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• β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO shows higher photocatalytic activity against CIP 98.4% degradation. • SEM and TEM showed even distribution of β-Bi 2 O 3 microspheres on B-rGO nanosheets. • β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO nanocomposite has a narrower band gap of 1.8 eV. • The •O 2 – radicals play a significant role in photocatalytic degradation. The formation of a heterojunction between two semiconductor photocatalysts, consisting of narrow band gap oxide, is essential for effectively segregating and transferring charge carriers. For instance, β-Bi 2 O 3 has garnered attention for its excellent structural, optical, dimensional anisotropy, and electrical properties. B-rGO's 2D sheet-like structure is ideal for scaffolding β-Bi 2 O 3 nanoparticle development under various reaction conditions. This study effectively produced the β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO binary system using morphology modification and energy band structure design. This article emphasizes β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO interface engineering and heterojunction design, followed by photocatalytic applications for ciprofloxacin degradation. The photocalytic activity of this β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO photocatalyst is ∼ 1.2 times greater than of pure β-Bi 2 O 3. This article envisages the development of effective β-Bi 2 O 3 /B-rGO heterostructures for multiscale applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hydrothermal method was used to synthesize BiFeO 3 @B-rGO nanocomposite. • The magnetic properties of pristine BiFeO 3 and composite BiFeO 3 @B-rGO 10% were studied using VSM both exhibits Ferromagnetic in nature. • The Photocatalytic activity against an organic pollutant was considerably boosted in BiFeO 3 @B-rGO 10% nanocomposite. • The Final composites exhibit Antibiotic TC and Dye RhB degradation of 86.7% and 99.4%, respectively. Tuning the morphology of the semiconductor heterojunction photocatalyst has attracted extensive attention for effective photocatalytic performance in the process of wastewater treatment. The combination of boron doped reduced graphene oxide (B-rGO) supported by Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3) nanocomposite was fabricated via simple one-pot mild hydrothermal synthesis. Notably, the non-metal doping with reduced graphene oxide leads to an extra advantage in improving photophysical properties such as electrochemical impendence spectroscopy (EIS) and photocurrent measurements, which significantly increases the charge carrier recombination factor due to the density state value near to the Fermi energy level in the system. The intimate layer contact between the B-rGO and BiFeO 3 nanocomposite is well established by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS), and Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) provide clear evidence for decorating hierarchically layered nanocomposite. The superior performance of the developed nanocomposite degradation efficiency was revealed towards Tetracycline (TC), and Rhodamine B (RhB) was chosen as an ideal model pollutant. The degradation efficiency was achieved for TC (86.7%) and RhB (99.4%). Also, the developed photocatalyst exhibited excellent photostability after four consecutive stability cycles. Finally, the non-metal doping technology was found to demonstrate excellent potential features in the field of environmental wastewater and pharmaceutical water detoxication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perovskite materials are emerging as the most promising and efficient low-cost energy materials for various applications. The construction of heterojunctions has become a field of interest because of their high potential to give off a large amount of energy. Herein, a Z-scheme heterojunction was made between two perovskites (CoTiO3 and CaTiO3) in order to make a cheap material that is good at photocatalysis. Various methods were used to characterize the resulting CoTiO3/CaTiO3 (CCO 75: 25) composite, including XRD, Raman, XPS, HRSEM, HRTEM, BET, and UV-vis. The increased photocatalytic activity of the CoTiO3/CaTiO3 (CCO) composite is attributed to the accelerated charge transfer from O2- to Ti4+ and from Co2+ to Ti4+ ions, revealing the close interfacial contact between CoTiO3 and CaTiO3, and spatial charge transfer within the CoTiO3/CaTiO3 heterojunction. A direct Z-scheme mechanism was developed, and charge transfer properties were verified by the scavenger test and ESR, PL, and EIS analyses. The enhanced degradation rate of k = 0.0373 min-1 is achieved for the CCO 75: 25 composite. Meanwhile, the CCO 75: 25 composite established high photocatalytic stability when recycled for CBZ degradation. This research offers mechanistic and practical views on designing simple and cost-effective materials for pollutant removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, antibiotics have been identified in the aquatic environment, raising serious concerns. This study demonstrates antibiotic degradation via a photocatalytic technique through novel TiO 2 @MoS 2 /BiVO 4 nanocomposites created using a simple hydrothermal method in the absence or presence of ultrasonic irradiation. Several approaches were applied to characterize the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of the as-synthesized catalysts. It confirmed the successful heterostructure formation with superior properties compared to bare samples. Furthermore, tetracycline antibiotics were investigated for photocatalytic degradation. The results reveal that the TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (US) composite shows outperformance compared to other composites regarding photocatalytic activity toward tetracycline degradation. After five cycles, TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (US) and TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (NUS) exhibit sufficient stability for tetracycline degradation. Throughout the degradation process, superoxide and hydroxyl radicals were found to be the key active species. According to the results, TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (US) has much better catalytic activity than TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (NUS). The synergistic effect of ultrasonic irradiation and the TiO 2 optical bandgap reduction by stacking BiVO 4 and MoS 2 is responsible for this remarkable photocatalytic improvement. [Display omitted] • A Novel TiO 2 @MoS 2 /BiVO 4 composite was synthesized using a facile hydrothermal technique with or without ultra sound irradiation. • The TiO 2 @ 2 M/8B (US) and (NUS) composite shows superior photocatalytic activity towards