Nanotechnology is linked to a variety of scientific and technological areas, such as medical, biomedical, and technical sciences, as well as environmental and process engineering. In the course of research, it is essential, in the medical sciences and other fields of science and engineering, to update and restructure the landscape of problems in nanotechnological applications. Nanotechnology has now strongly established itself in the field of drug delivery. A new technique of drug delivery systems is provided by the latest novel drug delivery systems (NDDSs). Nanomedicine and nano delivery systems seem to be a comparatively new but rapidly advancing science where nanomaterials are being used to be seen as a screening method or to deliver therapeutic agents controlled to specific targeted sites. Nanotechnology provides a lot of benefits for site-specific and goal delivery of specific therapies to treat severe biological disorders. A number of the challenges in the treatment of different diseases have been initiated by nanomaterials (chemotherapeutic agents, biological agents, immunotherapy agents, etc.). Nano-based drug carrier via a deep analysis of nanomaterial targets identification and applications in the enhancement of efficacy of both new and old drugs (e.g., natural products, etc. The modulation of the dosage forms of pharmacological medicines but also specific tissue targeting. Until the last few, the main target of NDDS was encapsulation with anti-cancer molecules like paclitaxel, vincristine, and doxorubicin, which remained one of the most successful groups of NDDS for liposomes and polymer-drug conjugates. Nanocarriers are colloidal nano-scale structures capable of transporting anticancer agents, as well as small molecular weight capsules or macromolecules such as genes or proteins, away from normal tissues and into tumors as an indirect method of oriented treatment. Nanocarriers have many times greater cytotoxicity in this tumor, as opposed to loosening tablets, with reduced toxicity to calm the body. This chapter describes the Smart drug delivery systems based on nanotechnology with different types of nanoparticles, i.e., polymeric, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, silver nanoparticles, and many others, to demonstrate a broad variety of useful properties.

Multifunctional polymeric materials include a wide variety of compounds with specific properties and functionalities. Their adaptability enables applications in a variety of industries, contributing to advances in materials science, healthcare, electronics, electronics, and drug delivery systems. Multifunctional polymeric materials can be incorporated and altered according to the properties required for the applications. These materials can be synthesized using the polymerization method and detailed characteristics are analyzed using specific characterization techniques. Advances in material design, synthesis processes, and interdisciplinary collaborations are expected to accelerate the creation of multifunctional polymers with increasingly sophisticated and customized features, thereby contributing to scientific and technological progress.

Researchers and professionals from a wide range of disciplines are very interested in biopolymers since they are a leading functional material that may be used in high-value applications. Understanding the fundamentals and practical applications of biopolymers is crucial for addressing several intricate issues related to health and well-being. This requires interdisciplinary study. Much work has gone toward substituting biodegradable materials, especially those produced from natural resources for synthetic polymers to lessen the impact on the environment and the reliance on fossil fuels. To fulfill the demands of ever-growing applications, several varieties of natural or biopolymers have been produced in this area. Because of their special qualities, these biopolymers are already employed in the food industry and are starting to be used increasingly in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors.

The emerging research field of structural batteries aims to combine the functions of load bearing and energy storage to improve system-level energy storage in battery-powered vehicles and consumer products. Structural batteries, when implemented in electric vehicles, will be exposed to greater temperature fluctuations than conventional batteries in electric vehicles. However, there is a lack of knowledge in public domains and scientific literature regarding how these thermal boundary conditions impact power capabilities of the structural batteries. To fill this gap, the present work simulates the transient temperature-dependent specific power capabilities of a high aspect ratio structural battery composite by solving the one-dimensional heat transfer equation with heat source terms and convective boundary conditions. Equivalent circuit modeling of resistivity-induced losses is used with a second-order finite difference method to examine battery performance. More than 60 different run configurations are evaluated in this work, examining how thermal boundary conditions and internal heat generation influence power capabilities and multifunctional efficiency of the structural battery. The simulated structural battery composite is shown to have good specific Young’s modulus (79.5%–80.3% of aluminum), a specific energy of 158 Wh kg−1, and specific power of 41.2–55.2 W kg−1, providing a multifunctional efficiency of 1.15–1.17 depending on configuration and thermal loading conditions and demonstrating the potential of load-bearing structural batteries to achieve mass savings. This work emphasizes the dependency of power efficiency on cell design and external environmental conditions. Insulating material is shown to improve multifunctional efficiency, particularly for low ambient temperatures. It is demonstrated that as cell temperature increases due to high ambient temperature or heat generation in the battery, the specific power efficiency increases exponentially due to a favorable nonlinear relation between ionic conductivity and cell temperature. The simulations also demonstrate a thermal feedback loop where resistivity-induced power losses can lead to self-regulation of cell temperature. This effect reduces run-averaged losses, particularly at low ambient temperatures.

