Pt-based 3D electrocatalyst with process-friendly features for PEMFCs possessing fast activation and improved mass-transfer properties - Pandikassala, Ajmal; Nadumattuvayil, Varsha; Singh, Mayank U.; Jadhav, Swapnil D.; Yoyakki, Athira; Kurungot, Sreekumar (Advanced Sustainable Systems, 2025)
Polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) face the challenges like slow oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics and limited mass transport at high current densities, which affects their performance. The efficient water removal from the cathode is essential to improve oxygen diffusion. Addressing this, a catalyst is presented with platinum (Pt) nanoparticles distributed within a 3D carbon network (Pt/3DPDC) derived from the polydopamine-coated melamine foam. This unique architecture enhances Pt utilization and water management due to its high porosity and ample free spaces, providing a process-friendly feature for the electrode under PEMFC conditions. The pores and accessible texture of the 3D polydopamine derived carbon (3DPDC) framework facilitate ionomer uptake during the electrode fabrication, extending the active triple-phase boundary and improving the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) performance. The high porosity of Pt/3DPDC is mitigated by adding a small amount of commercial fuel cell catalayst (Pt/C), which maintains the effective catalyst number density per unit area by utilizing the excess porosity of the 3DPDC framework. This controlled interplay of the unique catalyst structure and spatially confined distribution of Pt/C within the Pt/3DPDC framework offers fast activation, reduced electrode flooding, and improved current densities across the operating potential window. This carefully engineered catalyst, designed through bottom-up strategies, is a promising electrocatalyst for practical PEMFC applications.
Keywords: Oxygen Evolution Reaction; oxygen reduction reaction; rechargeable flexible zinc-air battery

Regioisomeric π-extended nanographene with long-lived phosphorescence afterglow - Kumar, Viksit; Venugopal, Geethu; Jadhav, Ashok Badrinarayan; Dongre, Sangram D.; Gonnade, Rajesh; Kumar, Jatish; Ruer, Paul C.; Hupp, Benjamin; Steffen, Andreas; Babu, Sukumaran Santhosh (Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, 2025)
The cutouts of graphene sheets, particularly those with a nonplanar topology, present vast opportunities for advancement. Even a slight deviation from the planar structure can lead to intriguing (chiro)optical features for helically twisted nanographenes. In this context, we introduce two regioisomeric pi-extended nanographenes that exhibit distinct excited-state characteristics. The helicene structure and the photophysical features can be easily tuned by changing the connecting position of the nanographene to the carbazole core (2,7- and 3,6-). Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of nanographenes with bent and helical conformations. Both derivatives exhibited thermally activated delayed fluorescence at room temperature and phosphorescence at low temperatures. Notably, the nanographene with the bent structure displayed an impressive red afterglow lasting over 30seconds, in contrast to the very weak afterglow observed in the helical structure. DFT calculations revealed the existence of an isoenergetic higher triplet state (T-8) and comparatively weak spin-orbit coupling (T-1-S-0), thereby enabling the bent nanographene to exhibit a long-lived component and strong afterglow. Our findings highlight the significance of regioisomeric nanographenes with exceptional optical properties and offer a deeper understanding of the structure-property relationship in nonplanar nanographenes.
Keywords: Afterglow; CPL; Helicenes; nanographene; Phosphorescence; TADF

Retrieval augmented generation for building datasets from scientific literature - Maharana, Piyush Ranjan; Verma, Ashwini; Joshi, Kavita (Journal of Physics-Materials, 2025)
In this work, we show that employing retrieval augmented generation (RAG) with a large language model (LLM) enables us to extract accurate data from scientific literature and construct datasets. The rapid growth in publications necessitates the automation of extraction of structured data as it is crucial for training machine learning(ML) models. The pipeline developed is simple and can be adjusted accordingly with natural language as input. Quantization enables us to run LLMs on consumer hardware and remove the reliance on closed-source models. Both Llama3-8B and Gemma2-9B with RAG give structured output consistently and with high accuracy as compared to direct prompting. Using the newly developed protocol, we created a data set of metal hydrides for solid-state hydrogen storage from paper abstracts. The accuracy of the generated dataset was >88% in the cases tested. Further, we demonstrate that the generated dataset is ready-to-use for ML models by testing it with HYST to predict the H(2)wt% at a given temperature. Thus, we demonstrate a pipeline to create datasets from scientific literature at minimal computational cost and high accuracy.
Keywords: dataset building; Hydrogen storage; LLM; materials; RAG

