Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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IIT Palakkad

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) have been affected by various failures through corrosion which causes economic losses, increased chance of the radiation exposure and environmental risk. One of the major durability issues in reinforced concrete is the corrosion of reinforcement which significantly reduces the life of reinforced concrete. Considering the increasing demand for longer service lives of NPPs and the high cost involved in building and maintaining it, adequate preventive measures should be followed to minimize the corrosion. This review majorly discusses about the mechanism of corrosion of steel in NPP structures with emphasis on the mechanisms relevant to NPPs, possible reasons for the concrete corrosion as well as potential failure happening in NPPs. The majors reason for the concrete corrosion in nuclear power plants are mainly corrosive external and internal environment, thermal and mechanical stress, moisture content, microorganisms and stray electrical currents. The corrosion of NPPs may result in loss of structural integrity and leakage of radioactive material. The review also discusses about various corrosion prevention and protection techniques against concrete corrosion and concludes with an overview of present methods and possible future perspectives used to enhance the efficiency of concrete corrosion mitigation methods with focus of NPPs. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2023.

Biological Sciences and Engineering

World University root node

Corrosion Reviews

Concrete corrosion in nuclear power plants and other nuclear installations and its mitigation techniques: A review

In this work, we report the synthesis of highly stable trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) modified Nb2CTx MXene for the electrochemical detection of anti-tuberculosis drug rifampicin (RIF). The modification of Nb2CTx with TFA enhances the colloidal stability of Nb2CTx and the TFA@Nb2CTx based sensor was able to detect RIF from 100 pM to 1 μM with a limit of detection of (LOD) of 4.8 pM. The developed sensor exhibited superior selectivity in addition to its practical applicability by using pharmaceutical drug sample and human serum samples. This work explores a novel engineering strategy to develop highly stable and aggregation free Nb2CTx MXene for different applications. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry

A novel flexible electrode with highly stable trifluoroacetic acid modified Nb2CTx MXene for the sensitive detection of rifampicin

The determination of neurotransmitters and adrenoreceptor drugs is highly essential due to their specific functions in the human body. In this work, the determination of carvedilol (CAR) and dopamine (DA) was carried out using carbon cloth (CC), which was modified using a facile strategy of drop-casting dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). This induced the formation of functional groups without any loss in the structural integrity of CC. The DMSO modified CC (CC-DMSO) was used for the detection of CAR in the range of 1 nM to 10 μM with a limit of detection (LOD) of 120 pM. Similarly, the CC-DMSO was able to detect DA in the range of 10 pM to 10 μM with a highly promising LOD of 0.3 pM. A bending test was also carried out on the electrode and it could be seen that only a negligible variation in sensing capability was observed when the electrode was in the bent form. In addition, the detection of CAR and DA was also carried out in real samples such as human serum. This study reveals that this modification strategy can serve as a versatile and flexible sensing platform for the detection of CAR and DA together in real world medical scenarios. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Analytical Methods

A flexible and sensitive electrochemical sensing platform based on dimethyl sulfoxide modified carbon cloth: towards the detection of dopamine and carvedilol

The architecture of molecules plays a significant role in their effective binding with another moiety. Direct comparison of a linear dithiocarbamate and its macrocyclic analogue was carried out, to explore the magnitude of these architectural effects for different biological and material science applications. Linear and macrocyclic compounds with the same functional groups, such as amide, dithiocarbamic ester, naphthyl, and propyl, were designed, synthesized, and compared through their spectral, physicochemical, and thermal properties. Utilizing dithiocarbamates, the compounds were used for the detoxification of water by removal of toxic heavy metals, including Hg2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Pb2+, Zn2+, and Ni2+ by precipitation. In addition, comparable interactions with various important proteins, such as bovine serum albumin, human serum albumin, haemoglobin, lysozyme, proteinase, ribonuclease, and trypsin, were performed. The observation of better performance for the macrocycle towards protein interaction, and of the linear compound for removal of heavy metals is remarkable, and proves that the compound architecture is important. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Department of Chemistry

New Journal of Chemistry

Dithiocarbamate-based linear versus macrocyclic architecture: comparative studies and applications in protein interaction and heavy metal removal

