The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) as a global pandemic in the middle of March 2020, after the disease spread to more than 150 countries and territories leading to tens of thousands of cases within a couple of months. To date, there are no effective pharmaceutical treatments available. As well as that, the novel vaccines have not yet been approved as establishing their efficacy will take time. This study aims to summarize the evidence regarding corticosteroids such as dexamethasone for the treatment of COVID-19. Electronic searches were conducted on 7 September 2020 on Google Scholar database, MEDLINE and PubMed. A further search was conducted on the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 research article database. The findings of recent investigations that proved, both, the in vitro and in vivo activity of corticosteroids against COVID-19 and other coronavirus-related pneumonia were discussed. Low doses of corticosteroids (dexamethasone) could reduce the mortality in patients with severe COVID-19 disease; however, they had no effect on the mortality rate of those patients with a mild form of the condition. Moreover, the liberal use of corticosteroids was not advocated for, as high doses of the drug can cause more harm than good.

wt% free fatty acid. Furthermore, the catalytic activity and re-usability of the Ti(SO4)O for the esterification/transesterification of UCO were investigated. XRD results confirmed that the amount of SO species in the solid acid nano-catalyst slowly decreased with re-use after 8 cycles under optimized conditions, which is higher than the reusability of other functionalised titania reported in the literature .Finally, the biodiesel prodcued from this process satisfied the ASTM and European Norm standards.2

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Please cite this article as: J. Gardy, A. Hassanpour, X. Lai, M.H. Ahmed, M. Rehan, Biodiesel production from used cooking oil using a novel surface functionalised TiO 2 nano-catalyst, Applied Catalysis B, Environmental (2017), http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2017.01.080 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Highlights• A novel, efficient and recyclable mesoporous TiO 2 /PrSO 3 H solid acid nano-catalyst was synthesised.• We examined the catalytic activity, stability and reusability of synthesised mesoporous TiO 2 /PrSO 3 H.• The FAME yield from UCO was 98.3% under optimum process conditions.• Synthesised biodiesel from UCO satisfied ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 standards. ABSTRACTA novel, efficient and recyclable mesoporous TiO 2 /PrSO 3 H solid acid nano-catalyst was synthesised by the post-synthetic grafting of propyl sulfonic acid groups onto a mixed phase of a TiO 2 support. The synthesised nano-catalyst was characterised using FTIR, SEM, TEM, XPS, N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, XRD, DSC, TGA, and CHNS analysis. The percentage of loading for propyl sulfonic acid on the TiO 2 support was calculated using CHNS analysis and TGA. The catalytic performance of TiO 2 /PrSO 3 H on the production of the fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) via simultaneous esterification and transesterification reactions from used cooking oil (UCO) has been studied. The effects of different process parameters showed that 98.3% of FAME can be obtained after 9 hrs of reaction time with 1:15 molar ratio of oil to methanol, 60°C reaction temperature and 4.5 wt% catalyst loading. It was also found that the one-pot post-surface functionalisation strategy with hydrophilic functional groups (-SO 3 H) enhanced the acid strengths of the nano-catalyst providing more acid sites for the reactants, and improving the accessibility of methanol to the

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