There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterials: Synthesis, Properties, Modifications, and Applications

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an emerging class of porous materials with potential applications in gas storage, separations, catalysis, and chemical sensing. Despite numerous advantages, applications of many MOFs are ultimately limited by their stability under harsh conditions. Herein, the recent advances in the field of stable MOFs, covering the fundamental mechanisms of MOF stability, design, and synthesis of stable MOF architectures, and their latest applications are reviewed. First, key factors that affect MOF stability under certain chemical environments are introduced to guide the design of robust structures. This is followed by a short review of synthetic strategies of stable MOFs including modulated synthesis and postsynthetic modifications. Based on the fundamentals of MOF stability, stable MOFs are classified into two categories: high-valency metal-carboxylate frameworks and low-valency metal-azolate frameworks. Along this line, some representative stable MOFs are introduced, their structures are described, and their properties are briefly discussed. The expanded applications of stable MOFs in Lewis/Bronsted acid catalysis, redox catalysis, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, gas storage, and sensing are highlighted. Overall, this review is expected to guide the design of stable MOFs by providing insights into existing structures, which could lead to the discovery and development of more advanced functional materials.

Stable Metal-Organic Frameworks: Design, Synthesis, and Applications.

http://csmres.co.uk/cs.public.upd/article-downloads/lynch.pdf

Protein-nanoparticle interactions

Atmospheric water is a resource equivalent to ~10% of all fresh water in lakes on Earth. However, an efficient process for capturing and delivering water from air, especially at low humidity levels (down to 20%), has not been developed. We report the design and demonstration of a device based on a porous metal-organic framework {MOF-801, [Zr6O4(OH)4(fumarate)6]} that captures water from the atmosphere at ambient conditions by using low-grade heat from natural sunlight at a flux of less than 1 sun (1 kilowatt per square meter). This device is capable of harvesting 2.8 liters of water per kilogram of MOF daily at relative humidity levels as low as 20% and requires no additional input of energy.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2017/04/12/science.aam8743.full.pdf

Water harvesting from air with metal-organic frameworks powered by natural sunlight

A thermophysical battery for storage-based climate control

Selective alkylation of phenol to 2,6-xylenol over vanadia—chromia mixed oxide catalysts

Structure activity relationship in Pd/hydrotalcite: effect of calcination of hydrotalcite on palladium dispersion and phenol hydrogenation

http://www.bose.res.in/~skpal/papers/QD_DNA.pdf

Shankar Narayanan

Papers

A thermophysical battery for storage-based climate control

Selective alkylation of phenol to 2,6-xylenol over vanadia—chromia mixed oxide catalysts

Structure activity relationship in Pd/hydrotalcite: effect of calcination of hydrotalcite on palladium dispersion and phenol hydrogenation

Ultrafast energy transfer from 3-mercaptopropionic acid-capped CdSe/ZnS QDs to dye-labelled DNA

Photostabilization of dye on anatase titania nanoparticles by polymer capping