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Silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) are most effective against pathogens and have widely been studied as antibacterial agents in commodity clothing, medical textile, and other hygiene products. However, prolonged utilization of silver and rapid mutation in bacterium stains has made them resistant to conventional silver agents. On the other hand, strict compliance against excessive utilization of toxic reagents and the current sustainability drive is forcing material synthesis toward green routes with extended functionality. In this study, we proposed an unprecedented chemical-free green synthesis of bioactive Ag-NPs without the incorporation of any chemicals. Cinnamon essential oil (ECO) was used as a bio-reducing agent with and without the mediation of lime extract. A rapid reaction completion with better shape and size control was observed in the vicinity of lime extract when incorporated into the reaction medium. The interaction of natural metabolites and citrus compounds with nanoparticles was established using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy. The application of as-prepared nanoparticles on textiles encompasses extended bioactivity to treated fabric with infused easy-care performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported instance of utilizing bioactive silver nanoparticles as a functional finish, both as an antimicrobial and as for easy care in the absolute absence of toxic chemicals. The easy-care performance of fabric treated with lime-mediated nanoparticles was found to be 141O, which is around 26% better than bare cotton without any significant loss in fabric strength. Furthermore, to enlighten the sustainability of the process, the development traits were mapped with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which show significant influence on SDGs 3, 8, 9, and 14. With the effective suspension of microorganisms, added functionality, and eco-mapping with SDGs with the chemical-free synthesis of nanoparticles, widespread utilization can be found in various healthcare and hygiene products along with the fulfillment of sustainability needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field-effect transistors (FET) composed of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) materials have gained huge importance as biosensors due to their added advantage of high sensitivity and moderate bandgap. However, the true potential of these biosensors highly depends upon the quality of TMDC material, as well as the orientation of receptors on their surfaces. The uncontrolled orientation of receptors and screening issues due to crossing the Debye screening length while functionalizing TMDC materials is a big challenge in this field. To address these issues, we introduce a combination of high-quality monolayer WSe2 with our designed Pyrene-based receptor moiety for its ordered orientation onto the WSe2 FET biosensor. A monolayer WSe2 sheet is utilized to fabricate an ideal FET for biosensing applications, which is characterized via Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and electrical prob station. Our construct can sensitively detect our target protein (streptavidin) with 1 pM limit of detection within a short span of 2 min, through a one-step functionalizing process. In addition to having this ultra-fast response and high sensitivity, our biosensor can be a reliable platform for point-of-care-based diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mango, the king of fruits, is one of the most important fruit crops of Pakistan. In the country, Sammar Bahisht Chaunsa is a major cultivar grown for domestic consumption as well as exporting to international markets; however, the cultivar has a strong disorder of biennial bearing. The main cause of the disorder is lack of immediate, sufficient and vigorous postharvest vegetative growth, which is essential for next year flowering/fruiting. The current study was designed to overcome this fruiting pattern by inducing postharvest vegetative growth immediately after fruit harvesting as this growth is must required for flowering. The trial was conducted in the experimental orchard of Mango Research Station, Shujabad on 25 years old trees of cultivar Sammar Bahisht Chaunsa, planted at 12m apart rows and plants. The experiment was performed during 2015-2020. One level of urea (2%) and two levels of KNO3 (1 % and 2%) alone and in various combinations were applied to mango trees immediately after the fruit harvesting to study their effects on the induction of vegetative growth. It was found that KNO3 at 1% ensured the maximum postharvest growth (67.11%) with maximum flowering (39.49%), and fruit yield (241 kg/plant). However nonsignificant difference (25 to 26 OBRIX) in total soluble solids (TSS) and titratable acidity (TA) was noted(0.7 to 0.9%) in all the treatments. It was concluded that application of KNO3 twice at 10 days interval alone or in combination with urea 2% after the harvesting of fruits was found beneficial for getting proper postharvest growth in mango trees to support subsequent fruit crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current era of nanotechnology has provided numerous