Sequential nitro-michael addition and reductive cyclization cascade reaction for diastereoselective synthesis of multifunctionalized 3,3′-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindoles - Nichinde, Chandrakant B.; Bhati, Meema; Girase, Amardipsing S.; Patil, Baliram R.; Chaudhari, Suryakant S.; Gamidi, Rama Krishna; Joshi, Kavita; Kinage, Anil K. (European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2025)
In this investigation, we elucidated, one-pot two stage efficient synthesis of multifuctionalized spiro[oxindole -3,3 `-pyrrolidine]. The methodology proceeds via organocatalyzed nitro-Michael addition reaction between indolylidenecyanoesters and nitroalkanes to formed nitro-Michael adduct which transformed into multifunctionalized 3,3 `-pyrrolidinyl-spirooxindoles by metal catalyzed reductive cyclization cascade. DFT investigations were conducted to elucidate the mechanism underlying the preferential reduction of the nitro group, with subsequent attack on the nitrile and ester groups remain inert throughout the reaction process. The approach is operationally simple, easily scalable, exhibits compatibility with readily accessible starting material and catalysts, thereby emphasizing cost-effectiveness.
Keywords: 3 `-pyrrolidinyl spirooxindoles; DFT study for regioselective cyclization; Diastereoselective 3; organocatalysis; Pd/C catalysed partial reductive spirocyclization

Simple freeze-thaw based method for efficient purification of recombinant human proinsulin from inclusion bodies - Rajesh, S.; Jathar, Swaraj; Banarjee, Reema; Sharma, Monika; Palkar, Shivani; Shankar, S. Shiva; Kulkarni, Mahesh J. (Protein Expression and Purification, 2025)
Insulin is a pivotal peptide hormone essential for regulating glucose homeostasis. It has been known for over 100 years, but its production and purification methods are still under improvement. Escherichia coli based bacterial expression system is primarily used for insulin production. The human insulin protein expressed in bacteria usually forms inclusion bodies, complicating the purification process. Traditionally, insulin purification is a timeconsuming process involving urea-based denaturation methods, and various refolding techniques, followed by extensive chromatographic methods. Here, we report an easy and efficient purification of human proinsulin involving freeze-thaw based solubilization method. The extracted proinsulin inclusion bodies are treated with different concentrations of urea, followed by a freeze-thaw based solubilization. The freezing was carried out at various temperatures, mainly -80 degrees C, -20 degrees C, and -196 degrees C to determine the optimum condition for solubilization. Highest solubilization of proinsulin from the inclusion body was achieved with 0.5M urea and -20 degrees C. Further Nickel NTA-based purification was performed, and the purified protein was characterized for disulfide mapping by high-resolution mass spectrometer (HRMS). We also performed glucose uptake assays to validate the functional properties of purified proinsulin. This freeze-thaw based mild solubilization approach is a fast and effective method for getting bioactive proinsulin, which will help further design better purification and processing strategies for insulin production.
Keywords: Diabetes; Disulfide mapping; glucose; insulin; Mass spectrometry

Structure and properties of the cellulose fibres spun from imidazolium-based carboxylate functionalized zwitterionic liquid - Jadhav, Sachin; Singh, Dhirendra; Gupta, Deepika; Ganvir, Vivek; Singh, Madan Kumar; Shanmuganathan, Kadhiravan (CARBOHYDRATE POLYMERS, 2025)
Keywords: cellulose; Direct dissolution; Zwitterionic liquid

Synthesis and structural studies of ammonium exchanged synthetic analogue of disordered aluminosilicate natrolite - Gavhane, Manjusha J.; Jha, R. K.; Nam, Kyung-Wan; Bhange, Deu S. (Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 2025)
The current article reports preparation and structural analysis of NH4+ exchanged form of synthetic natrolite zeolite (NH4-natrolite) with disordered structure wherein Si and Al occupies all the tetrahedral (T) sites in the zeolite framework. Structural data is used to gain insight into the structural parameters those influence thermal stability of its proposed H-form. NH4-natrolite is prepared by ion-exchange method from K-natrolite (which was also obtained by ion-exchange with Na-natrolite). Na-natrolite, K-natrolite and NH4-natrolite prepared in this study were tested for their structural, morphological and thermal analysis. Synchrotron X-ray diffraction data was utilized to estimate the crystal structures of hydrated forms of Na-natrolite, K-natrolite and NH4-exchanged natrolites. Thermal analysis of NH4-natrolite revealed that the dehydration is followed by removal of ammonia during calcination. The role of the size (radius) and nature (either divalent or monovalent) of the exchangeable cations present in the channels, the framework chemical content and extent of `T' atom ordering have been collectively discussed and correlated with the structural behaviour of calcined NH4-natrolite to explain its thermal stability in better way.
Keywords: Crystal structure of natrolite; Disordered framework; zeolite

