The SunPy Project: Open Source Development and Status of the Version 1.0 Core Package

The goal of the SunPy project is to facilitate and promote the use and development of community-led, free, and open source data analysis software for solar physics based on the scientific Python environment. The project achieves this goal by developing and maintaining the sunpy core package and supporting an ecosystem of affiliated packages. This paper describes the first official stable release (version 1.0) of the core package, as well as the project organization and infrastructure. This paper concludes with a discussion of the future of the SunPy project

Preparation, characterization and catalytic activity of biomaterial-supported copper nanoparticles

Synthesis of copper nanoparticles was carried out with nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) as a support by reducing CuSO4·5H2O ions using hydrazine. Ascorbic acid and aqueous NaOH were also used as an antioxidant and pH controller, respectively. The synthesized copper nanoparticles supported on NCC (CuNPs@NCC) were characterized by UV–vis, XRD, TEM, XRF, TGA, DSC, N2 adsorption-desorption method at 77 K and FTIR. The UV–vis confirmed the formation and stability of the CuNPs, which indicated that the maximum absorbance of CuNPs@NCC was at 590 nm due to the surface plasmon absorption of CuNPs. Morphological characterization clearly showed the formation of a spherical structure of the CuNPs with the mean diameter and standard deviation of 2.71 ± 1.12 nm. Similarly, XRD showed that the synthesized CuNPs@NCC was of high purity. The thermal analysis showed that the CuNPs@NCC exhibited better thermal behaviors than NCC. BET surface area revealed that the N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms of CuNPs@NCC featured a type IV isotherm with an H3 hysterisis loop. This chemical method is simple, cost effective, and environmentally friendly. Compared to NCC-supported CuNPs and unsupported CuNPs, the as-prepared CuNPs@NCC exhibit a superior catalytic activity and high sustainability for the reduction of methylene blue with NaBH4 in aqueous solution at room temperature. The CuNPs@NCC achieved complete reduction of MB with completion time, rate constant and correlation coefficient (R 2) of 12 min, 0.7421 min−1 and 0.9922, respectively