Self-adhesive Tape Research Articles

Self-healing and self-adhesive hydrogen gas sensing tape for robust applications

Chemochromic H2 gas sensing tape can be an ideal candidate for many robust applications because of its ease of use. The H2 gas sensing with self-healing and self-adhesive functionalities would add another degree of innovation. The current development is limited to noble metal-based and flexible sensors, while the self-healing and self-adhesive tape has not been explored widely. The objective of this paper is to develop a stretchable, self-healing and self-adhesive H2 gas sensing tape using Pd-WO3 chemochromic nanocomposites and PBS: Ecoflex hybrid polymer. The proposed development has been investigated using material and mechanical characterizations that ensure a high stretchability of 500 %, fast self-healing (in 30 s at room temperature), and excellent self-adhesive properties towards a variety of objects, including human skin, glass/plastic objects, stainless steel, gas cylinders, pipelines, and fittings. The optimized tape sensor is then tested in a real-application environment, where different concentrations of H2 were exposed to justify the chemochromic sensing performance. It is found that the sensor exhibits a rapid change in color from beige to blue with a maximum ΔE value of 40.28 in 10 s of H2 (100 %) exposure. The results are found very potential to be used in practical applications.

Construction of Poly(hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent)/Ethylcellulose Composite Films for Green Recyclable Tapes.

Constructing green recyclable cellulose-based tapes with high transparency, mechanical robustness, and strong wet adhesion using natural components is highly desirable but challenging. Herein, novel cellulose-based self-adhesive tapes were reported by coating a polymerizable hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent (DES) on ethylcellulose followed by photopolymerization. The prepared ethylcellulose-based self-adhesive tape (ECSAT) exhibited an optical transmittance of up to ∼88% and could provide strong adhesion by interfacial intermolecular interactions without obstructing information. Due to the hydrophobic nature of the overall structure, ECSAT does not exhibit significant adhesive strength and mechanical degradation under water, acid, and alkali environments. Notably, ECSAT can be completely dissolved in the resultant DES and furthermore reused as a self-adhesive coating. The recycled ECSAT still maintained good optical transparency, mechanical strength, and wet adhesion. We believe that ECSATs with all-around performances have a wide range of applications in packaging and other engineering fields.

Composites Based on Cotton Microfibers Impregnated with Magnetic Liquid for Magneto-Tactile Sensors.

In this paper, we report the preparation of two new composite materials based on cotton fibers and magnetic liquid consisting of magnetite nanoparticles and light mineral oil. Using the composites and two simple textolite plates plated with copper foil assembled with self-adhesive tape, electrical devices are manufactured. By using an original experimental setup, we measured the electrical capacitance and the loss tangent in a medium-frequency electric field superimposed on a magnetic field. We found that in the presence of the magnetic field, the electrical capacity and the electrical resistance of the device change significantly with the increase of the magnetic field, then, the electrical device is suitable to be used as a magnetic sensor. Furthermore, the electrical response functions of the sensor, for fixed values of the magnetic flux density, change linearly with the increase in the value of the mechanical deformation stress, which gives it a tactile function. When applying mechanical stresses of fixed values, by increasing the value of the magnetic flux density, the capacitive and resistive functions of the electrical device change significantly. So, by using the external magnetic field, the sensitivity of the magneto-tactile sensor increases, therefore the electrical response of this device can be amplified in the case of low values of mechanical tension. This makes the new composites promising candidates for the fabrication of magneto-tactile sensors.

Экспериментальные исследования вибродемпфирования толстолистовой судовой конструкции

Object and purpose of research. This paper discusses thick stiffened plates for ship structures. The purpose is to determine the efficiency of vibration dampers (resonant anti-vibration straps with two reinforced vibration damping coatings installed on them). Subject matter and methods. Measurements of plate vibration spectra with and without vibration dampers stuck to the structure by means of a PVA-based self-adhesive tape. Main results. The study has established that efficient vibration damping of thick-plated structures is possible in principle. Conclusion. The study showed that vibration levels of thick-plated structure in a wide frequency band could be reduced by means of the dampers with the total weight considerably lower than the weight of the target structure itself.

