Design of a Waste Paper-Derived Chemically ‘Reactive’ and Durable Functional Material with Tailorable Mechanical Property Following an Ambient and Sustainable Chemical Approach

Controlled tailoring of mechanical property and wettability is important for designing various functional materials. The integration of these characteristics with waste materials is immensely challenging to achieve, however, it can provide sustainable solutions to combat relevant environmental pollutions and other relevant challenges. Here, the strategic conversion of discarded and valueless waste paper into functional products has been introduced following a catalyst-free chemical approach to tailor both the mechanical property and water wettability at ambient conditions for sustainable waste management and controlling the relevant environmental pollution. In the current design, the controlled and appropriate silanization of waste paper allowed to modulate both the a) porosity and b) compressive modulus of the paper-derived sponges. Further, the association of 1,4-conjugate addition reaction between amine and acrylate groups allowed to obtain an unconventional waste paper-derived chemically ‘reactive’ sponge. The appropriate covalent modification of the residual reactive acrylate groups with selected alkylamines at ambient conditions provided a facile basis to tailor the water wettability from moderate hydrophobicity, adhesive superhydrophobicity to non-adhesive superhydrophobicity. The embedded superhydrophobicity in the waste paper-derived sponge was capable of sustaining large physical deformations, severe physical abrasions, prolonged exposure to harsh aqueous conditions, etc. Further, the waste paper-derived, extremely water-repellent sponges and membranes were successfully extended for proof-of-concept demonstration of a practically relevant outdoor application, where the repetitive remediation of oil spillages has been demonstrated following both selective absorption (25 times) of oils and gravity-driven filtration-based (50 times) separation of oils from oil/water mixtures at different harsh aqueous scenarios.     

Normalized Laplacian spectrum of some subdivision-coronas of two regular graphs

In this paper, we determine the full normalized Laplacian spectrum of the subdivision-vertex corona, subdivision-edge corona, subdivision-vertex neighbourhood corona and subdivision-edge neighbourhood corona of a connected regular graph with an arbitrary regular graph in terms of their normalized Laplacian eigenvalues. Moreover, applying these results, we find some non-regular normalized Laplacian cospectral graphs.     

Phenolic Constituents from Wendlandia tinctoria var. grandis (Roxb.) DC. Stem Deciphering Pharmacological Potentials against Oxidation,Hyperglycemia, and Diarrhea: Phyto-Pharmacological and Computational Approaches

Wendlandia tinctoria var. grandis (Roxb.) DC. (Family: Rubiaceae) is a semi-evergreen shrub distributed over tropical and subtropical Asia. The present research intended to explore the pharmacological potential of the stem extract of W. tinctoria, focusing on the antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal properties, and to isolate various secondary metabolites as mediators of such activities. A total of eight phenolic compounds were isolated from the dichloromethane soluble fraction of the stem extract of this plant, which were characterized by electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometric and ¹H NMR spectroscopic data as liquiritigenin (1), naringenin (2), apigenin (3), kaempferol (4), glabridin (5), ferulic acid (6), 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (7), and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (8). The dichloromethane soluble fraction exhibited the highest phenolic content (289.87 ± 0.47 mg of GAE/g of dried extract) and the highest scavenging activity (IC₅₀ = 18.83 ± 0.07 µg/mL) against the DPPH free radical. All of the isolated compounds, except 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, exerted a higher antioxidant effect (IC₅₀ = 6.20 ± 0.10 to 16.11 ± 0.02 μg/mL) than the standard butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) (IC₅₀ = 17.09 ± 0.01 μg/mL). Significant hypoglycemic and antidiarrheal activities of the methanolic crude extract at both doses (200 mg/kg bw and 400 mg/kg bw) were observed in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, the computational modeling study supported the current in vitro and in vivo findings, and the isolated constituents had a higher or comparable binding affinity for glutathione reductase and urase oxidase enzymes, glucose transporter 3 (GLUT 3), and kappa-opioid receptor, inferring potential antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal properties, respectively. This is the first report of all of these phenolic compounds being isolated from this plant species and even the first demonstration of the plant stem extract’s antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antidiarrheal potentials. According to the current findings, the W. tinctoria stem could be a potential natural remedy for treating oxidative stress, hyperglycemia, and diarrhea. Nevertheless, further extensive investigation is crucial for thorough phytochemical screening and determining the precise mechanisms of action of the plant-derived bioactive metabolites against broad-spectrum molecular targets.     

Can a Single Molecule of Water be Completely Isolated Within the Subnano‐Space Inside the Fullerene C60 Cage? A Quantum Chemical Prospective

Based on an experimental observation, it has been controversially suggested in a study (Kurotobi et al., Science 2011 , 33, 613) that a single molecule of water can completely be localized within the subnano‐space inside the fullerene C₆₀ cage and, that neither the H atoms nor the O lone‐pairs are linked, either via hydrogen bonding or through dative bonding, with the interior C‐framework of the C₆₀ cage. To resolve the controversy, electronic structure calculations were performed by using the density functional theory, together with the quantum theory of atoms in molecules, the natural population and bond orbital analyses, and the results were analyzed by using varieties of recommended diagnostics often used to interpret noncovalent interactions. The present results reveal that the mechanically entrapped H₂O molecule is not electronically innocent of the presence of the cage; each H atom of H₂O is weakly O? H???C₆₀ bonded, whereas the O lone‐pairs are O???C₆₀ bonded regardless of the conformations investigated. Exploration of various featured properties suggests that H₂O@C₆₀ may be regarded as a unique system composed of both inter‐ and intramolecular interactions.     

