This reprint gathers 16 contributions (13 research articles and 3 reviews) covering different areas of analytical chemistry. Many of these contributions deal with the development and application in real matrices of chromatographic methods interfaced with mass spectrometry, but also spectroscopic, electrochemical, and separation methods are also proposed.

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Based on five Special Issues in Coatings, this e-book contains a series of 15 articles demonstrating actual perspectives and new trends in advanced coatings in buildings. Innovative materials and multiperformance solutions provide a basis, contributing also to the better protection of buildings’ surfaces during the service life, and the users’ wellbeing.

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Fuel cells are expected to play a relevant role in the transition towards a sustainable-energy-driven world. Although this type of electrochemical system was discovered a long time ago, only in recent years has global energy awareness, together with newly developed materials and available technologies, made such key advances in relation to fuel cell potential and its deployment. It is now unquestionable that fuel cells are recognized, alongside their possibility to work in the reverse mode, as the hub of the new energy deal. Now the questions are, why are they not yet ready to be used, despite the strong economic support given from the society? What prevents them from being entered into the hydrogen energy scenario in which renewable sources will provide energy when it is not readily available? How much are researchers involved in this urgent step towards change? This book gives a clear answer, engaging with some of the open issues that explain the delay of fuel cell deployment and, at the same time, it opens a window that shows how wide and attractive the opportunities offered by this technology are. Papers collected here are not only specialist-oriented but also offer a clear landscape to curious readers and show how challenging the road to the future is.

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This reprint provides the most recent advancements and trends in the analysis of cultural heritage samples, including archaeological and bio-archaeological samples, confirming the growing public and academic interest in this field. The submitted papers cover different aspects of cultural and archaeological heritage protection, conservation, and restoration. The complexity of such samples, including archaeological samples, generally requires a multi-analytical approach. The integrated use of different analytical techniques, with the preference for noninvasive or micro-invasive ones, allows an in-depth understanding of the original materials and their degradation processes and helps obtain innovative solutions for the restoration and conservation of artworks.

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In the field of Analytical Chemistry and, in particular, whenever a quali-quantitative analysis is required, until a few years ago, reference was made exclusively to instrumental methods (more or less hyphenated) which, once validated, were able to provide the answers to the questions present, even if only in a limited way to analytical targets. Nowadays, the landscape has become considerably complicated (natural adulterants, assessment of geographical origin, sophistication, need for non-destructive analysis, search for often unknown compounds), and new procedures for processing data have greatly increased the potential of analyses that are conducted (even routinely) in the laboratory. In this scenario, chemometrics is master, able to manage and process a huge amount of information based both on data relating only to the analytes of interest, but also by applying “general” procedures to process raw untargeted analysis data. It is within this strand of analysis that many of the works reported in this Special Issue fall. In the succession of works in this printed version, the criterion that guided us was to highlight how—starting exclusively from chromatographic techniques (HPLC and GC) with conventional detectors and moving to exclusively spectroscopic techniques (MS, FT-IR and Raman)—it is possible arrive at extremely powerful coupled techniques and procedures (HPLC and FT-IR) able to meet research needs. Finally, at the end of the printed volume, there are two reviews that surveying the state of the art regarding the assessment of authenticity through qualitative analyses and the application of chemometrics in the pharmaceutical field in the study of forced drug degradation products. From the succession of works (and, above all, from the various application fields) it can immediately be seen how the application of chemometrics and its procedures to both raw and processed data is a powerful means of obtaining robust, reproducible, and predictive information. In this manner, it is possible to create models able to explain and respond to the original problem in a much more detailed way. , and Honghe through Fourier transform mid infrared (FT-MIR) spectra combined with partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), random forest (RF), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) methods. Melucci and collaborators apply chemometric approaches to non-destructive analysis of ATR-FT-IR for the determination of biosilica content. This value was directly evaluated in sediment samples, without any chemical alteration, using attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, and the quantification was performed by combining the multivariate standard addition method (MSAM) with the net analyte signal (NAS) procedure to solve the strong matrix effect of sediment samples. Still in the food and food supplements field, Anguebes-Franseschi and collaborators report an article where 10 chemometric models based on Raman spectroscopy were applied to predict the physicochemical properties of honey produced in the state of Campeche, Mexico.

