Herein we report a thorough investigation on Sb 2 Se 3, a promising absorber material for photovoltaic applications, using state of the art quantum methods to understand the impact of defects on its electrical properties. The results show that despite a rather small

Licorice botanicals are produced from the roots of Glycyrrhiza species (Fabaceae), encompassing metabolites of both plant and rhizobial origin. The composition in both primary and secondary metabolites (1°/2°Ms) reflects the physiologic state of the plant at harvest. Interestingly, the relative abundance of 1°Ms vs 2°Ms in licorice extracts remains undetermined. A centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) method was developed to purify liquiritin derivatives that represent major bioactive 2°Ms and to concentrate the polar 1°Ms from the crude extract of Glycyrrhiza uralensis. One objective was to determine the purity of the generated reference materials by orthogonal UHPLC-UV/LC-MS and qHNMR analyses. The other objectives were to evaluate the presence of 1°Ms in purified 2°Ms and define their mass balance in a crude botanical extract. Whereas most impurities could be assigned to well-known 1°Ms, p-hydroxybenzylmalonic acid, a new natural tyrosine analogue, was also identified. Additionally, in the most polar fraction, sucrose and proline represented 93% (w/w) of all qHNMR-quantified 1°Ms. Compared to the 2°Ms, accounting for 11.9% by UHPLC-UV, 1°Ms quantified by qHNMR defined an additional 74.8% of G. uralensis extract. The combined orthogonal methods enable the mass balance characterization of licorice extracts and highlight the relevance of 1°Ms, and accompanying metabolites, for botanical quality control.

International audienceIn this paper, we report the existence of new bulk chalcogenide glasses free of germanium and transparent up to 18 μm. The investigation of the Ga-Sb-Se ternary diagram has allowed bringing out the presence of a small glassy domain mainly formed for compositions with low contents of Ga. Thermal, optical and mechanical characteristics of these glasses have been studied. In order to enhance the low stability against crystallization pure iodine was successfully added. At last, structural analysis by Raman spectroscopy was performed to point out the iodine addition effect. © 2017 Elsevier B.V