Recently, Guan Mingyang, a 2023 master's student in Biomedical Engineering from Professor Liu Guozhen's team at the School of MEDICINE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, published a research paper titled "Gold Nanoparticles Incorporated Liquid Metal for Wearable Sensors and Wound Healing" in the journal Chemical Engineering Journal, which is under the Elsevier publishing house.

The Chemical Engineering Journal is a leading international research journal published by Elsevier. It focuses on a wide range of topics within the field of chemical engineering, including applied biomaterials and biotechnologies, catalysis, chemical reaction engineering, computational chemical engineering, environmental chemical engineering, green and sustainable science and engineering, and novel materials. The journal aims to provide a platform for original fundamental research, interpretative reviews, and discussions of new developments in chemical engineering. It is highly regarded for its rigorous peer-review process and significant impact factor, making it an important publication venue for researchers and professionals in the field.

Liquid metals, especially for eutectic gallium-indium (EGaIn) have become popular materials in various bioapplications due to their fluidity, conductivity, biocompatibility and antibacterial properties. However, gallium can rapidly form oxide films at ambient conditions, limiting its performance. Taking advantages of the hydrogen bonding between amine groups and gallium oxide interface on EGaIn, EGaIn nanoparticles are modified with p-phenylenediamine (PPD) to inhibit oxidation and attach gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to achieve EGaIn-PPD@Au nanoparticles. The addition of PPD in making EGaIn nanoparticles can diminish the oxidation of gallium while forming the ligand shell on EGaIn with amine groups. EGaIn-PPD@Au nanoparticles demonstrate high electrical and thermal conductivity together with outstanding photothermal capability. EGaIn-PPD@Au based wearable skin patch can be modified with aptamers for electrochemical detection of C-reactive protein, achieving detection limit of 0.5 mg L^-1. A pressure sensor patch fabricated by incorporating EGaIn-PPD@Au into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can withstand more than 4 MPa pressure (error of less than 0.003 MPa⁻¹). EGaIn-PPD@Au based PDMS photothermal patches also demonstrate anti-inflammation and wound healing properties in S. aureus treated inflammation rat model.

*Image Source: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.3c06486

GUAN Mingyang, a master's student in Biomedical Engineering at the School of MEDICINE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, is the first author of the paper. He had previously completed his undergraduate studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, where he began his research work in Professor Liu Guozhen's Integrated Devices and Intelligent Diagnostics (ID²) Laboratory. During his undergraduate years, he co-authored a research paper titled "Ligand Mediation for Tunable and Oxide Suppressed Surface Gold-Decorated Liquid Metal Nanoparticles," published in the journal Small, as the second author. After completing his undergraduate degree, GUAN chose to continue his academic journey in the ID² Laboratory, focusing on the research of liquid metal functional materials in the fields of biomedical detection and flexible electronic devices. The corresponding author of the paper is Professor Liu Guozhen from the School of MEDICINE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. This work was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shenzhen Bay Open Laboratory Fund, Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation - Enterprise Joint Fund, and the CUHK-Shenzhen - Boya Life Joint Laboratory.

*Original Link:

Guan, M., Huang, Z., Bao, Z., Ou, Y., Zou, S., & Liu, G. (2025). Gold nanoparticles incorporated liquid metal for wearable sensors and wound healing. Chemical Engineering Journal, 161120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.161120