Shwetha Rani R

Jain University · Centre for Nano and Material Sciences

Pesticides and insecticides are two important classes of compounds that are mainly used for agricultural purposes. Organophosphates are one of the main chemical classes that make pesticides and insecticides and often exhibit toxicity towards living organisms. Nerve agents, a subset of organophosphorus substances, have been developed and employed in...

Quantum dots (QDs) are potential agents for solar energy conversion due to their size-dependent optoelectronic properties. QD-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) are potential candidates to meet the growing demand for clean energy due to facile and low-cost fabrication techniques. High performance is expected in this type of solar cell architecture due...

Electrochemical hydrogen evolution is an important research field to produce renewable energy. Nanostructured two dimensional (2D) materials such as g-C3N4 and MoS2 are potential electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The incorporation of semiconducting material into 2D material enhances the hydrogen evolution. Here in, we have dev...

Despite the advantages of high contaminant removal, operational flexibility, and technical advancements offered, the undesirable fouling property of membranes limits their durability, thus posing restrictions on their usage. An enormous struggle is underway to conquer this major challenge. Most of the earlier reviews include the basic concepts of f...

The global energy crisis is increasing the demand for innovative materials with high purity and functionality for the development of clean energy production and storage. The development of novel photo- and electrocatalysts significantly depends on synthetic techniques that facilitate the production of tailored advanced nanomaterials. The emerging u...

Monoelemental 2D materials such as arsenene (As) and antimonene (Sb) are creating great interest in materials research (since 2014) for designing various optoelectronic devices, energy production, and storage systems such as sensors, electrically modifiable displays, transistors, and catalysts owing to their unique properties like high surface area...

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides hold tunable and promising photoelectrochemical properties. MoSe2 is a potential candidate of the transition metal dichalcogenide family, which attracted interests of various fields such as photocatalytic, electrocatalytic, energy storage, sensing and optoelectronic applications. MoSe2 demonstrates high surf...

Water is a vital ingredient in all life forms and crucial for their survival. Yet, contamination of water by toxic effluents from various sources makes it lethal, posing a threat to the environment and health of living beings. Therefore, an effective and efficient method for the treatment of these effluents is the need of the hour. In continuation...

Triclosan (TCS) is an antifungal and antimicrobic component used in various cosmetic, healthcare, and personal care products; therefore, many people are exposed to this compound. Literature and related studies have shown inflammatory skin conditions and endocrine disruption after exposure to TCS. Low concentrations of TCS released into environmenta...

This chapter presents the background and contemporary research accomplishments dealing with smart architectural devices, photovoltaics. The evolution of photovoltaic devices, developments with open challenges, and future opportunities are analyzed and elaborated along with their response characteristic models and variations in graphical analysis. T...

Quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSC) are up-and-coming low cost third-generation solar cells technology. The distinctive properties of quantum dots (QDs) feature QDSSC as an optimistic future of photovoltaics. The real concern with these devices is the wide band gap semiconductors used as the electron transport layer. Electron transport layer...

Quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) can capably align with other emerging photovoltaic technologies, because of their ability to generate multiple excitons, availability of dynamic absorption ranges, and power conversion efficiency approaching 15% and beyond. Although the light-harvesting ability of these QDSSCs has increased dramatically,...

The perovskite-type oxynitride LaNbN2O is a photocatalyst that can evolve oxygen from aqueous solutions in response to long-wavelength visible light. However, it is challenging to obtain active LaNbN2O because of the facile reduction of Nb5+ during the nitridation of the precursor materials. The present study attempted to synthesize a perovskite-ty...

Photocatalysis is gaining significant interest as an efficient process for several applications, such as hydrogen and oxygen production, degradation of toxic chemicals, CO2 reduction to produce hydrocarbons, and bacterial disinfection. The properties of photocatalysts are affected by several factors and modification in photocatalysts through anion...

Quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) have emerged as an attractive area of research, enabling the construction of efficient third-generation photoelectrochemical solar cells with a higher theoretical photon conversion efficiency of up to 44%. The power conversion efficiency (η) rates of several QDSSCs are lower than those of dye-sensitized s...

Nanostructured transition metal dichalcogenides are demonstrated to be potential catalysts to produce molecular hydrogen through electroreduction of water. Finding an efficient and cost-effective catalyst as a substitute for a platinum-based catalyst for sustainable hydrogen production is still a major issue, more so for large-scale production. Her...

Inorganic cesium lead halide (CsPbX3, X = Cl, Br, I) perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) have recently attracted tremendous attention for optoelectronic and photonic applications. Here in we demonstrate a facile ligand exchange (LE) method to tune the band structure of CsPbBr3 nanocrystals (NCs) together with encapsulation of these NCs within TiO2 (TiO2...