DFT-B3LYP, NPA-, and QTAIM-based study of the physical properties of [M(II)(H2O)2(15-crown-5)] (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn) complexes

A density functional theory study of the structure of the title compounds with the divalent metal ions in their high-spin ground state, obtained using B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) in vacuo and in aqueous solution simulated using a polarized continuum medium, is reported for the first time. The modeling reproduces the pseudo pentagonal bipyramidal crystallographic structures very well, including some asymmetry in the equatorial bonds lengths to the crown ether O donors. The very marked asymmetry in the Ni(2+) structure due to a Jahn-Teller distortion of a d(8) system in a D(5h) ligand field is also well reproduced. The gas phase binding energies of the complexes follow the order Mn(2+) < Fe(2+) < Co(2+) < Ni(2+) < Cu(2+) > Zn(2+), in precise agreement with the Irving-William series. Both the NPA and Bader charges show there is ligand-to-metal charge transfer; however, the values obtained from the NPA procedure, unlike those obtained from Bader's quantum theory of molecules approach, do not correlate with the electronegativity of the metal ions, the stabilization energies of the solvated complexes or the ionic radii of the metal ions, and so appear to be less reliable. The nature of the bonding between the ligands and the metal ions has been explored using the topological properties of the electron charge density. The metal-ligand bond distances were found to be exponentially correlated with the electron charge density, its Laplacian, and with its curvature in the direction of the bond path at M-O bond critical points. While the bonding with coordinated H(2)O is predominantly ionic, that to the crown ether donor atoms has some covalent character the extent of which increases across the first transition series. The delocalization indices of M-O bonds in these complexes correlate reasonably well with the electron density and its Laplacian at the bond critical points; this therefore provides a rapid and computationally very efficient way of determining these properties, from which insight into the nature of the bonding can be obtained, obviating the need for time-consuming integration over atomic basins.     

Effect of group velocity dispersion on supercontinuum generation and filamentation in transparent solids

We experimentally investigate the spectral extent and spectral profile of the supercontinuum (SC) generated in transparent solids: barium fluoride, calcium fluoride, and fused silica upon irradiation by intense femtosecond-long pulses of 800, 1,380, and 2,200 nm light. These wavelengths correspond to the normal and anomalous group velocity dispersion (GVD) regimes in fused silica calcium fluoride and barium fluoride. We observe an isolated (anti-Stokes) wing on the blue side most prominently in fused silica but also in CaF₂. The SC conversion efficiency is measured for the long wavelengths used in our experiments. We also present results on filamentation in BaF₂ in the anomalous GVD regime, including visualization of focusing–refocusing events within the crystal; the size of a single filament is also determined. The 15-photon absorption cross section in BaF₂ is deduced to be 6.5 × 10^?190 cm³⁰ W^?15 s^?1.     

Superconductivity and thermal properties of sulphur doped FeTe with effect of oxygen post annealing

Here, we report the synthesis and characterization of sulphur-substituted iron telluride i.e. FeTe_1?xS_x; (x = 0–30 %) system and study the impact of low temperature oxygen (O₂) annealing as well. Rietveld analysis of room temperature X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns shows that all the compounds are crystallized in a tetragonal structure (space group P4/nmm) and no secondary phases are observed. Lattice constants are decreased with increasing S concentration. The parent compound of the system i.e. FeTe does not exhibit superconductivity but shows an anomaly in the resistivity measurement at around 78 K, which corresponds to a structural phase transition. Heat capacity C_p(T) measurement also confirms the structural phase transition of FeTe compound. Superconductivity appears by S substitution; the onset of superconducting transition temperature is about 8 K for FeTe_0.75S_0.25 sample. Thermoelectric power measurements S(T) also shows the superconducting transition at around 7 K for FeTe_0.75S_0.25 sample. The upper critical fields H_c2(10%), H_c2(50%) and H_c2(90%) are estimated to be 400, 650 and 900 kOe respectively at 0 K by applying Ginzburg Landau (GL) equation. Interestingly, superconducting volume fraction is increased with low temperature (200 °C) O₂ annealing at normal pressure. Detailed investigations related to structural (XRD), transport [S(T), R(T)H], magnetization (AC and DC susceptibility) and thermal [C_p(T)] measurements for FeTe_1?xS:O₂ system are presented and discussed.     

Design and synthesis of azobenzene template based sulfonamide for capture of HCAII: dependence of efficiency on E–Z geometry

We report the synthesis of azobenzene template based sulfonamides 1 and 2 for capture of Human Carbonic Anhydrase II (HCAII). Out of these, 1 showed successful capturing of the protein, only when it is photo-isomerized to the Z form thus demonstrating the importance of spatial proximity of the reactive and selective functionalities.