A Simple High-Resolution Absolute Rotary Angular Sensor with Nonlinear Transparent Disc

This paper has described a simple absolute rotary angular sensor with a nonlinear transparent disc. This sensor consists of five elements: light-source, a shaft coupled nonlinear transparent optical disc, a lens, a pair of light-dependent resistors (LDR) and a signal processing circuit. This absolute rotary angular sensor is of non-contact potentiometer based on a characteristic of resistance via irradiance. It has the advantage of fabricating efficiently as the disc is made with fiber glass and a self-adhesive tape of which transparency is nonlinearly changed in a range of 0-360◦. Also, this sensor has good linearity of R2=0.99999, good repeatability of maximum characteristic drift around ±0.10 and measurement error below ±0.50. And measurement stability is ±0.10 within its operating range from 0° to 360°.

The application of tape lifting for microplastic pollution monitoring

Microplastics (MPs) are man-made polymer particles in the size range 1 μm to 5 mm. They have been proven to be present in all of Earth's environments through extensive global studies. Such studies regularly involve the isolation of MPs from water or other media using a filtration method. MPs are then commonly analysed for size and polymer type, either in situ on the filter or after removal from it by hand picking. These approaches provide the opportunity for the accidental loss of such particles and do nothing to protect the sample from contamination, whilst hand-picking from filter papers is also time consuming. The analysis frequently focusses solely on one technique and rarely facilitates the full characterisation of the MPs.This paper sets out a workflow that addresses these shortcomings. Tape lifting (a forensic approach to particulate recovery) is at the heart of this workflow. This technique uses self-adhesive tape to recover particles of interest and results in a tape lift in which those particles are held between the tape and a sheet of suitable material. In the proposed workflow, the tape is EasyliftⓇ and the sheet is glass. Tape lifting offers significant time saving in the field, allowing more samples to be taken. It also creates a secure environment for the particles of interest and facilitates reproducible research by preserving samples for future study.To investigate the recovery rate of MPs from filter papers using EasyliftⓇ, a simulation experiment was conducted, which tested glass fibre and cellulose fibre filter papers and ceramic and glass-frit Büchner funnels. It found that the rate of recovery of MPs from filters onto the tape had a mean of 96.4% (sn-1 = 3.5 percentage points, n = 12) with evidence that both filter type and funnel type effect that rate and that there is an interaction effect between these factors. In addition, the recovery rate from water onto the filter papers was investigated; this had a mean of 92.1% (sn-1 = 4.1 percentage points, n = 12) with no evidence that the filter type or funnel type used influenced that rate.This paper also explores EasyliftⓇ’s attributes that facilitate the proposed workflow by enabling analysis of MPs whilst they are held within the tape lift. EasyliftⓇ is compatible with a wide range of non-destructive analytical techniques including polarized light microscopy (PLM), confocal Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence microscopy, microspectrophotometry (MSP) and hyperspectral microscopy, and this compatibility is explored in this paper. The compatibility with these techniques allows samples to be fully characterised for their morphological, optical and chemical properties, providing further information about the samples that can aid future studies that investigate source identification and the detection of MP features that may affect ecotoxicological effects.

Preparation of double-sided self-adhesive tape Si-PSA

Preparation of double-sided self-adhesive tape Si-PSA

Evaluation and improvement of protein extraction methods for analysis of skin proteome by noninvasive tape stripping

Analysis of the human skin proteome is key to understand molecular mechanisms maintaining health or leading to diseases of this important organ. For minimal invasive sampling of skin proteomes, the use of self-adhesive tape strips has been successfully applied. However, the methods previously presented were evaluated on different types of skin samples (e.g. healthy, diseased) and used a variety of cell lysis/protein extraction methods, which renders a systematic comparison and thus the identification of the most efficient protocols difficult.Here, we present a study comparing five different approaches for cell lysis and protein extraction from single tape strip biopsies. Extraction using a detergent mix or 1% SDS proved to be most efficient. Further, we replaced protein precipitation by single-pot, solid-phase-enhanced sample preparation (SP3), which strongly enhanced the number of identified proteins. This fully LC-MS compatible methodology provides a fast and reproducible approach for minimal invasive sampling of human skin proteomes. Biological significanceFast and reproducible minimal invasive sampling of human skin proteomes is a major prerequisite for clinical proteomics studies aiming to decipher molecular mechanisms involved in the homeostasis as well as in the development of diseases. By optimization of tape strip sampling, e.g. the introduction of SP3 sample cleanup prior to LC-MS analysis, the presented protocol leads to yet not reported numbers of protein identifications from healthy human skin. Further, due to its efficiency it allows analysis from minimal sample amounts, e.g. from single tape strips, while established protocols relied on pooling of multiple tape strips. This provides the opportunity to perform spatially (lateral) resolved proteome analyses from different depths of the skin by analysis of consecutive strips.