the TC about 90.35% and 72.35% degradations within 90 min. • The superoxide (. O 2) radicals play a major role in antibiotics degradation. • The composites demonstrate high stability for photocatalytic antibiotic degradation after six cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schematic Representation for Synthesis of HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (X) nanocomposites. [Display omitted] • A simple hydrothermal technique was ued to make the HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 nanocomposite. • The HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (3%) nanocomposite, in particular, has superior photocatalytic activity against CIP (93.15%) and AMX (95.40%) degradations within one hour. • The type-II heterojunction HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 has been demonstrated. • The catalytic mechanism and degradation pathways of CIP and AMX were hypothesised using LC-MS data. Antibiotics have been recently discovered in the aquatic environment, generating significant concerns. It is critical to create visible light semiconductor photocatalysts with high catalytic activity to use sunlight for antibiotic degradation. Herein, A one-pot hydrothermal technique was used to fabricate the nanocomposites. The HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (X) (X = 1, 3, 5, 7%) (H represents Protonation and T represents Thermal-decomposition) nanocomposites were used to investigate the photocatalytic degradation performance of Ciprofloxacin and Amoxicillin antibiotics. The superior photocatalytic activity of HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 is due to the electron-transfer between the g-C 3 N 4 and MoS 2 nanosheets, which promotes the formation of photogenerated e−/h + pairs. The HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (3%) nanocomposites have superior photocatalytic activity towards antibiotic degradation than raw and other composites. After five cycles, the degradation percentage exceeded 93% for Ciprofloxacin and 92% for Amoxicillin. Trapping experiments identified superoxide anion radicals and Hydroxyl radicals as the main active species during the degradation process. After 60 min, the Total organic compound (TOC) of Ciprofloxacin and Amoxicillin mineralization value was 76 and 81% for HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (3%) nanocomposites, respectively. The intermediates were identified, and a potential route for photodegradation of Ciprofloxacin and Amoxicillin was proposed using LC-MS analysis. This research provides insight into the HT-g-C 3 N 4 /MoS 2 (3%) mechanism and pathways for antibiotic degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The separate use of the terms ‘radiosensitivity’ and ‘radiosusceptibility’ has been suggested to describe variability in the risk of, respectively, adverse tissue reactions (deterministic effect) following radiotherapy and radiation-induced cancer (stochastic effect). The aim of this note is to present arguments against such distinction. We feel that it is premature to make a concrete final judgement on these definitions because of the limited understanding of the mechanisms underlying individual sensitivity to both radiation-related cancers and radiation-related tissue injury. Moreover, the exclusive application of ‘radiosensitivity’ in relation to deterministic effects and the term ‘radiosusceptibility’ in relation to cancer carries the risk of being wrongly interpreted as evidence for a high, genetically driven sensitivity to radiation in all patients who develop adverse tissue reactions and a high genetic susceptibility to cancer in those who develop radiation-induced malignancies. There is a need for further research to better define these phenomena and their interrelationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common genetic variation may play an important role in altering lung cancer risk. We conducted a pathway-based candidate gene evaluation to identify genetic variations that may be associated with lung cancer in a population-based case–control study in Xuan Wei, China (122 cases and 111 controls). A total of 1260 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 380 candidate genes for lung cancer were successfully genotyped and assigned to one of 10 pathways based on gene ontology. Logistic regression was used to assess the marginal effect of each SNP on lung cancer susceptibility. The minP test was used to identify statistically significant associations at the gene level. Important pathways were identified using a test of proportions and the rank truncated product methods. The cell cycle pathway was found as the most important pathway (P = 0.044) with four genes significantly associated with lung cancer (PLA2G6 minP = 0.001, CCNA2 minP = 0.006, GSK3β minP = 0.007 and EGF minP = 0.013), after adjusting for multiple comparisons. Interestingly, most cell cycle genes that were associated with lung cancer in this analysis were concentrated in the AKT signaling pathway, which is essential for regulation of cell cycle progression and cellular survival, and may be important in lung cancer etiology in Xuan Wei. These results should be viewed as exploratory until they are replicated in a larger study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined incident glioma and meningioma risk associated with occupational exposure to insecticides and herbicides in a hospital-based, case-control study of brain cancer. Cases were 462 glioma and 195 meningioma patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1998 in three US hospitals. Controls were 765 patients admitted to the same hospitals for nonmalignant conditions. Occupational histories were collected during personal interviews. Exposure to pesticides was estimated by use of a questionnaire, combined with pesticide measurement data abstracted from published sources. Using logistic regression models, the authors found no association between insecticide and herbicide exposures and risk for glioma and meningioma. There was no association between glioma and exposure to insecticides or herbicides, in men or women. Women who reported ever using herbicides had a significantly increased risk for meningioma compared with women who never used herbicides (odds ratio = 2.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.4, 4.3), and there were significant trends of increasing risk with increasing years of herbicide exposure (p = 0.01) and increasing cumulative exposure (p = 0.01). There was no association between meningioma and herbicide or insecticide exposure among men. These findings highlight the need to go beyond job title to elucidate potential carcinogenic exposures within different occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]