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The antidiabetic activities of bitter melon powders produced with lyophilization/superfine grinding and hot air drying/normal grinding were investigated in vivo for selecting a suitable bitter melon processing procedure. After a five-week treatment, bitter melon lyophilized superfine grinding powder (BLSP) had a higher antidiabetic activity with reducing fasting blood glucose levels from 21.40 to 12.54 mmol/L, the serum insulin levels from 40.93 to 30.74 mIU/L, and restoring activities of SOD compared with those in the bitter melon hot air drying powder (BAP) treated group. Furthermore, BLSP protected pancreatic tissues including islet beta cells and reduced the loss of islet cells. Combined with the difference of compositions in BLSP and BAP, it could be concluded that superfine grinding and lyophilization processes were beneficial for presenting the antidiabetic activity, which will provide a reference for direct utilization of bitter melon as a suitable functional food to relieve symptoms of diabetes.

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Organic photovoltaics and halide perovskite solar cells are both solutionprocessable third-generation photovoltaic devices (PVs) attracting enormous research attention. In this study, we demonstrate a hybrid organic and perovskite PV device by mixing all-inorganic CsPbI 3 quantum dots (QDs) into the conventional organic bulk heterojunction active layer of PBDB-T:IT-M. It is found that the charge transfer properties between QDs and organic donor/acceptor interfaces can be fine-tuned with the size modulation and the heterovalent bismuth (Bi) doping of perovskite QDs, leading to an increase in open-circuit voltage. In addition, the incorporation of perovskite QDs with different sizes could effectively modify the nanoscale bulk heterojunction morphology toward more efficient charge collection and thus a higher fill factor. The photocurrent of the devices can also be improved through Rayleigh scattering and light absorption of the QDs. As a result, a noticeable enhancement in device performance has been achieved by the PBDB-T:IT-M with 10 nm Bi-doped CsPbI 3 QD device. This work provides one feasible route to fine-tune the energy level alignment and nanophase separation by integrating these two promising PV materials.

Two-dimensional graphene has tremendous potential to be used as a transparent conducting electrode (TCE), owing to its high transparency and conductivity. To date graphene films have been applied to several kinds of solar cells except the Cu(In, Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) solar cell. In this work, we present a novel TCE structure consisting of a doped graphene film and a thin layer of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) to replace the ZnO:Al (AZO) electrode for CIGS. By optimizing the contact between graphene and intrinsic ZnO (i-ZnO), a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.5% has been achieved, which is among the highest efficiencies of graphene-based solar cells ever reported and approaching those of AZO-based solar cells. Besides, the active area of our solar cells reaches 45 mm(2), much larger than other highly efficient graphene-based solar cells (>10%) reported so far. Moreover, compared with AZO-based CIGS solar cells, the total reflectance of the graphene-based CIGS solar cells is decreased and the quantum efficiency of the graphene-based CIGS is enhanced in the near infrared region (NIR), which strongly support graphene as a competitive candidate material for the TCE in the CIGS solar cell. Furthermore, the graphene/PMMA film can protect the solar cell from moisture, making the graphene-based solar cells much more stable than the AZO-based solar cells.

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