In recent years, research on self-healing polymers for diverse biomedical applications has surged due to their resemblance to the native extracellular matrix. Here, we introduce a novel self-healing hydrogel scaffold made from collagen (Col) and nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) via a one-pot-synthesis approach under the influence of heating in less than 10 min. Process parameters, including the quantities of Col, guar gum, solvent, nHA, borax, and glycerol in the system were optimized for the minimization of the self-healing time. The synthesized hydrogel and polymers underwent characterization via FTIR, SEM, EDS, TGA, and ¹³C-NMR. Additionally, the hydrogel showed hemocompatibility with only 6.76% hemolysis at 10 µg·mL⁻¹, while the scaffold maintained cellular metabolic activity at all concentrations for 24 h, with the optimal viability at 1 and 2.5 µg·mL⁻¹, sustaining 93.5% and 90% viability, respectively. Moreover, the hydrogel scaffold exhibited rapid self-healing within 30 s of damage, alongside a tough and flexible nature, as indicated by its swelling rate, biodegradation under various biological pH solutions, and tensile strength of 0.75 MPa. Hence, the innovative Col and nHA self-healing hydrogel scaffold emerges as an ideal, non-toxic, cost-effective, and easily synthesized material with promising potential in cartilage repair applications.

The preparation of large-scale Cu‒Al‒Ni shape memory alloys with excellent microstructure and texture is a significant challenge in this field. In this study, large-scale Cu‒Al‒Ni shape memory alloy (SMA) slabs with good surface quality and strong orientation were prepared by the horizontal continuous casting (HCC). The microstructure and mechanical properties were compared with the ordinary casting (OC) Cu‒Al‒Ni alloy. The results showed that the microstructure of OC Cu‒Al‒Ni alloy was equiaxed grains with randomly orientation, which had no obvious superelasticity. The alloys produced by HCC had herringbone grains with strong orientation near〈1 0 0〉and the cumulative tensile superelasticity of 4.58%. The superelasticity of the alloy produced by HCC has been improved by 4‒5 times. This work has preliminarily realized the production of large-scale Cu‒Al‒Ni SMA slab with good superelasticity, which lays a foundation for expanding the industrial production and application of Cu-based SMAs.

Hollow nanospheres exhibit unique properties and find a wide interest in several potential applications such as drug delivery. Herein, novel hollow bioactive glass nanospheres (HBGn) with large hollow cavity and large mesopores in their outer shells were synthesized by a simple and facile one-pot ultrasound assisted sol‒gel method using PEG as the core soft-template. Interestingly, the produced HBGn exhibited large hollow cavity with ~43 nm in diameter and mesoporous shell of ~37 nm in thickness and 7 nm pore size along with nanosphere size around 117 nm. XPS confirmed the presence of Si and Ca elements at the surface of the HBGn outer shell. Notably, HBGn showed high protein loading capacity (~570 mg of Cyto c per 1 g of HBGn) in addition to controlled protein release over 5 d. HBGn also demonstrated a good in vitro capability of releasing calcium (Ca²⁺: 170 ppm) and silicate (SiO₄⁴⁻: 78 ppm) ions in an aqueous medium over 2 weeks under physiological-like conditions. Excellent in vitro growth of bone-like hydroxyapatite nanocrystals was exhibited by HBGn during the soaking in SBF. A possible underlying mechanism involving the formation of spherical aggregates (coils) of PEG was proposed for the formation process of HBGn.

Transformation texture is normally different to deformation and recrystallization textures, thus influencing materials properties differently. As deformation and recrystallization are often inseparable to transformation in materials which shows a variety in types such as diffusional or non-diffusional transformations, different phenomena or rules of strengthening transformation textures occur. This paper summarizes the complicated phenomena and rules by comparison of a lot of authors’ published and unpublished data collected from mainly electrical steels, high manganese steels and pure titanium sheets. Three kinds of influencing deformation are identified, namely the dynamic transformation with concurrent deformation and transformation, the transformation preceded by deformation and recrystallization and the surface effect induced transformation, and the textures related with them develop in different mechanisms. It is stressed that surface effect induced transformation is particularly effective to enhance transformation texture. It is also shown that the materials properties are also improved by controlled transformation textures, in particular in electrical steels. It is hoped that these phenomena and processing techniques are beneficial to the establishment of transformation texture theory and property improvement in practice.