Fabrication of cornstarch biopolymer-derived nano porous carbon as electrode material for supercapacitor application

Porous carbon is prepared from the cornstarch biopolymer by simple carbonization process initially at 800 °C. This carbon sample has been activated by gasification with the help of oxidizing gas and by reaction with certain chemicals for its pore development. The final product of activated carbon is then characterized by techniques like XRD, RAMAN, BET, TGA, FESEM, and EDX to study all its behavior. The results of these characterizations have been thoroughly studied in the Sect. 3. The carbon is used as an electrode material to decorate the supercapacitor electrode by 1 mg of coating. Polymer electrolyte film of PVDF-HFP doped with 300 wt% of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tricyanomethanide (TCM) (optimized for better conductivity) ionic liquid is used as a separator. A supercapacitor device is then fabricated at laboratory scale with the prepared porous carbon electrodes sandwiched with the electrolyte film which yield a specific capacitance of 188.4 F/gm at 10 mHz confirmed from the electrochemical low-frequency impedance spectroscopy plot. Cyclic voltammetry results were also measured, yielding a high specific capacitance of 184.8 F/gm at 5 mV/s

Synthesis of porous carbon from a PVC polymer and its application in supercapacitors

In this study, the laboratory scale production of activated carbon synthesized from PVC with CoCl2 and H3PO4, which is cheaper and has a good yield source material, is reported. A prototype supercapacitor was successfully developed using activated carbon as an electrode material derived from the PVC polymer and IL (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate) as the electrolyte. The performance of the supercapacitor was estimated via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and the charge–discharge technique. The supercapacitor offered a high specific capacitance of ∼120 F g−1 at 5 m V s−1. The performances of the supercapacitor were also estimated up to 15 days and up to 9000 cycles via cyclic voltammetry

Intracellular speciation of gold nanorods alters the conformational dynamics of genomic DNA

Gold nanorods are one of the most widely explored inorganic materials in nanomedicine for diagnostics, therapeutics and sensing1. It has been shown that gold nanorods are not cytotoxic and localize within cytoplasmic vesicles following endocytosis, with no nuclear localization2,3, but other studies have reported alterations in gene expression profiles in cells following exposure to gold nanorods, via unknown mechanisms4. In this work we describe a pathway that can contribute to this phenomenon. By mapping the intracellular chemical speciation process of gold nanorods, we show that the commonly used Au–thiol conjugation, which is important for maintaining the noble (inert) properties of gold nanostructures, is altered following endocytosis, resulting in the formation of Au(i)–thiolates that localize in the nucleus5. Furthermore, we show that nuclear localization of the gold species perturbs the dynamic microenvironment within the nucleus and triggers alteration of gene expression in human cells. We demonstrate this using quantitative visualization of ubiquitous DNA G-quadruplex structures, which are sensitive to ionic imbalances, as an indicator of the formation of structural alterations in genomic DNA