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As contemporary and emerging engineering applications demand increasingly high performance from metallic materials, research into their degradation in a variety of environments is a hot topic in the scientific community. This reprint is dedicated to providing the readership with an up-to-date overview of current corrosion research on different metallic materials (steels, aluminum alloys, magnesium alloys, and copper alloys), exploring fundamental and practical aspects related to corrosion mechanisms and protection methods to advance the current knowledge in this field. The content of this reprint provides new and insightful concepts to promote the development of optimized surfaces with high corrosion protection ability.

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This book delves into the latest developments in the synthesis, characteristics, and diverse applications of nanosheets. Within its chapters, readers will find comprehensive insights into innovative fabrication techniques for cutting-edge nanosheets and their hybrid heterostructures. Furthermore, the book thoroughly explores the emerging properties and applications of nanosheets across various domains, including supercapacitors for electric vehicles, fuel cells, electric discharge machining, heavy metal adsorption, and biomedical applications.

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In the last few decades, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has distinguished itself as one of the most rapidly advancing spectroscopic techniques. Mainly known as an analytical tool useful for sample characterization and content quantification, NIR spectroscopy is essential in various other fields, e.g. NIR imaging techniques in biophotonics, medical applications or used for characterization of food products. Its contribution in basic science and physical chemistry should be noted as well, e.g. in exploration of the nature of molecular vibrations or intermolecular interactions. One of the current development trends involves the miniaturization and simplification of instrumentation, creating prospects for the spread of NIR spectrometers at a consumer level in the form of smartphone attachments—a breakthrough not yet accomplished by any other analytical technique. A growing diversity in the related methods and applications has led to a dispersion of these contributions among disparate scientific communities. The aim of this Special Issue was to bring together the communities that may perceive NIR spectroscopy from different perspectives. It resulted in 30 contributions presenting the latest advances in the methodologies essential in near-infrared spectroscopy in a variety of applications.

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The interaction of metal with its environment that results in its chemical alteration is called metallic corrosion. According to the literature, corrosion is classified to two types: uniform and localized corrosion. Intervention in either in the alloy environment or in the alloy structure can provide the corrosion protection of metallic materials. Furthermore, the interference in the metal alloy environment can be conducted with the utilization of cathodic or anodic protection via the corresponding inhibitors. Therefore, the most common categorization is cathodic, anodic, and mixed-type inhibitors, taking into account which half-reaction they suppress during corrosion phenomena. The majority of the organic inhibitors are of mixed type and perform through chemisorption. In order to update the field of the corrosion protection of metal and metal alloys with the use of organic inhibitors, a Special Issue entitled "Advances in Organic Corrosion Inhibitors and Protective Coatings" is introduced. This book gathers and reviews a collection of ten contributions (nine articles and one review), from authors from Europe, Asia, and Africa, that were accepted for publication in this Special Issue of Applied Sciences.

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This Special Issue is a collection of research topics on developing analytical and bioanalytical methods for isolation, identification, and determination of substances in biomedical and pharmaceutical matrices. Special attention is given to advancements in sample preparation, separation techniques and novel detection methods of small molecules, peptides, and monoclonal antibodies. The presented analytical methods exhibit several applications, including pharmacokinetic studies, therapeutic drug monitoring, microdialysis, toxicology, disease screening or drug stability study. Two comprehensive review articles were also presented on applying capillary electrophoresis to analyze bioactive compounds in herbal matrices.

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In this Special Issue, we have gathered work on simulations of polycrystalline metals and alloys at various length scales to model multiscale localization phenomena such as slip bands, cracks, and twins. The series highlights innovative techniques that combine simulation and experiments to capture material production and guide the development of forming theories. The published work helps to understand the effect of microstructure characteristics on deformation and damage behavior under multiaxial load conditions. Furthermore, these models and the studies can be used with machine learning technologies to optimize microstructure functions for materials application and process paths.

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During the last decade, software developments in Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) provoked a notable increase of applications to the study of solid matter. The mineral liberation analysis (MLA) of processed metal ores was an important drive for innovations that led to QEMSCAN, MLA and other software platforms. These combine the assessment of the backscattered electron (BSE) image to the directed steering of the electron beam for energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to automated mineralogy. However, despite a wide distribution of SEM instruments in material research and industry, the potential of SEM automated mineralogy is still under-utilised. The characterisation of primary ores, and the optimisation of comminution, flotation, mineral concentration and metallurgical processes in the mining industry by generating quantified data, is still the major application field of SEM automated mineralogy. However, there is interesting potential beyond these classical fields of geometallurgy and metal ore fingerprinting. Slags, pottery and artefacts can be studied in an archeological context for the recognition of provenance and trade pathways; soil, and solid particles of all kinds, are objects in forensic science. SEM automated mineralogy allows new insight in the fields of process chemistry and recycling technology.

