Neurodegenerative disorders (NDD) have become the common global health burden over the last several decades. According to World Health Organization (WHO), a staggering 30 million people will be affected by Alzheimer’s disease in Europe and the USA by 2050. Effective therapies in this complex field considering the multitude of symptoms associated with NDD indications, have not been found yet. Based on the results of NDD related studies, prevention appears to be the promise alternative. Antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties are hypothesized for natural phenolics, a group of plant secondary products that may positively impact neurodegenerative diseases. In these studies, phenolic-rich extracts from less common fruit species: Blue honeysuckle (Lonicera edulis, Turcz. ex. Freyn), Saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia Nutt.), and Chinese hawthorn (Crateagus pinnatifida Bunge) were obtained and analyzed to detect neuroprotective substances content and establish a potential therapeutic value. High performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection was optimized and further applied on analysis of the extracts of less common fruit species. It was observed that Chinese hawthorn and Blue honeysuckle extracts are potent source of neuroprotective phenolic antioxidants. In accordance the results, it appears that the fruit or formulated products may have the potential for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases.
The preparation of immobilized graphene-based photocatalyst layers is highly desired for environmental applications. In this study, the preparation of an immobilized reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/TiO2 composite by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was optimized. It enabled quantitative deposition without sintering and without the use of any dispersive additive. The presence of rGO had beneficial effects on the photocatalytic degradation of 4-chlorophenol in an aqueous solution. A marked increase in the photocatalytic degradation rate was observed, even at very low concentrations of rGO. Compared with the TiO2 and GO/TiO2 reference layers, use of the rGO/TiO2 composite (0.5 wt% of rGO) increased the first-order reaction rate constant by about 70%. This enhanced performance was due to the increased formation of hydroxyl radicals that attacked the 4-chlorophenol molecules. The direct charge transfer mechanism had only limited effect on the degradation. Thus, EPD-prepared rGO/TiO2 layers appear to be suitable for environmental application.
Anchoring various functional groups to graphene is the most versatile approach for tailoring its functional properties. To date, one must use a special tunneling microscope for attaching a molecule at a specific position on the graphene with resolution better than several hundred nanometers, however, achieving this resolution is impossible on a large scale. We demonstrate for the first time that chemical functionalization can be achieved with nanometer resolution by introducing strain with nanometer scale modulation into a graphene layer. The spatial distribution of the strain has been achieved by transferring a single-layer graphene (SLG) onto a substrate decorated by a few nm large nanoparticles (NPs). By changing the number of NPs on the substrate, the amount of locally strained SLG increases, as confirmed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy investigations. We further carried out hydrogenation and fluorination on the SLG with increasing amount of nanoscale corrugations.Raman spectroscopy, AFM and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed unambiguously
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