In this work, two water soluble fluorescent non-conjugated polymers have been designed and synthesized. To confer water solubility, a synthetic strategy was made to incorporate secondary amine moieties and ester linkages in the backbone, and to make it fluorescent we have attached dansyl and naphthyl moieties. The polymers exhibited solid-state fluorescence which was confirmed by solid-state fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy. They also exhibited aggregation induced emission (AIE) behaviour in a water-DMSO mixture which was confirmed by fluorescence, quantum yield, DLS, and lifetime analysis. Furthermore, the interaction of the polymers with different metal ions was studied with the aim of using it as a sensor. Among the 15 metal ions tested, it was found that the dansyl appended polymer gave distinct signals in the absorption and emission spectra for the addition of Cu2+, Co2+, Ag+, K+, Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions. These metals also showed discrete signals in the absorption spectra along with distinguishable colour changes such as Cu2+ - blue, Co2+ - pink, Ag+ - purple, Fe2+ - dark yellow and Fe3+ - light yellow on their addition. Further linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was performed to see the sensor array applications of the polymer and showed a discrete sensor array output and clear separation of clusters, validating the application of the polymer as a multi-analyte sensor. The separation and identification of the metals via LDA was also possible in nanomolar concentrations. Moreover, our strategy for developing a fluorescent polymer is also versatile for synthesising polymers with tuneable properties for diverse applications. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Polymer Chemistry

Water soluble non-conjugated fluorescent polymers: aggregation induced emission, solid-state fluorescence, and sensor array applications

Pathologies related to cardiovascular diseases mostly emerge as a result of oxidative stress buildup in cardiomyocytes. The heavy load of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in cardiac tissues corresponds to a surge in oxidative stress leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular apoptosis. Thus, scavenging the reactive oxygen species (ROS) linked to mitochondria can significantly improve cardio-protection. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the major polyphenol found in green tea has been extensively studied for its profound health-beneficial activities. Herein, we designed and synthesized a series of mitochondrial-targeting EGCG derivatives, namely MitoEGCGn (n = 4, 6, 8) by incorporating triphenylphosphonium ion onto it using different linkers. MitoEGCGn were found to be non-toxic to H9c2 rat cardiomyocyte cells even at higher doses in comparison to its parent molecule EGCG. Interestingly, MitoEGCG4 and MitoEGCG6 protected the H9c2 cardiomyocyte cells from the oxidative damage induced by H2O2 whereas EGCG was found to be toxic and ineffective in protecting the cells from H2O2 damage. MitoEGCG4 and MitoEGCG6 also protected the cells from the H2O2-induced disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential as well as activation of apoptosis as revealed by pro-caspase 3 expression profile, DNA fragmentation assay and AO/EtBr staining. Taken together, our study shows that the mitochondria targeting EGCG derivatives were able to effectively combat the H2O2-induced oxidative stress in H9c2 cardiomyocytes. They eventually augmented the mitochondrial health of cardiomyocytes by maintaining the mitochondrial function and attenuating apoptosis. Overall, MitoEGCG4 and MitoEGCG6 could provision a cardioprotective role to H9c2 cardiomyocytes at the time of oxidative insults related to mitochondrial dysfunction-associated injuries. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

RSC Advances

Mitochondria-targeting EGCG derivatives protect H9c2 cardiomyocytes from H2O2-induced apoptosis: design, synthesis and biological evaluation

In the last two decades, an incredible amount of effort has been put forth to gain a molecular level understanding of human pathophysiology through genome sequencing projects and human proteome projects. Despite that, there is a lot more to discover with respect to complex molecular and biochemical networks in cellular and tissue-specific functions which are largely mediated by proteins and their modifications. With the advent of the post-genomic era, scientists have developed an inherent interest in interdisciplinary approaches and accredited proteomics studies with powerful chemical probe molecules as a result of carefully designed synthetic chemistry. Chemoproteomics is one such tool that provides an opportunity to screen interactions between small molecule drugs and proteins in their native cellular environments and simultaneously understand the preceding mechanism of action. This chapter discusses how chemoproteomics has helped us evolve from phenotype-based drug discovery to target-based drug discovery by shedding light on the different methods for the identification and validation of protein targets interacting with the small molecule drugs. Given its contribution to the field of drug discovery and biomarker identification, it is apt to discuss the importance of chemoproteomics in the field of biotechnology and the advancements it has brought to the pharmaceutical sciences © 2023 Munishwar Nath Gupta.

