The efficiency of layer melt crystallization for the selective separation of glycerol from a glycerol-diethylene glycol mixture containing 4 wt % of diethylene glycol was evaluated using solvent-free and solvent-aided approaches. The effect of 1-butanol and the binary solvent of 1-butanol and acetone with a total molar composition of 25 mol % on the crystal growth kinetics and the purity of the final product was studied at different undercooling degrees and crystallization yields. The melting point temperature of the mixtures was predicted by using the modified UNIFAC Dortmund model. The addition of both a single and binary solvents significantly increased the crystal growth rate and purity of the final product compared to crystallization from the solvent-free mixture. Additionally, higher crystal growth rates and product purity were observed in the binary solvent system compared to those in the single solvent system at the same degree of undercooling. The second stage of solvent-aided crystallization resulted in glycerol with a purity above 99.5 wt %, depending on the type of solvent used and the rate of crystal growth.

At-home rapid antigen test (RAT) kits for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are valuable public health tools during the present coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. They provide fast identification of coronavirus infection, which can help to reduce the transmission rates and burden on the healthcare system. However, they have lower sensitivity compared to the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests. One of the reasons for the lower sensitivity is due to the RAT color indicators being indistinct or invisible to the naked eye after the measurements. For this reason, we present a proof of concept of a novel approach, through which we investigated anonymously provided at-home RAT kit results by using our in-house open-source image processing scripts developed for affordable Raspberry Pi computer and Raspberry Pi HQ camera systems. Therefore, we aimed at minimizing the human-related analysis errors for such kits and believe that the present computer vision-based assessment framework can contribute to reducing delayed quarantines of infected individuals and the spread of the current infectious disease.

Novel hot electron-emitting working electrodes and conventional counter electrodes were created by screen printing. Thus, low-cost disposable electrode chips for bioaffinity assays were produced to replace our older expensive electrode chips manufactured by manufacturing techniques of electronics from silicon or on glass chips. The present chips were created by printing as follows: (i) silver lines provided the electronic contacts, counter electrode and the bottom of the working electrode and counter electrode, (ii) the composite layer was printed on appropriate parts of the silver layer, and (iii) finally a hydrophobic ring was added to produce the electrochemical cell boundaries. The applicability of these electrode chips in bioaffinity assays was demonstrated by an immunoassay of human C-reactive protein (i) using Tb(III) chelate label displaying long-lived hot electron-induced electrochemiluminescence (HECL) and (ii) now for the first time fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) was utilized as an a low-cost organic label displaying a short-lived HECL in a real-world bioaffinity assay.

The continually growing demand for electronic devices and consequently the increase in electronic waste have caused the need for more environmentally friendly materials and methods used when manufacturing the devices. In this paper, a coplanar waveguide-fed square slot antenna was aerosol jet printed onto acetylated cellulose nanofiber (ACNF) substrates and a poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) reference substrate, and the effects of photodegradation on these were studied. The functionality and print quality of the antennas were examined before and after photodegradation. In addition, changes in the color of the substrate and antenna were analyzed during the photodegradation process. Interestingly, the color of the ACNF substrate became whiter after photodegradation, while there were no significant changes in the color of the PET substrate, and the printed antennas became notably darker. The printed dimensions were quite accurate compared to the planned dimensions; there were, however, small differences in the horizontal and vertical directions. Additionally, the printed pattern on the PET substrate showed significantly more gaps in the pattern compared to the printed pattern on the ACNF substrate. The electrical properties of the antenna on the ACNF substrate were almost as good as those of the PET substrate. The photodegradation treatment significantly deteriorated the electrical properties of the antenna on the PET substrate, whereas the antenna on the ACNF substrate did not show any notable changes. Hence, this study shows that ACNF would be a suitable substitute for plastic as a substrate for printed electronics.