Types of health service utilization in Mumbai slums: a community-based survey.

Objective: Sociodemographic factors play a crucial role in shaping the health-seeking behaviors of individuals residing in slum areas, particularly in their choice of healthcare facilities. Recognizing the importance of strengthening the existing healthcare systems, this research project was undertaken with the primary objective of comprehending the health-seeking behaviors among residents of Mumbai's slum dwellings in India. To achieve this goal, a comprehensive cross-sectional community needs assessment was conducted spanning from October 2018 to January 2019.

Role of Seawater Ions in Forming an Effective Interface between Photocatalyst/Cocatalyst.

Photocatalytic (PC) hydrogen production from water splitting is a promising route to fulfill the current energy demand in a sustainable manner. For photocatalysis to become industrially viable, seawater should be used as an ideal solvent. Until now, a variety of semiconductor photocatalysts have been exploited for seawater splitting; however, there has been a lack of a well-established catalytic system for seawater splitting, as seawater ions have an uncertain effect on water splitting.

Biomimetic Hydroxyapatite a Potential Universal Nanocarrier for Cellular Internalization & Drug Delivery.

Purpose: Functional biomaterials can be used as drug loading devices, components for tissue engineering or as biological probes. As such, the design, synthesis and evaluation of a variety of local-drug delivery structures has been undertaken over the past few decades with the ultimate aim of providing materials that can encapsulate a diverse array of drugs (in terms of their sizes, chemical compositions and chemical natures (i.e.

Insight into the Excitation-Dependent Fluorescence of Carbon Dots.

High quantum yield, photoluminescence tunability, and sensitivity to the environment are a few distinct trademarks that make carbon nanodots (CDs) interesting for fundamental research, with potential to replace the prevalent inorganic semiconductor quantum dots. Currently, application and fundamental understanding of CDs are constrained because it is difficult to make a quantitative comparison among different types of CDs simply because their photoluminescence properties are directly linked to their size distribution, the surface functionalization, the carbon core structures (graphitic or amorphous) and the number of defects. Herein, we report a facile one-step synthesis of mono-dispersed and highly fluorescent nanometre size CDs from a 'family' of glucose-based sugars.

Crafting Inorganic Materials for Use in Energy Capture and Storage.

Harnessing solar energy effectively by the judicious use of photoactive inorganic/hybrid structures has become a pivotal requirement in the pursuit of environmentally benign technologies. The synthesis of new inorganic materials whose stoichiometry, structure, and activity can be tuned while maintaining a high level of architectural homogeneity and the successful evaluation of each material as a viable component in specific energy-capture- and storage-based applications are being presented here. Two of our current projects are detailed, involving (i) new 1D-structured hybrid perovskite that is a more temporally and thermally stable analogue of the oft-cited methylammonium lead iodide and (ii) a new electroactive material that can function not only as a conventional electrode in a battery but also, because of the material's inherent photoactivity, as a component in solar batteries.

Coupling Energy Capture and Storage - Endeavoring to make a solar battery.

Storage of solar radiation is currently accomplished by coupling two separate devices, one that captures and converts the energy into an electrical impulse (a photovoltaic cell) and another that stores this electrical output (a battery or a supercapacitor electrochemical cell). This configuration however has several challenges that stem from a complex coupled-device architecture and multiple interfaces through which charge transfer has to occur. As such presented here is a scheme whereby solar energy capture and storage have been coupled using a single bi-functional material.

Nanostructured MoS/BiVO Composites for Energy Storage Applications.

We report the optimized synthesis and electrochemical characterization of a composite of few-layered nanostructured MoS along with an electroactive metal oxide BiVO. In comparison to pristine BiVO, and a composite of graphene/BiVO, the MoS/BiVO nanocomposite provides impressive values of charge storage with longer discharge times and improved cycling stability. Specific capacitance values of 610 Fg (170 mAhg) at 1 Ag and 166 Fg (46 mAhg) at 10 Ag were obtained for just 2.

Enhancement in Rate of Photocatalysis Upon Catalyst Recycling.

Recyclability is an important aspect for heterogeneous photo-catalysts. Ease of recovery and stability of the photo-catalyst in terms of efficiency over the number of cycles are highly desired and in fact it is ideal if the efficiency is constant and it should not decrease marginally with each cycle. Presented here is a seminal observation in which the photocatalytic activity is shown to improve with increasing number of catalytic cycles (it is 1.

Electrocatalyst on insulating support?: Hollow silica spheres loaded with Pt nanoparticles for methanol oxidation.

Electrocatalytic oxidation of methanol on silica hollow spheres, loaded with platinum nanoparticles (Pt-SiO2-HS), is reported. The functionalized hollow silica spheres were prepared by the surfactant (lauryl ester of tyrosine) template-assisted synthesis. These spheres were loaded with platinum nanoparticles by γ-radiolysis.

Synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanotubes for biomedical applications.

Single phase, stoichiometrically pure, hollow nanotubes of hydroxyapatite have been synthesized and single-particle analysis has been performed to successfully prove the sole formation of Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 phase. The facile synthesis involves a sol-gel process under neutral conditions in the presence of a sacrifical anodic alumina template. The structures formed are hollow nanotubes that have been characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, SAED, EELS, EDS and BET measurements.

A facile methodology for the design of functionalized hollow silica spheres.

A new amino acid derived amphiphile, lauryl ester of tyrosine (LET) is shown to provide a facile methodology for the preparation of hollow silica spheres. In a previous study on the interface adsorption, it was shown that phenolic OH group in LET plays a key role in the formation and stabilization of close packed structures, typically at the oil/water interface. Drawing an analogy between the air/water and the oil/water interface, we detail here a procedure where air droplets are capped with LET aggregated structures, and in turn they are utilized as viable templates in the production of hollow silica spheres.

Zinc glycolate: a precursor to ZnO.

A simple and versatile solvent-growth process using ethylene glycol has been demonstrated for the synthesis of novel faceted bipyramidal zinc glycolate. Upon thermal treatment in air, this structure can be converted into a ZnO hexagonal phase with wurtzite structure via solid-state transformation. The morphology, microstructure, and crystallinity of the products before and after thermal treatment have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and solid-state (13)C NMR measurements.

Synthesis of mesoporous silica monoliths with embedded nanoparticles.

Mesostructured silica-nanoparticle monolithic composites have been synthesized by dispersing prefabricated nanoparticles of gold or zeolite (silicalite) in ethanolic reaction mixtures containing SiCl4 and a Pluronic triblock copolymer template. Whereas silicalite nanoparticles were used directly, surface functionalization of the gold nanoparticles with either primed silicate ions or a discrete 3-5-nm-thick silica shell was required to increase the interfacial compatibility with the hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide) blocks. Under these conditions, the resulting monoliths consisted of distributed nanoparticles within an ordered mesostructured silica matrix.

Interfacial synthesis of hollow microspheres of mesostructured silica.

Hollow microspheres with ordered mesoporous walls are synthesised under ambient conditions by a simple procedure involving dilution and neutralisation of an aqueous tetraethoxysilane/cetyltrimethylammonium bromide reaction mixture.