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Salbutamol (SAL) is a β2-agonist and belongs to a category of drugs used to maintain bronchodilation. Unfortunately, some athletes have misused these medications as performance-enhancing drugs to improve their performance. Thus, to ensure fair competition, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prohibits its usage among athletes. Herein, we have designed, a novel, non-enzymatic electrochemical sensor by wrapping benzimidazolium-1-acetate liquid (IL) around Co3O4 (derived from the pyrolysis of ZIF-67) embedded in N-doped porous C (IL@NC–Co), for the detection of SAL in urine for dope tests. The fabricated material was characterized through SEM, XRD, and FTIR techniques, which confirmed the successful synthesis of the material. The designed novel IL@NC–Co electrochemical sensor showed excellent electrocatalytic activity because of its highly porous structure and fast electron transfer due to the presence of carboxyl functional groups and aromatic rings in IL, thus resulting in an enhanced current response. The developed sensor exhibited excellent selectivity even in the presence of co-existing interferences and good sensitivity (0.0039 μA nM−1 cm−2) with a linear response to SAL concentrations ranging from 2 to 2500 μM with a low detection limit of 0.0014 nM. The designed electrode showed an excellent stability of 96.58% with RSD 2.45% even after 24 h. The fabricated electrode was successfully utilized for selective monitoring of SAL in urine samples, thus suggesting the reliability of the designed system to be applicable for dope tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly efficient 2D/2D layered heterostructure of nickel oxide (NiO) and molybdenum sulphide (MoS2) has been fabricated for the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting and degradation of Bromophenol Blue (BPB) under visible light. The XRD spectra confirm mixed characteristic peaks of MoS2 and NiO in the nanocomposite. SEM displays flower-like patterns of pure and composite material with the 2D nanosheets layer structure. The band gap reduction (2.25–1.72 eV) is due to the incorporation of NiO in MoS2 for visible light harvesting. TEM confirms the homogeneous distribution of 2D/2D nanosheets. The excellent interfacial coupling in strong 2D/2D interactions boost the electro and photocatalytic activities. 15.0% NiO showed excellent PEC activity toward OER with maximum photocurrent density of 1.57 mA cm−2, which influenced the overall water splitting at lower potential, ensuring visible photoresponse. The maximum photodegradation performance for highly toxic BPB was achieved by the photocatalyst, which contains 15.0 wt% NiO in NiO/MoS2 composite. It displays the highest conversion efficiency (∼87.0%) for BPB owing to exposed active sites via Mo–Ni–S linkages. Defects in NiO/MoS2 offer favorable reaction dynamics to PEC OER, which are helpful in tuning the band potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of a solid-state Z-scheme heterojunction photocatalytic system to efficiently tailor photoinduced charge separation is of great significance to water purification. A structure of metal sulfide nanoparticles, tin monosulfide (SnS) and bismuth sulfide (Bi2S3) in host alumina (Al2O3) was developed by the sol–gel method. FTIR confirmed complete dispersion of SnS and Bi2S3 nanoparticles in Al2O3 having a cubic structure. The band gap energy (Eg) of the ternary nanocomposite was found to be 1.85, 1.68 and 1.10 eV for 4.0, 8.0 and 12.0% bismuth sulfide coupled SnS/Al2O3 respectively. The marked decrease in Eg can be attributed to the tenacious agglomeration among SnS, Bi2S3 and Al2O3. 99.0% methyl orange (MO) removal was achieved with 12.0% bismuth sulfide coupled SnS/Al2O3 due to efficient and quick charge transfer among Al2O3 and chalcogenides via Z-scheme electron transfer mechanism. Electrochemical measurements such as those of linear sweep voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry manifested that bismuth sulfide coupled SnS/Al2O3 exhibited several times more current density than pristine Al2O3 which is very well corroborated with the photocatalytic analysis. Investigation of radical scavengers manifested that O2˙− and OH˙ have important roles in the degradation of MO. This innovative and uniquely designed hybrid ternary nanocomposite will open new horizons as an economical and effective material for photocatalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new and facile method of synthesizing high-temperature stable titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NPs) is presented in this work. This novel approach allows the production of titanium dioxide nanoparticles owing to a modified solvothermal process that makes use of titanium(iv) butoxide as a titanium precursor and Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent. The structure and morphology of the TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Based on FTIR and TDA/TGA measurements, a proposed mechanism for the formation of TiO2 NPs in DMSO (without adding any other reagents) is discussed in this contribution. Optical absorption measurements showed that the TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited a UV significant absorption peak clearly blue-shifted with respect to that of bulk TiO2. The results showed that monodisperse quasi-spherical TiO2 nanoparticles (with an average size of 11 nm) consisting of a pure anatase phase were formed. The titanium dioxide nanoparticles showed a high photocatalytic performance in the degradation of diuron pesticide (C9H10Cl2N2O) under illumination by UV light. The high crystalline quality, together with the easy synthesis process, makes TiO2 nanoparticles a promising candidate for many applications, such as optoelectronics and water photolysis for hydrogen production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]