impressive opportunities to purify ever-increasing water impurities. Of them, photodegradation of industrial dyes is one of the best strategies to solve this problem effectively using cost-effective photocatalysts. MXene has been considered as an efficient photocatalytic material however, its transport properties suffer due to the re-stacking of its flakes. Moreover, a very low bandgap of MXene causes electron/hole recombination which is a major drawback of a photocatalyst. Herein, we explored 2D/2D composite nanoarchitectures to stop this re-stacking in MXene by applying Zinc oxide nanoflakes (ZnO NFKs) with Ti 3 C 2 T x (MXene) to solve this outstanding issue. The as-synthesized composite nanoarchitectures not only degraded the 99.9% Methylene Blue (MB) dye within 40 min but also demonstrated excellent antibacterial activity. We hope the work presented here will be a great help for the young researchers exploring the hybrid 2D-2D composite nanoarchitectures for various applications. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene is an excellent material among the family of 2D materials due to its electronic and optoelectronic properties. The intentional modification of its electronic structure via doping processes holds immense significance regarding tailoring its properties for specific applications. We comprehensively investigated p-type doping in few-layer graphene field-effect transistors (FETs) on SiO 2 /Si substrates by utilizing Iron(III)-chloride (FeCl 3) dopant solutions with varying concentrations that range from 5 mM to 50 mM in this study. The successful doping was confirmed via a meticulous Raman spectroscopy analysis, which revealed notable shifts in the peak positions and peak broadening post-doping. Electrical measurements, which include transfer curves at a fixed biasing voltage, provided further confirmation, which demonstrates a distinctive shift in the Dirac point from −1 V to +25 V when the FeCl 3 concentrations were changed from 5 mM to 50 mM. The impact of doping on the photoresponse of the graphene device was systematically explored. The device exhibited a significant increase in responsivity and external quantum efficiency following the p-type doping, which indicates an enhanced performance in photodetection. This research validates the successful p-type doping of graphene and underscores its implications regarding optimizing the electrical and optoelectronic properties of graphene-based devices, which confirms its potential for advanced applications for electronic and optoelectronic technologies. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bathing epilepsy is a specific type of reflex epilepsy which is triggered by bathing irrespective of the water temperature or bathing style. Because of the technical limitations of electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, seizures occurring during baths are rarely captured. [Extracted from the article]

Graphical abstract A uniquely structured bilayer ETM is studied for the first time, as an electron transporting material in detail for hybrid perovskite solar cells leading to power conversion efficiency above 20.5%. Abstract ZnO as an electron transporting material (ETM) in perovskite solar cells has many benefits, including low temperature processability and high mobility. We explore here for the first time, hysteresis-less mesostructured perovskite solar cells with an incredible steady-state efficiency of 20.62% particularly enhancement of the device stability. We anticipated a device structure consisting of a novel fully-solution-processed and low-temperature barium hydroxide hybridized boron-doped ZnO (B:ZnO) bilayer film as electron transport material (ETM). We modify the design of ETMs with reduced trap states density is very crucial to obtain highly stabilized power conversion efficiency (PCE) and adjustable architectures in perovskite solar cells which should produce an impact on emerging highly efficient devices and their future commercialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Green synthesis of functional self-cleaning textile through simple pad-dry-cure method. • Absolute absence of toxic reagent in finish formulation. • Employed self-cleaning performance against various mutagenic commercial dyes. • As-developed fabric present additional easy-care properties and extended strength retention. Multifunctional textiles, especially with self-cleaning characteristics are among the highly desired products to reduce cleaning effort, water resources and ease of maintenance. In this study the surface properties of cotton are successfully modified through crosslinking of citric acid/chitosan immobilized transition metal oxide (TMO) nano photocatalysts through a facile and cost-effective pad-dry-cure method. The chemical interaction was established through FTIR spectroscopy. All samples present broad-spectrum self-cleaning ability while ZnO immobilized crosslinked fabric was found to be excellent with up to 3 folds enhanced photocatalytic. In parallel to excellent self-cleaning, the as-finished fabrics exhibited extended antimicrobial performance coupled with added easy-care properties and a 28% improvement in strength retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]