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This reprint is a compilation of more than 20 scientific publications, both original research papers and review papers, assembled for the Special Issue of Molecules journal, Aquaphotomics; this Special Issue explores water molecular systems in nature, and is the first of its kind organized on this topic. Now available in a reprint, this publication presents cutting-edge research work performed in the area of a young, but rapidly evolving scientific discipline, Aquaphotomics. The reprint includes topics that range from basic water science, material hydration, the water–material interaction and biocompatibility, novel scientific theories about the role of water in cell biology, the possibilities of using Aquaphotomics for monitoring food quality, estimating shelf-life, diagnosing stress in plants, determining diseases in animals and the outcomes of therapies in medicine. The reprint also provides the reader with an opportunity to improve their knowledge in the areas of spectral preprocessing, multivariate analysis and chemometrics, with focus on Aquaphotomics approach. For any reader already working in the field of Aquaphotomics, this will be a highly advantageous publication, in order to ascertain the latest research trends and discoveries; for novices, it offers a window into an exciting new world that is brimming with possibilities.

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This Special Issue will focus on assistive technology (AT) to address biomechanical and control of movement issues in individuals with impaired health, whether as a result of disability, disease, or injury. All over the world, technologies are developed that make human life richer and more comfortable. However, there are people who are not able to benefit from these technologies. Research can include development of new assistive technology to promote more effective movement, the use of existing technology to assess and treat movement disorders, the use and effectiveness of virtual rehabilitation, or theoretical issues, such as modeling, which underlie the biomechanics or motor control of movement disorders. This Special Issue will also cover Internet of Things (IoT) sensing technology and nursing care robot applications that can be applied to new assistive technologies. IoT includes data, more specifically gathering them efficiently and using them to enable intelligence, control, and new applications.

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The conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into renewable fuels and other commodities has provided an appealing alternative towards supplanting global dependence on fossil fuels. The suitability of multitudes of plants for deconstruction to useful precursor molecules and products is currently being evaluated. These studies have probed a variety of phenotypic traits, including cellulose, non-cellulosic polysaccharide, lignin, and lignin monomer composition, glucose and xylose production following enzymatic hydrolysis, and an assessment of lignin-carbohydrate and lignin-lignin linkages, to name a few. These quintessential traits can provide an assessment of biomass recalcitrance, enabling researchers to devise appropriate deconstruction strategies. Plants with high polysaccharide and lower lignin contents have been shown to breakdown to monomeric sugars more readily. Not all plants contain ideal proportions of the various cell wall constituents, however. The capabilities of biotechnology can alleviate this conundrum by tailoring the chemical composition of plants to be more favorable for conversion to sugars, fuels, etc. Increases in the total biomass yield, cellulose content, or conversion efficiency through, for example, a reduction in lignin content, are pathways being evaluated to genetically improve plants for use in manufacturing biofuels and bio-based chemicals. Although plants have been previously domesticated for food and fiber production, the collection of phenotypic traits prerequisite for biofuel production may necessitate new genetic breeding schemes. Given the plethora of potential plants available for exploration, rapid analytical methods are needed to more efficiently screen through the bulk of samples to hone in on which feedstocks contain the desired chemistry for subsequent conversion to valuable, renewable commodities. The standard methods for analyzing biomass and related intermediates and finished products are laborious, potentially toxic, and/or destructive. They may also necessitate a complex data analysis, significantly increasing the experimental time and add unwanted delays in process monitoring, where delays can incur in significant costs. Advances in thermochemical and spectroscopic techniques have enabled the screening of thousands of plants for different phenotypes, such as cell-wall cellulose, non-cellulosic polysaccharide, and lignin composition, lignin monomer composition, or monomeric sugar release. Some instrumental methods have been coupled with multivariate analysis, providing elegant chemometric predictive models enabling the accelerated identification of potential feedstocks. In addition to the use of high-throughput analytical methods for the characterization of feedstocks based on phenotypic metrics, rapid instrumental techniques have been developed for the real-time monitoring of diverse processes, such as the efficacy of a specific pretreatment strategy, or the formation of end products, such as biofuels and biomaterials. Real-time process monitoring techniques are needed for all stages of the feedstocks-to-biofuels conversion process in order to maximize efficiency and lower costs by monitoring and optimizing performance. These approaches allow researchers to adjust experimental conditions during, rather than at the conclusion, of a process, thereby decreasing overhead expenses. This Frontiers Research Topic explores options for the modification of biomass composition and the conversion of these feedstocks into to biofuels or biomaterials and the related innovations in methods for the analysis of the composition of plant biomass, and advances in assessing up- and downstream processes in real-time. Finally, a review of the computational models available for techno-economic modeling and lifecycle analysis will be presented.

