With the advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology the interest of researchers has expanded to interdisciplinary domain like bio-medical applications. Among such domains, one of the most important areas explored meticulously is the development of promising solutions in diabetes therapeutics. The disease associated with metabolic disorder, is one of the major challenges, due to its ever-increasing number of patients. The adverse effects of the synthetic enzymes like α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibitors have invited many scientists to develop promising contender with minimal side-effects. On the other hand, Zinc has strong role in insulin synthesis, storage and secretion and thus its deficiency can be related to diabetes. In this context we have explored natural extract of Red Sandalwood (RSW) as a potent anti-diabetic agent, in conjugation with ZnO nanoparticles. ZnO nanoparticles have been synthesized via soft chemistry routes and duly characterized for their phase formation with the help of X-ray diffraction technique and Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy. These monodispersed nanoparticles, -20 nm in size, were further conjugated to RSW extract. The conjugation chemistry was studied via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy. Extract loading percentage was found from thermo-gravimetric analysis. 65% of the RSW extract was found conjugated to the ZnO nanoparticles. The anti-diabetic activity was assessed with the help of like α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibition assay with murine pancreatic and small intestinal extracts. It was observed that the conjugated ZnO-RSW nanoparticles showed excellent activity against the crude murine pancreatic glucosidase as compared to the individual ZnO nanoparticles and the RSW extract. The ZnO-RSW conjugate showed 61.93% of inhibition while the bare ZnO nanoparticles and RSW showed 21.48% and 5.90% respectively.

Metal halide perovskites have emerged as novel and promising photocatalysts for hydrogen generation. Currently, their stability in water is a vital and urgent research question. In this paper a novel approach to stabilize a bismuth halide perovskite [(CH3)2NH2]3[BiI6] (DA3BiI6) in water using dimethylammonium iodide (DAI) without the assistance of acids or coatings is reported. The DA3BiI6 powder exhibits good stability in DAI solutions for at least two weeks. The concentration of DAI is found as a critical parameter, where the I- ions play the key role in the stabilization. The stability of DA3BiI6 in water is realized via a surface dissolution–recrystallization process. Stabilized DA3BiI6 demonstrates constant photocatalytic properties for visible light-induced photo-oxidation of I- ions and with PtCl4 as a co-catalyst (Pt-DA3BiI6), photocatalytic H2 evolution with a rate of 5.7 μmol⋅h-1 from HI in DAI solution, obtaining an apparent quantum efficiency of 0.83% at 535 nm. This study provides new insights on the stabilization of metal halide perovskites for photocatalysis in aqueous solution.

Metal halide perovskites have shown great potential for lighting. However, their low stability under irradiation/thermal stress and/or ambient storage conditions are critical for light‐emitting diodes (LEDs). Among the stabilization strategies, ligand surface modification is effective toward stable perovskites, but the dynamic ligand adsorption/desorption process on the surface is a limiting factor. Herein, a new family of biogenic and amphiphilic capping agents, phosphatidyl‐L‐serine (Ptd‐L‐Ser), combining stronger multibinding motifs compared to conventional capping agents has led to superior CsPbBr3 (CsPbBr3‐Ptd‐L‐Ser) with significantly enhanced stability upon storage/heating/water, keeping excellent photoluminescence quantum yields of ≈80% over half year. Spectroscopic/theoretical studies reveal that the origin of this behavior is the increased exciton binding energy associated to the versatility of multiple bindings. This results in CsPbBr3‐Ptd‐L‐Ser nanocrystals‐based green‐LEDs featuring excellent stabilities of >700 h (20 mA) and >200 h (100 mA) that strongly contrast with the reference devices with pristine CsPbBr3 nanocrystals (120 h (20 mA) and 27 h (100 mA)). White LEDs (WLEDs) with chromaticity coordinates of (0.34, 0.33) and high luminous efficiency of 76 lm W–1, keeping stable over weeks, are further demonstrated under continuous operational conditions, thereby suggesting CsPbBr3‐Ptd‐L‐Ser nanocrystals can be a potential candidate for commercial WLED technology.