The COVID-19 pandemic is endangering the world due to the spread of respiration droplets with viruses. Medical workers and frontline staff need to wear respirators to protect themselves from breathing in the virus-containing respiration droplets. The most frequently used state-of-the-art respirators are of N95 standard; however, they lack selfdecontamination capabilities. In addition, the viruses and bacteria can accumulate on the respirator surfaces, possessing high risks to the wearers over long-term usage. Photothermal decontamination is a contactless, fast, low-cost, and widely available method, capable of decontaminating the respirators. Herein, we report a plasmonic photothermal and superhydrophobic coating on N95 respirators, possessing significantly better protection than existing personal protection equipment. The plasmonic heating can raise the surface temperature to over 80 °C for this type of respirator within 1 min of sunlight illumination. The superhydrophobic features prohibit respiration droplets from accumulating on the respirator surfaces. The presence of the silver nanoparticles can provide additional protection via the silver ion's disinfection toward microbes. These synergistic features of the composite coatings provide the N95 respirator with better protection and can inspire experts from interdisciplinary fields to develop better personal protection equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The development of a synthetic process for (S,S)-reboxetine succinate, a candidate for the treatment of fibromylagia, is disclosed from initial scale-up to deliver material for registrational stability testing through to commercial route evaluation and subsequent nomination. This entailed evaluation of several alternative routes to result in what would have been a commercially attractive process for launch of the compound.

The effect of material swelling on the surface roughness in ultraprecision diamond turning has been investigated. Experimental results from the power spectrum analysis indicate that the pro®le of the tool marks is distorted by the effect of swelling of the materials being cut. A good correlation exists between the surface roughness and the amount of swelling that has occurred in the machined layer. Radically different surface roughness pro®les were obtained when machining aluminium and copper single crystals with the same cutting plane and tool shape. The difference in the machining behaviour could not be accounted for by elastic recovery alone but could be explained by considering the plastic deformation induced in the machined layer.MST/4449