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The enormous importance of free radical chemistry for a variety of biological events, including ageing and inflammation, has attracted a strong interest in understanding the related mechanistic steps at the molecular level. Modelling the free radical chemical reactivity of biological systems is an important research area. When studying free-radical-based chemical mechanisms, biomimetic chemistry and the design of established biomimetic models come into play to perform experiments in a controlled environment that is suitably designed to be in strict connection with cellular conditions. This Special Issue gives the reader a wide overview of biomimetic radical chemistry, where molecular mechanisms have been defined and molecular libraries of products are developed to also be used as traces for the discovery of some relevant biological processes. Several subjects are presented, with 12 articles and 6 reviews written by specialists in the fields of DNA, proteins, lipids, biotechnological applications, and bioinspired synthesis, having “free radicals” as a common denominator.

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Professor Hong-Yuan Chen is a full-time professor of analytical chemistry at Nanjing University, China. He graduated from Nanjing University in 1961 and became a professor in 1988. He worked as a visiting scholar at Mainz University from 1981 to 1984 and was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001. Professor Chen is well known as a pioneer in the field of electrochemistry and biosensors. He has authored numerous papers and reviews on chemical sensors, probes, labels, and bioassays; microchips, single-cell and single-particle imaging; and spectroscopic methods, including fluorescence and electrochemiluminescence imaging. Professor Chen also has experience in live cell analysis using microneedles, and his group first described microelectrodes in 1987. This work has been adopted in IUPAC. Professor Chen has published >1,100 papers with over >55000 citations and an h-index of 114. He received National Natural Science Award (2nd Class) from the Chinese Government (2007), the Scientific and Technological Progress Award from Ho Leung Hdo Lee Foundation (2007) and the Nature’s 2015 Lifetime Award for South China, among others. This Special Issue is dedicated to celebrating the career of Professor Hong-Yuan Chen in honor of his contributions to the fields of bionic recognition and biosensors.

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Process monitoring and control are fundamental to all processes; this holds especially for bioprocesses, due to their complex nature. Usually, bioprocesses deal with living cells, which have their own regulatory systems. It helps to adjust the cell to its environmental condition. This must not be the optimal condition that the cell needs to produce whatever is desired. Therefore, a close monitoring of the cell and its environment is essential to provide optimal conditions for production. Without measurement, no information of the current process state is obtained. In this book, methods and techniques are provided for the monitoring and control of bioprocesses. From new developments for sensors, the application of spectroscopy and modelling approaches, the estimation and observer implementation for ethanol production and the development and scale-up of various bioprocesses and their closed loop control information are presented. The processes discussed here are very diverse. The major applications are cultivation processes, where microorganisms were grown, but also an incubation process of bird’s eggs, as well as an indoor climate control for humans, will be discussed. Altogether, in 12 chapters, nine original research papers and three reviews are presented.

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Biosensors are analytical devices used for the detection of a chemical substance, or analyte, which combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector. Detection and quantification are based on the measurement of the biological interactions. The biological element of a biosensor may consist of tissues, microorganisms, organelles, cell receptors, enzymes, antibodies and nucleic acids. These devices have been shown to have a wide range of applications in a vast array of fields of research, including environmental monitoring, food analysis, drug detection and health and clinical assessment, and even security and safety. The current Special Issue, “Biosensors: 10th Anniversary Feature Papers”, addresses the existing knowledge gaps and aids the advancement of biosensing applications, in the form of six peer-reviewed research and review papers, detailing the most recent and innovative developments of biosensors.

