Glycosides from Grewia damine and Filicium decipiens

Chemical investigation of n-butanol extract from the methanol extract of leaves of Grewia damine furnished lupeol, sitosterol beta-D-glucoside, flavone C-glycosides vitexin, isovitexin where as the same extracts from the leaves of Filicium decipiens furnished sitosterol beta-D-glucoside, 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl kaempferol, 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranosylquercetin and 3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl(1--> 2)-beta-D-glucopyranosylkaempferol.     

Steroidal and triterpenoidal saponins from the fruits of Diploclisia glaucescens

Chemical investigation of methanol extract of the fruits of Diploclisia glaucescens furnished 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-20-hydroxyecdysone, 3-O-[beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1-->2)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl]serjanic acid 28-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl ester and 3-O-[beta-xylopyranosyl(1-->2)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1-->2)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl]serjanic acid 28-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl ester. The latter saponin was found to be a new natural product while the other two are reported for the first time from the family Menispermaceae.     

Capacity improvement of mechanically and chemically treated Sri Lanka natural graphite as an anode material in Li-ion batteries

Sri Lanka natural graphite is found in various morphologies with different structural and physical characteristics. The most abundant morphology, the shiny–slippery–fibrous graphite found in Bogala mines (BSSI), has a very high purity of more than 98% and high crystallinity. Pure natural graphite as well as mechanically ball-milled and chemically oxidated in air or with (NH₄)₂S₂O₈ graphite has been evaluated as an anode material for Li-ion battery application, with a focus on improvement of the reversible capacity. Paper presented at the Third International Conference on Ionic Devices (ICID 2006), Chennai, Tamilnadu, India, Dec. 7–9, 2006.     

Aquaphotomics Research of Cold Stress in Soybean Cultivars with Different Stress Tolerance Ability: Early Detection of Cold Stress Response

The development of non-destructive methods for early detection of cold stress of plants and the identification of cold-tolerant cultivars is highly needed in crop breeding programs. Current methods are either destructive, time-consuming or imprecise. In this study, soybean leaves’ spectra were acquired in the near infrared (NIR) range (588–1025 nm) from five cultivars genetically engineered to have different levels of cold stress tolerance. The spectra were acquired at the optimal growing temperature 27 °C and when the temperature was decreased to 22 °C. In this paper, we report the results of the aquaphotomics analysis performed with the objective of understanding the role of the water molecular system in the early cold stress response of all cultivars. The raw spectra and the results of Principal Component Analysis, Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogies and aquagrams showed consistent evidence of huge differences in the NIR spectral profiles of all cultivars under normal and mild cold stress conditions. The SIMCA discrimination between the plants before and after stress was achieved with 100% accuracy. The interpretation of spectral patterns before and after cold stress revealed major changes in the water molecular structure of the soybean leaves, altered carbohydrate and oxidative metabolism. Specific water molecular structures in the leaves of soybean cultivars were found to be highly sensitive to the temperature, showing their crucial role in the cold stress response. The results also indicated the existence of differences in the cold stress response of different cultivars, which will be a topic of further research.     

Surface modification of natural vein graphite for the anode application in Li-ion rechargeable batteries

Natural vein graphite with high purity and crystallinity is seldom used as anode material in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (LIB) due to impurities and inherent surface structure. This study focuses on improving the surface properties of purified natural vein graphite surface by employing mild chemical oxidation. Needle-platy graphite sample with initial average carbon percentage of 99.83% was improved to 99.98% after treatment with 5 vol.% HCl. Surface modification of purified graphite was done by chemical oxidation with (NH₄)₂S₂O₈ and HNO₃. Fourier-transform infrared spectra of graphite after chemical indicating surface oxidation of graphite surface. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopic studies show the improvement of graphite structure without modification of crystalline structure. Electrochemical performance of lithium-ion cell assembled with developed anode material shows noticeable improvement of the reversible capacity and coulombic efficiency in the first cycle and cycling behavior after surface modification.     

Performance of developed natural vein graphite as the anode material of rechargeable lithium ion batteries

Electrochemical performance of natural vein graphite as an anode material for the rechargeable Li-ion battery (LIB) was investigated in this study. Natural graphite exhibits many favorable characteristics such as, high reversible capacity, appropriate potential profile, and comparatively low cost, to be an anode material for the LIB. Among the natural graphite varieties, the vein graphite typically possesses very high crystallinity together with extensively high natural purity, which in turn reduces the cost for purification. The developed natural vein graphite variety used for this study, possessed extra high purity with modified surface characteristics. Half-cell testing was carried out using CR 2032 coin cells with natural vein graphite as the active material and 1 M LiPF₆ (EC: DMC; vol. 1:1) as the electrolyte. Galvanostatic charge–discharge, cyclic voltammetry, and impedance analysis revealed a high and stable reversible capacity of 378 mA h g^?1, which is higher than the theoretical capacity (372 mA h g^?1 for LiC₆). Further, the observed low irreversible capacity acquiesces to the high columbic efficiency of over 99.9%. Therefore, this highly crystalline developed natural vein graphite can be presented as a readily usable low-cost anode material for Li-ion rechargeable batteries.