CdSe/CdS core shelled quantum dots (QDs) were prepared by colloidal synthesis using a binary ligand system and a non-coordinating, reusable solvent n-octadecane (nOD). Both the synthesis of CdSe and CdSe/CdS core shelled quantum dots were achieved by hot injection technique at much lower temperatures than reported earlier. The use of binary ligand...

This work attempts to address the challenge of trace level detection of uranyl ions using highly fluorescent perovskite quantum dots. The fluorescent probe CsPbBr3 perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) in toluene, synthesized via hot-injection method allows complete fluorescence quenching within seconds detecting ppb level concentration of uranyl ions. Th...

The semiconducting thin film materials are the main key elements in the fields of photonic, electronic and magnetic devices. The preparation of materials in the form of thin films allows easy incorporation into various through changing the properties of materials and reducing the size. The core benefits of thin film systems are cost reduction and e...

A new 2-methoxy-4,6-bis(4-(4-nitrostyryl)phenyl)nicotinonitrile (W-NO 2 ) has been synthesized and the photovoltaic performances in dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are investigated by utilizing it as co-sensitizer dye. From the study, its molar extinction coefficient value is found to be much higher than the N719 and the co-sensitized DSSC devic...

Emerging contaminants in the aquatic environment, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are mainly resulting from the release of municipal wastewater effluents, which are detected at surface water with lower concentration, and these compounds have an impact on aquatic life. The present research investigates the preparation of...

Counter electrodes plays significant role in electron transport in photovoltaics and an ideal counter electrode should have high electrocatalytic activity, cost effective, high performance stability. With this concern, an easy fabrication process is also necessary for quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs). Iron disulfide (FeS2) is an earth-ab...

Hydrogen energy is realized to be promising and potential enough to replace the fossil fuels, and which will be a prominent source of energy in foreseeable future. Therefore, the straightforward and cost-effective production of hydrogen is urgently required as considering the current state-of-the-art in field. Accordingly, the strategy of hydrogen...

The future of third generation Quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) can be optimistic if concerns of charge recombination and stability of cells can be worked upon. In this work, we report the role of Graphene materials in its different dimension in overcoming recombination and enhancing power conversion efficiency (PCE). Composite of Graphe...

The simultaneous photocatalytic degradation of dye-polluted water and hydrogen production has been demonstrated on the lanthanum-modified TiO2 (La-TiO2) nanostructures. The observed changes in the X-ray diffraction pattern of La-TiO2 with respect to pristine-TiO2 indicated the incorporation of La into the lattices of TiO2. The surface adsorption an...

Current world faces alarming challenges of heavy metal contamination, which are hazardous to human and environment because of their toxicity even in trace concentration. Lead is one of the harmful heavy metal contaminant and has poisonous effect on human health. The present research investigation describes the adsorption of toxic Pb (II) on an immo...

In this study, Zinc oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by gel-combustion method using a novel bio-fuel tapioca starch pearls, derived from the tubers of Mannihot esculenta, to investigate the photocatalytic degradation of ccaffeine. The ZnO photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and UV-visi...

Nanostructured materials are the foundation for nanoscience and nanotechnology Nanoscience is a broad and interdisciplinary area of research that has been explosively growing worldwide in newlinethe past few year Synthesizing matter on a nanometer size is of great interest because properties at that level are strongly size dependent and can be tune...

A series of Nd-doped TiO2 with Nd content ranging from 1 to 5 atom % were synthesized by solid state technique and explored as a photoanode material in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Incorporation of Nd3 + into TiO2 lattice resulted in more negative flat band potential for Nd-doped TiO2 than pure TiO2, as determined by impedance spectroscopy (...

Microalgae play an important role in energy production to solve the major energy crisis. The present study demonstrates an efficient and environmental friendly route for bio-oil extraction from wet Nannochloropsis oculata algal biomass through photocatalysis. The method uses abundant solar energy and catalytic amount of titanium dioxide photocataly...

The present study investigates the antibacterial activity of a photoactive float fabricated with visible light active N-F-TiO2 for disinfection of field water widely contaminated with gram positive and gram negative bacteria like, Salmonella typhimurium (gram negative), Escherichia coli (gram negative), Staphylococcus aureus (gram-positive), Bacill...

This study reports removal of oxybenzone from TiO2 nanoparticles and those incorporated mixed matrix membrane. Polysulfone and TiO2 nanoparticles mixed matrix membrane were prepared by Diffusion Induced Phase Separation (DIPS) method. The TiO2 nanoparticles and membranes were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy and FESEM techniques;...

Photocatalytic water splitting by solar energy is an ideal economic method for hydrogen generation. An attempt has been made to overcome the main barriers of photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (being rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs, the process of back reaction and poor activation of titania by visible light) by the usage of Fe induced ti...

A photoactive float was fabricated with the modified titania to cause a feasible disinfection of water, contaminated with E.coli. The commercially available titania was doped with neodymium by pulverization technique to enhance its activity in sunlight and a multi approach technique was used to evaluate the extended efficiency of the doped sample....