Tailoring the electrochemical properties of ZnS electrodes via cobalt doping for improved supercapacitor application - Tom, Emmanuel; Velluva, Abhijai; Joseph, Anit; Thomas, Tiju; Sha, Mizaj Shabil; Jithin, V, P.; Thomas, Deepu; Sadasivuni, Kishor Kumar; Kurian, Joji (JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC MATERIALS, 2025)
Keywords: capacitance; Co-doped; supercapacitor; ZnS

Thrombin immobilized hemocompatible radiopaque polyurethane microspheres for topical blood coagulation - Naik, Sonali S.; Torris, Arun; Ghuge, Gorakh Hiraman; Karthika, V. K.; Joseph, Roy; Nair, Kiran Sukumaran (JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL MATERIALS RESEARCH PART A, 2025)
Keywords: ALGINATE MICROSPHERES; ENDOVASCULAR TREATMENT; PRECISE LOCALIZATION

Transit of NEAT1 and MTP11 to the plasma membrane and co-localization to vesicles support a role for exocytosis-mediated export in metal homeostasis - Vetal, Pallavi V.; Jaskolowski, Aime; Poirier, Yves (Physiologia Plantarum, 2025)
Understanding the role and mode of action of nutrient transporters requires information about their dynamic associations with plant membranes. Historically, apoplastic nutrient export has been associated with proteins localized at the plasma membrane (PM), while the role of endomembrane localization has been less explored. However, recent work on the PHOSPHATE 1 (PHO1) inorganic phosphate (Pi) exporter demonstrated that, although primarily localized at the Golgi and trans-Golgi network (TGN) vesicles, PHO1 does associate with the PM when clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) was inhibited, supporting a mechanism for Pi homeostasis involving exocytosis. We explored whether CME inhibition can identify other transporters that, although primarily localized at Golgi/TGN at steady-state level, also transit via the PM and are potentially involved in export via exocytosis. We found that, similar to PHO1, Golgi-localized transporters NA EFFLUX TRANSPORTER1 (NAET1) and METAL TOLERANCE PROTEIN11 (MTP11) relocate to the PM when CME is inhibited, both transiently in Nicotiana benthamiana and conditionally in Arabidopsis thaliana. Such PM re-localization of transporters upon CME inhibition is specific, since it does not occur with several other Golgi-associated transporters, including MTP5 and BIVALENT CATION TRANSPORTER 3 (BICAT3), as well as resident Golgi/TGN membrane proteins, such as alpha-1,2-MANNOSIDASE I (Man1) and VESICLE TRANSPORT V-SNARE 12 (VTI12). Additionally, we observed that NAET1, MTP11 and PHO1 all partially co-localize to vesicles. Overall, our study supports a role for synaptic-like vesicle-mediated exocytosis for both NEAT1 and MTP11 in nutrient transport in plants and highlights the importance of assessing the transient localization of Golgi/TGN proteins to the PM.