Ultrathin dual-layer triple-band flexible microwave metamaterial absorber for energy harvesting applications

An ultrathin dual-layer flexible metamaterial absorber with triple-band for RF energy harvesting applications has been reported in this article. The sub-wavelength unit cell of the proposed absorber is composed of six distinct concentric annular having outer circumference of ring and octagonal inner circumference. The metallic resonators are constructed from copper foil self-adhesive tape which are affixed on flexible neoprene rubber sheet terminated by metal ground plate. The proposed absorber prototype is ultrathin and compact with the thickness less than 0.037λ0 and cell size less than 0.2λ0 at the lower absorption frequency of 1.75 GHz. Flexible dual-layer absorber exhibits triple absorption peaks of 96.91%, 96.41% and 90.12% at 1.75 GHz, 2.17 GHz and 2.6 GHz with full width at half maximum (FWHM) bandwidth of about ~6.5%. The RF performance of proposed absorber is numerically computed for different polarization and incidence angle variations. The absorption value is above 76% for the oblique incidence angle up to 45° in TE mode operation, whereas the absorption value is 94% for oblique incidence angle up to 60° in TM mode operation. The measured outcomes are in agreement with the numerically calculated results. The energy harvesting potential of the proposed absorber structure is numerically confirmed by the resulting improved RF absorption value in dependence to different resistive loading of the polarization insensitive unit cells.

Air leakage levels in timber frame building envelope joints

Air leakage levels from eight joints that use different tightening solutions for a prefabricated timber frame building envelope were measured under laboratory conditions. Air tightness levels in field conditions were also studied by using houses that have already been built.Joints in the external wall with an inserted floor and separating walls, as well as in the external corner of walls, all showed the largest levels of air leakage. The lowest air leakage levels were recorded in the joint between the external wall and the window.Tightening up the external weather barrier significantly improved the air tightness levels of the joints. Using self-adhesive tape in tightening up the air-vapour barrier and the weathering barrier seems to be the most promising solution when it comes to guaranteeing the air tightness of wooden-framed structures.The difference between air leakage levels as measured in field conditions and those which were calculated based on laboratory measurements was noticeably large. This was caused mainly by workmanship quality levels on the construction site sealing the building envelope's joints and the fact that there were other leakage places in addition to the typical joints that were studied. Improved research, development, design, construction, and supervision are needed to fulfil airtightness requirements in future construction when it comes to producing nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB).In order to be able to estimate the airtightness levels of a building in the design phase a larger database is needed, with different combinations made available in terms of joints, materials, and workmanship.

Influence of Different Surface Treatments on the Heat Flux From Solids to Liquid Nitrogen

In this work, a quasi-stationary procedure has been applied to analyze the heat flux from copper samples to liquid nitrogen (LN2). The purpose is to quantify the influence of the surface treatment on the heat flux. Copper samples with different surface roughness as well as copper samples whose surface had been previously laminated with commercially available Kapton (lamination or self-adhesive tape) have been tested. The experimental procedure consisted in cooling down the copper samples in a liquid nitrogen bath from room temperature to 77.3 K (boiling temperature of LN2 at atmospheric pressure). During the cool-down, the temperature has been measured and recorded. From the measured temperature data, the heat flux and the boiling curve were calculated for each copper sample. According to the experimental results, the surface roughness does not have a general influence on the cooling behavior. Regarding the laminated samples, results show a significant change in the boiling curve. In this case the cooling capability in LN2 is therefore enhanced. This behavior is due to the low thermal-conductivity of the lamination material. Indeed, that leads to a small temperature difference between the lamination and the coolant.

First Report of Begonia Elatior Wilt Disease Caused by Fusarium foetens in France.

