Publications

Water pollution due to waste effluents of the textile industry is seriously causing various health problems in humans. Water pollution with pathogenic bacteria, especially Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other microbes is due to the mixing of fecal material with drinking water, industrial and domestic sewage, pasture and agricultural runoff. Among the chemical pollutants, organic dyes due to toxic nature, are one of the major contaminants of industrial wastewater. Adequate sanitation services and drinking quality water would eliminate 200 million cases of diarrhea, which results in 2.1 million less deaths caused by diarrheal disease due to E. coli each year. Nanotechnology is an excellent platform as compared to conventional treatment methods of water treatment and remediation from microorganisms and organic dyes. In the current study, toxicity and carcinogenicity of the organic dyes have been studied as well as the remediation/inactivation of dyes and microorganism has been discussed. Remediation by biological, physical and chemical methods has been reviewed critically. A physical process like adsorption is cost-effective, but can't degrade dyes. Biological methods were considered to be ecofriendly and cost-effective. Microbiological degradation of dyes is cost-effective, eco-friendly and alternative to the chemical reduction. Besides, certain enzymes especially horseradish peroxidase are used as versatile catalysts in a number of industrial processes. Moreover, this document has been prepared by gathering recent research works related to the dyes and microbial pollution elimination from water sources by using heterogeneous photocatalysts, metal nanoparticles catalysts, metal oxides and enzymes.

Design and development of potential pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 3 (PDK3) inhibitors have gained attention because of their possible therapeutic uses in lung cancer therapy. In the present study, the binding affinity of naturally occurring alkaloids, hordenine, vincamine, tryptamine, cinchonine, and colcemid was measured with PDK3. The molecular docking and fluorescence binding studies suggested that all these compounds show a considerable binding affinity for PDK3. Among them, the affinity of hordenine to the PDK3 was excellent (<i>K</i> = 10⁶ M^-1) which was further complemented by isothermal titration calorimetric measurements. Hordenine binds in the active site pocket of PDK3 and forms a significant number of non-covalent interactions with functionally important residues. All-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation study suggested that the PDK3-hordenine complex is stabilized throughout the trajectory of 100ns and leads to fewer conformational changes. The enzyme inhibition studies showed that hordenine inhibits the activity of PDK3 with an IC₅₀ value of 5.4 µM. Furthermore, hordenine showed a cytotoxic effect on human lung cancer cells (A549 and H1299) with an admirable IC₅₀ value. However, it did not inhibit the growth of HEK293 cells up to 200 µM, indicating its non-toxicity to non-cancerous cell lines. In summary, our findings provide the basis for the therapeutic implication of hordenine and its derivatives in lung cancer and PDK3-related diseases after required in vivo validation.

An ultrafine PtNi nanoparticle-decorated Ni nanosheet array with ultralow Pt loading acts as a superior hydrogen-evolving electrocatalyst.

A hierarchical meso-/micro-porous graphitized carbon with uniform mesopores and ordered micropores, graphitized frameworks, and extra-high surface area of ∼2200 m2/g, was successfully synthesized through a simple one-step chemical vapor deposition process. The commercial mesoporous zeolite Y was utilized as a meso-/ micro-porous template, and the small-molecule methane was employed as a carbon precursor. The as-prepared hierarchical meso-/micro-porous carbons have homogeneously distributed mesopores as a host for electrolyte, which facilitate Li+ ions transport to the large-area micropores, resulting a high reversible lithium ion storage of 1000 mA h/g and a high columbic efficiency of 65% at the first cycle.

Abstract In the present report, the generation of Tantalum oxyfluoride and oxynitride upon ammonolysis of the gel obtained from modified tantalum-alkoxo complexes is reported. To the best of our knowledge, this is first report of the formation of tantalum oxyfluoride thin films via ammonolysis of the β-diketone modified tantalum-alkoxo complex [Ta(OEt) 4 (CF 3 COCH 2 COCH 3 )] m . The integration of nitrogen and fluorine in lattice sites of metal oxides leads to significant reduction in the band gap, resulting in their activation under visible light. Moreover, in this report the effect of the modified alkoxide precursors and ammonolysis on the photo-physical properties of Ta 2 O 5 thin films have also been investigated and compared with the results obtained from films fabricated from unmodified tantalum (V) ethoxide. 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR and elemental analyses confirmed successful modification of tantalum (V) ethoxide to [Ta(OCH 2 CH 3 ) 4 (CH 3 COCHClCOCH 3 )] m ( 1 ), [Ta(OCH 2 CH 3 ) 4 (CF 3 COCH 2 COCH 3 ] m ( 2 ) and [Ta(OCH 2 CH 3 ) 4 (CH 3 COC(CH 3 ) 2 COCH 3 ))] m ( 3 ). The fabrication of Ta 2 O 5 thin films involved the spin casting of the gels of modified tantalum alkoxo complexes (processed by sol-gel method) on to glass substrate. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results show that nitrogen was incorporated into the ammonolyzed films fabricated from complex precursors ( 1 ) and ( 3 ), while the presence of fluorine as tantalum oxyfluoride was confirmed in the ammonolyzed film fabricated from complex ( 2 ) precursor. The optical characterization insinuate band gap narrowing from 3.55 eV for undoped film prepared from tantalum (V) ethoxide to 3.47 eV for undoped film prepared from [Ta(OEt) 4 (CF 3 COCH 2 COCH 3 )] m and 3.05 eV for ammonolyzed film obtained from [Ta(OEt) 4 (CF 3 COCH 2 COCH 3 )] m precursor. Furthermore, enhanced photocatalytic efficiency of the films is demonstrated by degradation of methylene blue dye.