Contamination triggered by toxic metal ions and dyes is a foremost menace to the environment and its inhabitants. Industries including metal plating, paints, and battery engineering are responsible ...for the delivery of metal ions and toxic dyes in the environment. In remediation to this, it is important to eradicate these toxic elements from the environment. Molecular-imprinted polymers (MIPs) can be used for discerning adsorption of these toxic elements. This technology is based on the principle of “lock and key” initially used as enzymes for substrate recognition. A class of polymerization techniques can be used in developing a MIP initiated by the self-assembled functional monomers around the molecules of templates due to “functional group–template” and “functional group–monomer” interactions. The advantage of this technology is that the adsorption removes metal and dye effluents from the sample, and the desorption makes the binding sites reusable for the next cycle. The goal of this Review is to cover the principles, techniques, and applications of various MIPs in the elimination of heavy metal ions and some common toxic dyes with notable comparative and quantitative viewpoints. It also comprises the accounts of noteworthy scientific research in MIP technology, with their significant adsorption capacities and reusability, that can be resourcefully used for toxicity removal progressions on the industrial level for making a healthy and hearty environment.
In this new era, the cutting-edge progress of numerous technologies for modern and better lifestyles as well as a wide range of aquatic and global habitats by increasing anthropogenic activities is ...directly responsible for contamination of potable water and edible things, which are hazardous for living entities. Recently, several research groups have focussed towards the utilization of biomass as a renewable energy source or biogenic carbon-based devices for medical applications. Biomass such as wheat straw ash (WSA), rice husk ash (RHA), sugarcane bagasse ash (SBA), coconut peal ash (CPA), sunflower husk ash (SHA), peanut peel ash (PPA), walnut peel ash (WPA) and waste coffee beans (WCB) contain an enormous quantity of carbon, and the biomass ash can be utilized for generating high-quality carbon-based nanomaterials such as graphene (Gr), graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that has excellent purity from combustion by-products as well the total process is practically environmentally beneficial in terms of CO2 emissions and global warming. The unique properties of carbon-based nanostructures play a vital role in enhancing the performance of medical devices and detection tools in cancer detection and its therapy to overcome the diseases impact on human health. Thus, the significance of carbon and its allotropes is underlined, with a particular emphasis on the role of biogenic carbon nanostructured in the healthcare and medical products because of having high-surface-area, good adsorption capabilities, better mechanically stable devices, and tailored instinctive micro-based devices that can assist in avoiding health problem. This review summarizes numerous affordable, modern, sophisticated medical applications by using high-valued biogenic nanostructured materials, particularly for the production of CNTs, which are used to make biomarkers, biosensors, for bio-imaging, gene and drug delivery systems, and detection for the initial stage of cancer and its treatment.
Polysaccharide-based hydrogels offer a great overlook for environmental applications and help in the elimination of various noxious pollutants from the water system. Novel carrageenan and itaconic ...acid-based superadsorbent hydrogel having appreciable swelling properties and adsorption capacity towards Methylene blue (MB), Crystal violet (CV), and Methyl Red (MR) was synthesized by suspension polymerization technique. The swelling study showed the dependency upon the temperature in which the swelling rate increased with increasing temperature with a maximum swelling rate of 417% at 318 K. For ascertaining the maximum adsorption capacity, various influential parameters such as contact time, adsorbent dose, dye concentration, and temperature were systematically studied. Maximum adsorption capacity as calculated from the Langmuir isotherm was 2439.02, 1111.11, and 666.68 mg/g for MB, CV, and MR, respectively. Thermodynamic studies revealed the spontaneous nature of the undertaken dye adsorption experiment. Overall, the present study reveals that the synthesized superadsorbent hydrogel can be used as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of dyes from an aqueous solution.
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•Superadsorbent hydrogel designed for the adsorptive removal of cationic dyes.•Maximum adsorption capacity obtained for MB followed by CV and MR.•Results have been analyzed by isotherm and kinetic studies.•Superadsorbent hydrogel successfully recycled for consecutive 5 cycles.
We introduce a dataset for facilitating audio-visual analysis of music performances. The dataset comprises 44 simple multi-instrument classical music pieces assembled from coordinated but separately ...recorded performances of individual tracks. For each piece, we provide the musical score in MIDI format, the audio recordings of the individual tracks, the audio and video recording of the assembled mixture, and ground-truth annotation files including frame-level and note-level transcriptions. We describe our methodology for the creation of the dataset, particularly highlighting our approaches to address the challenges involved in maintaining synchronization and expressiveness. We demonstrate the high quality of synchronization achieved with our proposed approach by comparing the dataset with existing widely used music audio datasets. We anticipate that the dataset will be useful for the development and evaluation of existing music information retrieval (MIR) tasks, as well as for novel multimodal tasks. We benchmark two existing MIR tasks (multipitch analysis and score-informed source separation) on the dataset and compare them with other existing music audio datasets. In addition, we consider two novel multimodal MIR tasks (visually informed multipitch analysis and polyphonic vibrato analysis) enabled by the dataset and provide evaluation measurements and baseline systems for future comparisons (from our recent work). Finally, we propose several emerging research directions that the dataset enables.