Fusarium foetens is a destructive vascular pathogen on Begonia, mainly on cultivars of Begonia elatior hybrids (Begonia × hiemalis), which has recently been identified in Europe and Northern America (1,3). This Fusarium species has been responsible for severe damage in the begonia flower industry (1) and is listed as an EPPO A2 quarantine pathogen since 2007. In May 2007, wilted potted plants of B. elatior showing chlorotic leaves and basal stem rot were observed in a nursery located in the west of France (La Flèche, Sarthe). Symptomatic foliar and basal stem pieces were plated on a Fusarium semi selective medium, dichloran chloramphenicol peptone agar (DCPA), and on malt agar medium supplemented with 100 ppm chloramphenicol. Homogeneous mycelium of a Fusarium species developed from both types of tissue and on both media, and was transferred to potato dextrose agar (PDA) and to spezieller nährstoffarmer agar (SNA) media for morphological examination. Microscope slides were then prepared by pressing gently a clear self-adhesive tape onto the surface covered by mycelium and sporodochia, which was further stained with lactic acid/methylene blue. Typical multiseptate (often three septa), hyaline, slightly curved Fusarium macroconidia 29.2 to 41.8 (32.5) × 3.6 to 4.5 (4.3) μm were collected in sporodochia. In the aerial mycelium, long and short conidiophores with mono- or polyphialidic cells bearing false heads of ellipsoidal microconidia were observed. In addition, a pungent distinctive odor was produced by the mycelium grown on PDA. These features were consistent with F. foetens (2). To support the diagnosis, total DNA was further extracted from the pure culture and a partial region of the translation elongation 1 (tef1) gene was amplified by PCR using EF1-EF2 primer pair (4). Nucleotide sequence was determined and deposited on GenBank (Accession No. JX298790). Analysis of the sequence by BLAST showed that it was 100% identical with all the available F. foetens sequences, which confirmed our morphological diagnosis. To our knowledge, this is the first official report of F. foetens in France. Since this first detection, F. foetens was again identified in 2010 in another nursery located in the Pays de la Loire on collapsed B. elatior. Approximately 15 to 20% of the Begonia plants showed typical Fusarium wilt symptoms and the infected lots were systematically destroyed. The origin of these infections could not be traced back since the mother plants tested negative. The disease is considered as eradicated in France but causes major economic losses to Begonia growers and marketers in regions where the disease is established (2).

Dielectrophoretic Field-Flow Microchamber for Separation of Biological Cells Based on Their Electrical Properties

We describe the development, fabrication and testing of a microfluidic chamber for dielectrophoretic field-flow separation of biological cells based on their electrical properties. The chamber was constructed from a single Pyrex wafer with interdigitated Au electrodes, a spacer, and a top cover glass, making the events in the chamber observable under most optical microscopes. The dimensions were optimized based on numerical computations of the electric field, its gradient and the fluid-flow velocity profile. The electrodes were fabricated using photolithography. A double-sided self-adhesive tape of 100 μm thickness was used as a spacer, with an opening of 80 mm length and 20 mm width cut in its middle to form a channel of 100 μm height, and with water-resistant acrylic glue of the tape holding the glass plates together and providing a tight seal. The glue loses its adhesive properties above 70 °C, allowing for easy disassembly of the chamber in hot water and its thorough cleaning. A 1:1 mixture of normal and 50 °C -heat-treated CHO cells was used to test the chamber. A 93% efficiency of separation was obtained, confirming the usefulness of the chamber in separating cells with sufficient differences in electrical properties of their membranes.

Microfluidic lab-on-a-foil for nucleic acid analysis based on isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)

For the first time we demonstrate a self-sufficient lab-on-a-foil system for the fully automated analysis of nucleic acids which is based on the recently available isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA). The system consists of a novel, foil-based centrifugal microfluidic cartridge including prestored liquid and dry reagents, and a commercially available centrifugal analyzer for incubation at 37 degrees C and real-time fluorescence detection. The system was characterized with an assay for the detection of the antibiotic resistance gene mecA of Staphylococcus aureus. The limit of detection was <10 copies and time-to-result was <20 min. Microfluidic unit operations comprise storage and release of liquid reagents, reconstitution of lyophilized reagents, aliquoting the sample into < or = 30 independent reaction cavities, and mixing of reagents with the DNA samples. The foil-based cartridge was produced by blow-molding and sealed with a self-adhesive tape. The demonstrated system excels existing PCR based lab-on-a-chip platforms in terms of energy efficiency and time-to-result. Applications are suggested in the field of mobile point-of-care analysis, B-detection, or in combination with continuous monitoring systems.

A modified biopsy technique to improve histopathological evaluation of avian skin.