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This Special Issue “Characterization of Nanomaterials” collects nine selected papers presented at the 6th Dresden Nanoanalysis Symposium, held at Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems in Dresden, Germany, on 31 August 2018. Following the specific motto of this annual symposium “Materials challenges—Micro- and nanoscale characterization”, it covered various topics of nanoscale materials characterization along the whole value and innovation chain, from fundamental research up to industrial applications. The scope of this Special Issue is to provide an overview of the current status, recent developments and research activities in the field of nanoscale materials characterization, with a particular emphasis on future scenarios. Primarily, analytical techniques for the characterization of thin films and nanostructures are discussed, including modeling and simulation. We anticipate that this Special Issue will be accessible to a wide audience, as it explores not only methodical aspects of nanoscale materials characterization, but also materials synthesis, fabrication of devices and applications.

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Milk processing is one of the most ancient food technologies, dating back to around 6000 B.C. A huge number of milk products have been developed worldwide, representing a spectacular example of biodiversity and a priceless cultural heritage. After millennia of unanimous appreciation as a pillar of human nutrition, a series of questions about the desirability of their wide consumption have been raised. In the light of the growing threat deriving mostly from the spread of veganism and health consciousness, improving milk prcoessing safety and dairy nutritional characteristics, as well as deepening their functional characteristics, are of a primary exigency. This Special Issue contains several articles focusing on this hot topic, all of which add knowledge to the field and supply interesting ideas for developing new products and processes.

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Unravelling an intricate network of interatomic interactions and their relations to different behaviors of chemical compounds is key to the successful design of new materials for both existing and novel applications, from medicine to innovative concepts of molecular electronics and spintronics. X-ray crystallography has proven to be very helpful in addressing many important chemical problems in modern materials science and biosciences. Intertwined with computational techniques, it provides insights into the nature of chemical bonding and the physicochemical properties (including optical, magnetic, electrical, mechanical, and others) of crystalline materials, otherwise accessible by experimental techniques that are not so readily available to chemists. In addition to the advanced approaches in charge density analysis made possible by X-ray diffraction, the information collected over the years through this technique (which is easily mined from huge databases) has tremendous use in the design of new materials for medicine, gas storage, and separation applications as well as for electronic devices. This Special Issue contains two reviews and five articles that cover very different aspects of ‘composition–structure’ and ‘structure–property’ relations identified by X-ray diffraction and complementary techniques (from conventional IR and Raman spectroscopies to cutting-edge quantum chemical calculations) and their use in crystal engineering and materials science.

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The last few decades have seen rapid development in the field of surface engineering and its applications in almost all industrial sectors. Tribological coatings, which are an important aspect of surface engineering, are today applied on machine component surfaces for a diverse range of moving machine components to control (mostly to minimize) friction and wear in order to conserve energy and materials. This reprint book is a compilation of 11 research papers contributed by experts in the field of surface engineering and tribology. These papers have dealt with the synthesis of various types of coatings, characterization and applications under different operating conditions. It is hoped that this reprint book will be of interest, not only to researchers, but also to practicing engineers and technologists in the industry.

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Billions of people suffer from dental problems. Paradoxically, the deteriorating state of teeth is accompanied by the ever-increasing desire to preserve the best facial appearance, which is significantly influenced by teeth aesthetics. This favors the development of dental materials and manufacturing technologies for dental prosthetics, needed to achieve expected effects of clinical treatment.This reprint focus on enhancing antimicrobial and mechanical properties of polymeric materials and composites for dentistry. In recent years, special attention has been focused on the possibility of giving materials new or improved properties by the introduction of nano or submicron size additives, fibers or whiskers. Using agents such as natural oils to enhance antimicrobial properties remains an exciting idea. Another area of research is the application of antibacterial monomers, which can be copolymerized in resins to kill oral pathogenic microflora. The use of new monomers or new compilations of various monomers to improve mechanical properties has also aroused interest. In addition, we are currently looking for new data regarding colonization of dental materials by pathogenic microbes and their influence on the other properties. Further, there are many new commercially available materials which should be investigated to verify their properties, which is important from the point of view of clinical practice. Original new research and reviews related to any of the topics mentioned above indicate the current directions of development of dental materials. We hope that the presented work will be of interest to readers.

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