Researchers researching the theme of intercultural communication and dialogue must re-examine a lot of objectives for the re-enlightenment of intercultural relations due to the impact of Covid 19 ...pandemic, which has distressed human interaction and social cultural contexts. This research focuses on the concept of intercultural communication and dialogue and its connectivity to humans internationally. This Paper reveals the complication of physical contact, impact of the pandemic, human suffering, hybrid education, social disruption, and social inequality. This Paper also brings SWOT analysis which unfolds weaknesses and threats to work on, with the help of strengths and opportunities. This paper also addresses the impact of intercultural communication and dialogues in the area of values, beliefs, conflict, stereotypes, languages, verbal and non-verbal communication, spoken and written language, relationships and interactions between people and society. This paper also highlights the influence of digitalization on society globally during the Covid-19 pandemic. All areas are specifically addressed to overcome all challenges mentioned in this paper for understanding the dimensions of cross-cultural cooperation and communication.
Bimetallic nanoparticles (BNPs) are formed by the combination of two different metals. Bimetallic nanoparticles have attracted huge attention as compared to monometallic nanoparticles in both ...technological and scientific view because BNPs shows better properties. Bimetallic nanoparticles can be synthesized in different shape, size and structure. The nanocomposites of BNPs have been prepared by supporting them on the organic or inorganic counterparts. BNPs nanocomposites have improved properties as compared to those of bimetallic nanoparticles. Due to reduction in size and increase in surface area, these are prominently used as catalyst. Application area of bimetallic nanocomposites includes drug delivery, water purification and catalysis etc.
•Electrochemical synthesis of CuO NPs and effect of different reaction parameters.•CuO NPs have been characterized by different spectral techniques.•CuO NPs have been explored for photocatalytic ...degradation of dyes.•Antimicrobial activity of CuO NPs have been studied.
The electrochemical method has been investigated for the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) under different reaction conditions. The CuO NPs were used as excellent photocatalyst for the degradation of different organic dyes under the illumination of sunlight irradiation. The highest degradation was 93% for methylene blue. The rate constant for MB, MR, and CR was found to be first-order with values 0.02059, 0.02046, and 0.01749min−1, respectively. The antimicrobial efficiency of CuO NPs was investigated against bacterial strains (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) and fungal strains (Aspergillus nigres and Candida albicans).
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•Atrazine removal using chitin based nanohydrogel- adsorption & desorption.•Chitin-cl-poly(acrylamide-co-itaconic acid) - microwave synthesis.•Results shows the maximum adsorption ...capacity of 204.08 mg/g.•Chitin-cl-poly(acrylamide-co-itaconic acid) nanohydrogel - pH responsive nature.
Removal of commonly used pesticide, atrazine was examined by employing chitin based nanohydrogel. Chitin-cl-poly (acrylamide-co-itaconic acid) nanohydrogel was synthesized by microwave method. Dissolution of chitin was done by freezing thawing method in NaOH/urea solution. The morphology and functional characteristics were confirmed by FTIR, XRD, SEM, TGA, TEM, and EDX techniques. Maximum swelling capacity, isotherm study, kinetics, adsorption and desorption of atrazine pesticide were evaluated in this study. Maximum adsorption capacity of designed nanohydrogel was found to be 204.08 mg/g. Langmuir and pseudo- second order models were determined to be applicable for explaining the undertaken adsorption process. Neutral pH was found to be favorable for maximum adsorption. In addition, results have specified the pH responsive nature of nanohydrogel for controlled release of atrazine.
Among energy buffering alternatives, supercapacitors can provide unmatched efficiency and durability. Additionally, the direct relation between a supercapacitor's terminal voltage and stored energy ...can improve energy awareness. However, a simple capacitive approximation cannot adequately represent the stored energy in a supercapacitor. It is shown that the three branch equivalent circuit model provides more accurate energy awareness. This equivalent circuit uses three capacitances and associated resistances to represent the supercapacitor's internal SOC (state-of-charge). However, the SOC cannot be determined from one observation of the terminal voltage, and must be tracked over time using inexact measurements. We present: 1) a Kalman filtering solution for tracking the SOC; 2) an on-line system identification procedure to efficiently estimate the equivalent circuit's parameters; and 3) experimental validation of both parameter estimation and SOC tracking for 5 F, 10 F, 50 F, and 350 F supercapacitors. Validation is done within the operating range of a solar powered application and the associated power variability due to energy harvesting. The proposed techniques are benchmarked against the simple capacitive model and prior parameter estimation techniques, and provide a 67% reduction in root-mean-square error for predicting usable buffered energy.
•The energy stored in a supercapacitor cannot be determined by terminal voltage alone.•Kalman state tracking with a three branch model improves stored energy awareness.•A novel estimation technique enables in-situ estimation of required model parameters.•The proposed method accurately determines the energy buffered in a supercapacitor.
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