No abstract

Plant draws nutrition from soil and air, while former contributes minerals and water, the later provides carbon dioxide. Similar to early man, who wandered around, hunting for resources, roots ‘forage’ underneath into the soil for nutrients. Root foraging is a function of nutrient availability. Here, for the first time, we show, root foraging which is quantified by the root architecture, can be modulated by a brief nano pyrite (FeS2) intervention. A 3 h root treatment of plant saplings with a 100 μg ml−1 suspension of nano FeS2, followed by transplantation onto a fallow land with no fertiliser application, influences root architecture and yield of cabbage, cauliflower, and tomato. These ‘heavy feeder’ vegetables drawing significant nutrients from the soil, are grown and consumed globally. This root treatment strategy, if applied for ‘heavy feeders’, can contribute towards sustainable vegetable farming with reduced fertiliser input; thus helping the marginal farmers across the world.

No abstract

Developing 'carbon lithium sulfide composite (C-Li 2 S)' cathode is a promising strategy for Li-S battery. Quite interestingly, when Li and S are caged in a heavily nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (NDRGO) matrix derived from Tassar silk cocoon, the composite (NDRGO-Li-S) electrode behaves like a supercapacitor. In this work, we first optimized the concentrations of sulfur and then introduced molybdenum in the NDRGO matrix to develop a stable NDRGO-Mo-Li-2S (where 2 stands for 2M) composite electrode. The electrode design process utilized the concepts of "embedded redox couples" and "induced electron transfer"; a putative strategy to alter internal electron-shuttling kinetics for applications in various charge storage devices; where a time of electron-shuttling is the key. In NDRGO-Mo-Li-2S composite the charge transport occurs via "induced electron transfer," where Li + , is an external oxidant, provoking the inter atom electron transfer between Mo(VI), the internal oxidant, and S(-II), the internal reductant in Mo-S redox couple. This redox reaction is reversed using NDRGO, an external reductant inducing inter atom electron flow across [Mo(V)-(S2)] to complete the starting to product and back cycle. Such a redox cycle is competent for the flow of electrons in a lasting charge storage material through this unique bio-inorganic hybrid approach.