This review is focused essentially on the synthesis and applications of gold nanoparticles in the field of medicine and targeted drug delivery. Nanotechnology has become one of the most interesting and advanced areas of research in this field. Among nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles demonstrate special advantages in this field due to their unique properties, small size and high surface area-to-volume ratio.These particles have been widely used in various biomedical applications and drug delivery systems due to their inert nature, stability, high dispersity, non-cytotoxicity and biocompatibility.

Supercapacitors (SCs) are highly promising electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices. SCs display an outstanding power performance, excellent reversibility, long-term stability, simple operation, and high feasibility for integration into electronic devices, including consumer electronics, memory backup systems, and industrial power and energy management systems. The electrode materials determine the cell capacitance, operating voltage, power density, energy density, and time constant of SCs. Transition metal-based electrode materials (TMEMs) are among the most promising electrodes for SCs, due to their outstanding energy density, specific capacitance, and quick charging/discharging rates, in addition to their ease of preparation in a high yield from low-cost and earth-abundant resources. Binary transition metal sulfides (BTMSs) possess various advantages relative to other TMEMs, including higher storage capacity, higher electrical conductivity, excellent redox properties, better specific capacitance, quicker electron/ion diffusion, and superior reversibility with long cycle life. Herein, the inventory and the recent progress in the rational design of BTMS electrodes for SCs are deliberated, spaning from the preparation methods to the operative conditions, performance, and mechanism. To help assist in the further development of BTMS electrodes for efficient and durable SCs, current underlying challenges and possible solutions are identified and addressed, with emphasis on device performance vs BTMS type and relative merits.

A range of binary, ternary (CFS), and quaternary (CZTS) metal sulfide materials have been successfully deposited onto the glass substrates by air-spray deposition of metal diethyldithiocarbamate molecular precursors followed by pyrolysis (18 examples). The as-deposited materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (p-XRD), Raman spectroscopy, secondary electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, which in all cases showed that the materials were polycrystalline with the expected elemental stoichiometry. In the case of the higher sulfides, EDX spectroscopy mapping demonstrated the spatial homogeneity of the elemental distributions at the microscale. By using this simple and inexpensive method, we could potentially fabricate thin films of any given main group or transition metal chalcogenide material over large areas, theoretically on substrates with complex topologies.

Liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) has proven to be a versatile technique to produce uncharged 2D nanosheets from layered crystals. However, almost all studied starting materials consist of pure powder or crystals purchased from chemical suppliers. To test the true versatility of this process, we have attempted to process three starting materials with varying degrees of purity and composition. We subjected talcum powder (principle component, the layered compound talc), Fuller's earth cat litter (known to contain layered silicate compounds, most notably palygorskite and montmorillonite/bentonite) and beach sand (suspected to contain small amounts of layered clays) to a standard LPE procedure (sonication in a surfactant solution followed by centrifugation). In all cases, we produced dispersions containing large quantities of nanosheets with almost all non-nanosheet material removed by the centrifugation step.Powder X-ray diffraction identified the nanosheets produced to be talc, a bentonite/palygorskite mixture and mica for the three starting materials respectively.Particularly interesting is the fact that bentonite, palygorskite and mica sheets are charged and 2 are always accompanied by charge balancing counterions. We believe this is the first example of LPE being used to exfoliate and purify charged layered crystals.3