Low-carbon steel is a widely used structural metal that, when fractured, can be repaired with high temperature processes. There are many applications, however, that would benefit from a room-temperature repair process which maintains the steel microstructure and prevents nearby materials and electronics from overheating. This work seeks to enable effective room-temperature healing of steel by understanding how ion transport and electrolyte chemistry influence growth morphology and strength in fractured steel struts repaired with nickel electrodeposition. Experiments and simulations show that pulsed electroplating mitigates diffusion-limited growth to enable smooth and dense nickel deposits that have 4× higher adhesion to steel than nickel deposited by potentiostatic electroplating. By combining pulsed electroplating and electrolyte chemistry selection, fully fractured steel wires could be repaired to achieve up to 69% of their pristine wire strength. Finally, a simple geometric model highlights the advantageous energy and time requirements of electrochemical healing across length scales.

Future advanced wearable energy harvesters need to have high power densities, functionality under large deformations, scalability, and robust resistance against mechanical damages (i.e. fatigue, delamination, and fracture). To achieve this, ultra-flexible, high dielectric, and thermally conductive materials along with deformable and robust electrodes are needed. Here, we review recent progress in synthesis and integration of liquid metal (LM) material architectures as the building blocks of emerging wearable energy harvesting devices. After a brief introduction to room temperature LM alloys, LM’s various applications in a variety of soft and stretchable power harvesting devices including thermoelectric, triboelectric, dielectric elastomer, and piezoelectric generators are summarized. The unique opportunities and challenges introduced by LM material architectures in this field are also discussed.

The development of the DNA origami technique has revolutionized the field of DNA nanotechnology as it allows to create virtually any arbitrarily shaped nanostructure out of DNA on a 10–100 nm length scale by a rather robust self-assembly process. Additionally, DNA origami nanostructures can be modified with chemical entities with nanometer precision, which allows to tune precisely their properties, their mutual interactions and interactions with their environment. The flexibility and modularity of DNA origami allows also for the creation of dynamic nanostructures, which opens up a plethora of possible functions and applications. Here we review the fundamental properties of DNA origami nanostructures, the wide range of functions that arise from these properties and finally present possible applications of DNA origami based multifunctional materials.

Structural power composites are multifunctional materials with simultaneous load bearing and energy storing functionality. This is made possible due to carbon fibers’ ability to act not only as structural reinforcement materials, but also as electrode components. A crucial component of structural power composites is the structural electrolyte that is required to have both high stiffness and high ionic conductivity. To explore microstructure properties that bear optimal bifunctional performance a procedure is presented to generate various classes of synthetic microstructures with a wide span of properties for computer simulation. The effective properties of the generated artificial structural electrolytes are obtained via virtual material testing and compared with experimentally obtained data. Ultimately, a microstructure class with very good bifunctional properties is identified.

The minimum reactant concentration required to synthesize Au/M (M = Ag, Pt, Pd, Ru . . .) core-shell nanoparticles by the one-pot microemulsion route was calculated by a simulation model under different synthesis conditions. This minimum concentration was proved to depend on the reduction potential of the slower metal M and on the rigidity of the surfactant film composing the microemulsion. Model results were tested by comparing with Au/M nanoparticles taken from literature. In all cases, experimental data obey model predictions. From this agreement, one can conclude that the smaller the standard potential of the slower reduction metal, the lower the minimum concentration needed to obtain core-shell nanoparticles. In addition, the higher the surfactant flexibility, the higher the minimum concentration to synthesize metal segregated nanoparticles. Model prediction allows to quantify which is the best value of concentration to prepare different pairs of core-shell Au/M nanoparticles in terms of nature of M metal in the couple and microemulsion composition. This outlook may become an advanced tool for fine-tuning Au/M nanostructures.