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Abstract The accurate, continuous analysis of healthcare-relevant gases such as nitrogen oxides (NO x ) in a humid environment remains elusive for low-cost, stretchable gas sensing devices. This study presents the design and demonstration of a moisture-resistant, stretchable NO x gas sensor based on laser-induced graphene (LIG). Sandwiched between a soft elastomeric substrate and a moisture-resistant semipermeable encapsulant, the LIG sensing and electrode layer is first optimized by tuning laser processing parameters such as power, image density, and defocus distance. The gas sensor, using a needlelike LIG prepared with optimal laser processing parameters, exhibits a large response of 4.18‰ ppm −1 to NO and 6.66‰ ppm −1 to NO 2 , an ultralow detection limit of 8.3 ppb to NO and 4.0 ppb to NO 2 , fast response/recovery, and excellent selectivity. The design of a stretchable serpentine structure in the LIG electrode and strain isolation from the stiff island allows the gas sensor to be stretched by 30%. Combined with a moisture-resistant property against a relative humidity of 90%, the reported gas sensor has further been demonstrated to monitor the personal local environment during different times of the day and analyze human breath samples to classify patients with respiratory diseases from healthy volunteers. Moisture-resistant, stretchable NO x gas sensors can expand the capability of wearable devices to detect biomarkers from humans and exposed environments for early disease diagnostics. 

In this study, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets and Bombyx mori silk fibroin (SF) proteins were combined and electrospun into BNSF nanofibers with different ratios. It was found that the surface morphology and crosslinking density of the nanofibers can be tuned through the mixing ratios. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy study showed that pure SF electrospun fibers were dominated by random coils and they gradually became α-helical structures with increasing h-BN nanosheet content, which indicates that the structure of the nanofiber material is tunable. Thermal stability of electrospun BNSF nanofibers were largely improved by the good thermal stability of BN, and the strong interactions between BN and SF molecules were revealed by temperature modulated differential scanning calorimetry (TMDSC). With the addition of BN, the boundary water content also decreased, which may be due to the high hydrophobicity of BN. These results indicate that silk-based BN composite nanofibers can be potentially used in biomedical fields or green environmental research. 

Diabetic patients are especially susceptible to chronic wounds of the skin, which can lead to serious complications. Sodium citrate is one potential therapeutic molecule for the topical treatment of diabetic ulcers, but its viability requires the assistance of a biomaterial matrix. In this study, nanofibers and thin films fabricated from natural corn zein protein are explored as a drug delivery vehicle for the topical drug delivery of sodium citrate. Corn zein is cheap and abundant in nature, and easily extracted with high purity, while nanofibers are frequently cited as ideal drug carriers due to their high surface area and high porosity. To further reduce costs, the 1-D nanofibers in this study were fabricated through an air jet-spinning method rather than the conventional electrospinning method. Thin films were also created as a comparative 2-D material. Corn zein composite nanofibers and thin films with different concentration of sodium citrate (1–30%) were analyzed through FTIR, DSC, TGA, and SEM. Results reveal that nanofibers are a much more effective vehicle than films, with the ability to interact with sodium citrate. Thermal analysis results show a stable material with low degradation, while FTIR reveals strong control over the protein secondary structures and hold of citrate. These tunable properties and morphologies allow the fibers to provide a sustained release of citrate and then revert to their structure prior to citrate loading. A statistical analysis via t-test confirmed a significant difference between fiber and film drug release. A biocompatibility study also confirms that cells are much more tolerant of the porous nanofiber structure than the nonporous protein films, and lower percentages of sodium citrate (1–5%) were outperformed to higher percentages (15–30%). This study demonstrated that protein-based nanofiber materials have high potential as vehicles for the delivery of topical diabetic drugs. 

Fibrous proteins such as silks have been used as textile and biomedical materials for decades due to their natural abundance, high flexibility, biocompatibility, and excellent mechanical properties. In addition, they also can avoid many problems related to traditional materials such as toxic chemical residues or brittleness. With the fast development of cutting-edge flexible materials and bioelectronics processing technologies, the market for biocompatible materials with extremely high or low thermal conductivity is growing rapidly. The thermal conductivity of protein films, which is usually on the order of 0.1 W/m·K, can be rather tunable as the value for stretched protein fibers can be substantially larger, outperforming that of many synthetic polymer materials. These findings indicate that the thermal conductivity and the heat transfer direction of protein-based materials can be finely controlled by manipulating their nano-scale structures. This review will focus on the structure of different fibrous proteins, such as silks, collagen and keratin, summarizing factors that can influence the thermal conductivity of protein-based materials and the different experimental methods used to measure their heat transfer properties.