Skin biopsies are a viable diagnostic tool in avian dermatology, however, the thinness of avian skin makes it difficult to prevent rolling and contraction of skin biopsy specimens during collection and fixation. The difficulty orienting such rolled samples during processing ultimately interferes with the establishment of a histopathological diagnosis. We describe a modified skin biopsy procedure for obtaining avian skin biopsy specimens. In this technique nontranslucent self-adhesive tape (Scotch tape) was attached to skin biopsy sites before obtaining skin biopsies using a standard skin biopsy punch instrument. A total of 23 skin biopsy specimens were obtained: 15 from nonfeathered skin of 12 normal Hispaniolan parrots, 3 from feathered skin of 2 normal birds and 5 from feathered skin of 3 psittacines presented for pathologic feather-picking. All 23 skin specimens consistently adhered to the tape during the biopsy procedure. The specimens were fixed in 10% neutral phosphate-buffered formalin. During processing, no curling or rolling of specimens occurred, and all specimens could be easily orientated for correct trimming and subsequent histopathological evaluation. The tape technique did not produce any appreciable artefacts. Remnants of the tape were microscopically evident above the stratum corneum assuring that none of the stratum corneum was lost during processing. Obtaining avian skin biopsy specimens using this modified tape technique is easy and ensures flat fixation of the skin biopsy specimens, which later allows trimming at right angles, and through the longitudinal diameter of feather follicles for accurate histopathologic evaluation.

A Comparative Study of Three Warming Interventions to Determine the Most Effective in Maintaining Perioperative Normothermia

A Comparative Study of Three Warming Interventions to Determine the Most Effective in Maintaining Perioperative Normothermia

A new adhesive for airborne pollen sampling in Spain

The use of a double-sided self-adhesive tapefor pollen trapping could offer some advantagesover traditional adhesives, manually applied tothe Melinex tape of a Hirst-type spore trap,since variation in terms of adhesiveapplication is nil and additional effort inapplying the adhesive is avoided. Nevertheless,its efficiency with respect to the standardadhesives must be tested. In Cordoba (southwestSpain), the Spanish Aerobiology Network Centreperformed a series of comparative studies andrecommended the use of a silicone fluid as anadhesive. This paper compares the efficiency ofa double-sided self-adhesive tape (3M) withsilicone fluid as adhesive. Sampling wascarried out using a Hirst type 7-day spore traplocated 15 m above ground level. A Melinex tapecoated with silicone fluid covered one half ofthe weekly drum; the other half was coveredwith 3M tape that included the adhesive. It iswidely reported that the physicalcharacteristics of silicone fluid do not varywith temperature (Galan andDominguez-Vilches, 1997), but this studyshowed that 3M efficiency did vary withtemperature. The results revealed that 3M tapewas less efficacious at low temperatures, whileat high temperatures it becomes stickier. Incontrast, silicone fluid does not vary withtemperature. The efficiency of 3M tape alsoseems to be negatively influenced by rain.

Improving the visibility of radio-opaque markers in mammography.

Owing to the high mean film optical densities used in breast screening mammography, and the very high maximum optical densities that can be obtained using modern mammographic film, it is often found that for larger exposures the nominally radio-opaque markers used to identify views, left and right etc., cannot be seen using a normal illuminator. A simple solution to this problem is to back the radio-opaque markers with a thin metal filter chosen to keep the marker information visible over a wide range of exposures. A convenient material for this is copper foil in the form of self-adhesive tape. The improvement in marker contrast produced by this modification is illustrated using point optical density measurements on marked test films produced at the extremes of the mammographic exposure range.

Obstructed venous cranial blood flow caused by tracheal tube fixation

Airway management is paramount for the care of critically ill and severely injured patients. Rapid-sequence tracheal intubation following sedation and muscle relaxation is a standard procedure under emergency conditions [1]. While care may be taken to ensure smooth insertion of the laryngoscope blade and accurate placement of the tracheal tube, little emphasis may be paid to the fixation of the tube. Self-adhesive tape and tube holders may fail to stick especially when skin is moist or blood stained. Consequently bandages, tapes or ties are often used which hitherto have not been reported as potentially dangerous [2]. This communication documents the case of impaired cerebral blood flow possibly due to tracheal tube fixation with limited monitoring facilities.

Self-adhesive tape developed for difficult-to-bond substrates

Self-adhesive tape developed for difficult-to-bond substrates