Some Key Topics in Chemistry and Biochemistry for Biotechnologists

Chemoproteomics: An Extremely Powerful Kit in Drug Discovery Toolbox

Fluorescence chemosensors for selective sensing and quantification of biologically important metal ions have attracted substantial research interest in recent years. Cu(ii) is the third most abundant transition metal ion and an essential heavy metal ion present in the human body. Cu(ii) plays many essential functions in living systems as a catalytic co-factor in various enzyme functions and electron transport. The alteration in the essential concentration of Cu(ii) causes several deadly diseases like Menke's syndrome, Wilson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Given this, in the past decades, many small-molecule fluorescence sensors have been developed and employed for trace detection and monitoring the concentration of Cu(ii) ions in biological systems. In particular, amino-1,8-naphthalimide fluorescence sensors have gained special research interest for Cu(ii) sensing because of their facile synthesis, easy functional, structure tunability and strong fluorescence emission in the visible region. In this article, we have discussed the applications of various amino-1,8-naphthalimide-based small-molecule fluorescence chemosensors for selective sensing and bioimaging of Cu(ii) ions. In each section, we provide a detailed report on the synthesis, photophysics and fluorescence sensing properties including bioimaging of amino-1,8-naphthalimide-small-molecule fluorescence chemosensors for Cu(ii) ions. © 2023 RSC.

Sensors and Diagnostics

Fluorescence sensing and bioimaging of Cu(ii) ions using amino-1,8-naphthalimide-based small-molecule chemosensors

Organoarsenics are low-toxicity compounds that are used widely as feed additives to promote livestock growth, enhance meat pigmentation, and fight against intestinal parasites. The organoarsenic compounds are commonly found in poultry waste and the degradation of organoarsenic produces the toxic carcinogen inorganic arsenic such as As(v) and As(iii), which results in severe arsenic pollution of soil and groundwater. As a consequence, there exists a high necessity to develop suitable sensing methods for the trace detection and quantification of organoarsenic feed additives in wastewater. Among various detection methods, in particular, fluorescence-based sensing has become a popular and efficient method used extensively for sensing water contaminants and environmental contaminants. In the recent past, a wide variety of fluorescence chemosensors have been designed and employed for the efficient sensing and quantification of the concentration of organoarsenic feed additives in different environmental samples. This review article systematically highlights various fluorescence chemosensors reported to date for fluorescence-based sensing of organoarsenic feed additives. The fluorescence sensors discussed in this review are classified and grouped according to their structures and functions, and in each section, we provide a detailed report on the structure, photophysics, and fluorescence sensing properties of different chemosensors. Lastly, the future perspectives on the design and development of practically useful sensor systems for selective and discriminative sensing of organoarsenic compounds have been stated. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chemical Communications

Recent advances in fluorescence-based chemosensing of organoarsenic feed additives using luminescence MOFs, COFs, HOFs, and QDs

This paper presents a novel time-domain clutter removal algorithm for microwave imaging of concealed objects using a new high gain ultra-wideband (UWB) antipodal antenna. Bistatic antenna setup is employed to image the objects like a gun prototype, knife and blade using UWB Gaussian modulated pulses. A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) beamforming algorithm with a new clutter removal method is adopted for microwave imaging of the objects inside and outside the anechoic chamber. The proposed algorithm successfully removes the unwanted clutter from the measured scanning data, with only single scanning of the target area. The proposed method along with windowing, envelope detection and finally image reconstruction results in effective reconstruction of the concealed target as compared to the existing methods in the literature. An UWB high gain antipodal antenna is designed for the proposed imaging setup with a peak gain of 26 dBi at 8.4 GHz, which is the highest among previously reported UWB antennas. The proposed antenna achieves a wide gain bandwidth over 6-14 GHz (80%) with a gain of >18 dBi. Simulation and measured results validate the design principle of the antenna with characteristics like high front to back ratio, narrow half-power beam width, and low cross-polarization. In the opinion of the authors, the proposed clutter removal algorithm is the simplest and effective method for single-time scanning of the concealed targets, in a realistic scenario. © 2015 IEEE.