Ultrabroad near infrared emitting perovskites - Saikia, Sajid; Gopal, Animesh; Rathod, Radha; Joshi, Aprajita; Priolkar, K. R.; Saha, Surajit; Santra, Pralay K.; Shanmuganathan, Kadhiravan; Nag, Angshuman (Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, 2025)
Phosphor converted light emitting diodes (pc-LEDs) have revolutionized solid-state white lighting by replacing energy-inefficient filament-based incandescent lamps. However, such a pc-LED emitting ultrabroad near-infrared (NIR) radiations still remains a challenge, primarily because of the lack of ultrabroad NIR emitting phosphors. To address this issue, we have prepared 2.5 % W4+-doped and 2.8 % Mo4+-doped Cs2Na0.95Ag0.05BiCl6 perovskites emitting ultrabroad NIR radiation with unprecedented spectral widths of 434 and 468 nm, respectively. Upon band-edge excitation, the soft lattice of the host exhibits broad self-trapped exciton (STE) emission covering NIR-I (700 nm), which then nonradiatively excites the dopants. The <img alt="mathematical equation" class="fallback__image" src="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/cbbb8722-f036-4e98-91f1-f78348f240a5/anie202415003-math-0001.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Open Sans", icomoon, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> –donor ligand Cl− reduces the energy of dopant d–d transitions emitting NIR-II with a peak at ~950 nm. Vibronic coupling broadens the dopant emission. The large spin-orbit coupling and local structural distortion might possibly enhance the dopant emission intensity, leading to an overall NIR photoluminescence quantum yield ~40 %. The composite of our ultrabroad NIR phosphors with biodegradable polymer polylactic acid could be processed into free-standing films and 3D printed structures. Large (170<img alt="mathematical equation" class="fallback__image" src="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/62119a49-ef5d-4b17-a727-798978412727/anie202415003-math-0002.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Open Sans", icomoon, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> 170 <img alt="mathematical equation" class="fallback__image" src="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/3d2c08c0-4ab8-436a-bc69-603df5328723/anie202415003-math-0003.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-style: none; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Open Sans", icomoon, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> ), robust, and thermally stable 3D printed pc-LED panels emit ultrabroad NIR radiation, demonstrating NIR imaging applications.

Unravelling the Cu-Co nanoparticle synergy over Ceria-Zirconia support toward efficient reverse water gas shift (RWGS) conversion under H2 lean conditions - Jagtap, Anuradha Vijay; Bamnia, Mahesh Kumar; Maibam, Ashakiran; Bajpai, Jyotsna Paliwal; Gupta, Sharad; Thomas, Sharon K.; Dabke, Niteen B.; Vinod, C. P. (Chemical Engineering Journal, 2025)
CO2 emissions leading to global warming and environmental and socio-economic issues have propelled the research community to develop technologies capable of capturing and converting CO2 into valuable products. Controlling the selectivity toward platform molecules like CO, methanol, or methane is a fundamental challenge in CO2 hydrogenation. Supported cobalt nanoparticles are known for hydrocarbon production through FischerTropsch (FT) reaction, and Cu-based catalysts are known for reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction. Here, we show that d-band centre can be carefully modulated by making bimetallic combinations of Cu and Co for a highly active RWGS catalyst. An oxygen vacancy-rich nanostructured ceria-zirconia (CZ) support with Cu nanoparticles (2 wt%) modified with as low as 0.05 wt% Co shows excellent conversion for CO2 hydrogenation and selectivity for CO below 500 degrees C. The optimized catalyst shows CO2 conversion even under hydrogen lean conditions (H2/ CO2 ratio 0.5:1), with a breakthrough rate of 206023 mmol/gmetal/h for CO at 600 degrees C, having H2 utilization of 80% for the RWGS process.
Keywords: Bimetallic catalyst; Ceria-zirconia; CO 2 hydrogenation; Cobalt catalyst; Copper catalyst; Reverse water gas shift (RWGS); synergistic effect

Vat-based 3D-bioprinted scaffolds from photocurable bacterial levan for osteogenesis and immunomodulation - Waidi, Yusuf Olatunji; Wagh, Vasudev S.; Mishra, Shivangi; Jhunjhunwala, Siddharth; Dastager, Syed G.; Chatterjee, Kaushik (Biomacromolecules, 2025)
Emerging techniques of additive manufacturing, such as vat-based three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting, offer novel routes to prepare personalized scaffolds of complex geometries. However, there is a need to develop bioinks suitable for clinical translation. This study explored the potential of bacterial-sourced methacrylate levan (LeMA) as a bioink for the digital light processing (DLP) 3D bioprinting of bone tissue scaffolds. LeMA was successfully synthesized, characterized, and used to fabricate 3D-bioprinted scaffolds with excellent printability and physicochemical properties. In vitro studies demonstrated superior cytocompatibility of 15% w/v LeMA gels compared to 20% gels. 15% LeMA gels supported osteogenic differentiation , as evidenced by alkaline phosphatase activity and mineral deposition by MC3T3 pre-osteoblasts. Importantly, the LeMA hydrogels positively modulated the macrophage phenotype, promoting the expression of the anti-inflammatory marker CD206. These findings suggest that 3D-printed LeMA scaffolds can create a favorable microenvironment for bone regeneration, highlighting their potential for tissue repair and regeneration applications.