications. The complex nature and antioxidant, antimicrobial, and biocompatibility of lignin attracted its use in various biomedical applications because of ease of functionalization, availability of diverse functional sites, tunable physicochemical and mechanical properties. In addition to it, its diverse properties such as reactivity towards oxygen radical, metal chelation, renewable nature, biodegradability, favorable interaction with cells, nature to mimic the extracellular environment, and ease of nanoparticles preparation make it a very interesting material for biomedical use. Tremendous progress has been made in drug delivery and tissue engineering in recent years. However, still, it remains challenging to identify an ideal and compatible nanomaterial for biomedical applications. In this review, recent progress of lignin towards biomedical applications especially in drug delivery and in tissue engineering along with challenges, future possibilities have been comprehensively reviewed.

In this study, a simple method to obtain pure β-phase directly from the melt process is proposed. A series of PVDF and ionic liquid (IL) was prepared by a solvent casting method with appropriate associated with the subsequent annealing treatment. IL plays a role of filler, which can create strong electrostatic interaction with PVDF matrix and directly induce β-phase crystallization on the PVDF during the melt. PVDF film sample is immersed in hot water for annealing treatment at different temperatures (25 °C to 70 °C). We found that annealing in high temperatures especially can not only increase more IL inserted into the amorphous region of polymer matrix to make more phase transformation, but also accelerate IL removal. Characteristics and performance of the PVDF films were investigated by use of FTIR, XRD, SEM, and AFM. Piezoelectric coefficient d₃₃ as well as d₃₁, degree of crystallinity, and sensitivity are measured in experiment to verify the performance of PVDF film.

Functionalized inorganic layered materials based on a modification system composed of benzalkoniumchloride-N-methyl pryrrolidine-fullerene (BEN-(C₆₀–O)) were designed and fabricated in this paper, with the aim to develop high performance fire retardant epoxy composites without halogen and phosphorus. A BEN-(C₆₀–O) modifier was used to increase the inter-layer distance between the layered material. Based on the functionalization of montmorillonite type clay (CL88), a series of novolac cured epoxy resin/BEN-(C₆₀–O)-CL88 composites have been developed. The structural morphology and dispersion properties of the composites were investigated using wide-angle X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy. The composite reached V0 rating in the UL-94 vertical burning testing. Furthermore, the incorporation of BEN-(C₆₀–O)-CL88 into the novolac cured epoxy led to a significant reduction in peak heat release rate, total heat release and total smoke production, exhibiting superior fire resistance over its counterparts at the equivalent filler loading. Additionally, the composite shows improved thermo mechanical properties compared to the novolac cured epoxy resin.