The microneedle (MN), a highly efficient and versatile device, has attracted extensive scientific and industrial interests in the past decades due to prominent properties including painless penetration, low cost, excellent therapeutic efficacy, and relative safety. The robust microneedle enabling transdermal delivery has a paramount potential to create advanced functional devices with superior nature for biomedical applications. In this review, a great effort has been made to summarize the advance of microneedles including their materials and latest fabrication method, such as three-dimensional printing (3DP). Importantly, a variety of representative biomedical applications of microneedles such as disease treatment, immunobiological administration, disease diagnosis and cosmetic field, are highlighted in detail. At last, conclusions and future perspectives for development of advanced microneedles in biomedical fields have been discussed systematically. Taken together, as an emerging tool, microneedles have showed profound promise for biomedical applications.

Through structure design, 3D printing enables the fabrication of mechanically durable superhydrophobic membranes with an ordered porous structure for oil–water separation.

The high energy consumption of CO2-loaded solvent regeneration is the biggest impediment for the real application of the amine-based CO2 capture process. To lower the energy requirement, three Fe promoted SO4 2–/ZrO2 supported on MCM-41 (SZMF) catalysts with different iron oxide content (5%, 10%, and 15%) were synthesized and applied for the rich monoethanolamine solution regeneration process at 98 °C. Results reveal that the use of SZMF hugely enhanced the CO2 desorption performances (i.e., desorption factor) by 260–388% and reduced the heat duty by about 28–40%, which is better than most of the reported catalysts for this purpose. The eminent catalytic activities of SZMF are related to their enhanced ratio of Brønsted to Lewis acid sites, weak acid sites, basic sites, and high dispersed Fe3+ species. Meanwhile, the addition of SZMF for CO2 desorption shows a promotional effect on its CO2 absorption performance, and SZMF presents an excellent cyclic stability. A possible mechanism is suggested for the SZMF catalyzed CO2 desorption process. Results of this work may provide direction for future research and rational design of more efficient catalysts for this potential catalyst-aided CO2 desorption technology.

No abstract