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The fluorescent imaging and drug delivery utilizing carbon dots nanomaterials (CDs) have attracted tremendously due to their unique optical ability and outstanding biocompatibility. Herein, we reported a new design of chalcone-loaded carbon dots (Chalcone-APBA-CDs) to serve chalcone transport onto cancer cells and enhance the CDs bioimaging and antitumor activity. The boronic acid was directly introduced to carbon dots (CDs) via pyrolysis process to drive CDs specifically to the cancer cell, and chalcone was mediated on CDs by ultrasonication to perform facile release of the drug delivery model. The successfully synthesized Chalcone-APBA-CDs were proved by their chemical structure, fluorescent activities, in vitro and in vivo analyses, and drug release systems using different pH. In addition, flow cytometry and confocal fluorescent imaging proved CDs' cellular uptake and imaging performance. In vitro analyses further proved that the Chalcone-APBA-CDs exhibited a higher toxicity value than bare CDs and efficiently inhibited the proliferation of the HeLa cells depending on their dose-response. Finally, the performance of Chalcone-APBA-CDs on cancer healing capability was examined in vivo with fibrosarcoma cancer-bearing mice, which showed a remarkable ability to reduce the tumor volume compared with saline (control). This result strongly suggested that the Chalcone-APBA-CDs appear promising simultaneously as cancer cell imaging and drug delivery.

Gadolinium doped cerium (Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95 or GDC10) was successfully synthesized using the solid-state method. Commercially available CeO2 and Gd2O3 powders were used as starting materials. They were mixed in a ball mill where alumina balls were added as grinding medium with the ratio to powders as of 1:2. The obtained powders were dried and then calcined at temperatures of 600, 700 and 800 °C, respectively. The objective of this research was to investigate the effects of calcination temperature on the properties of GDC10. The powders were characterized using XRF, TGA, XRD, and PSA instruments. XRF analysis shows the presence of Ce, Gd and O elements in stoichiometric composition without any impurities. XRD analysis showed single phase structure of CeO2 where the crystallite size and lattice parameter increases and decreases, respectively, as the calcination temperature increases. The smallest particle size of 647.3 nm was obtained at the calcination temperature of 600 °C. The density of all GDC10 samples sintered at 1350 °C was found to be higher than 95%. In addition, the calcination temperature also influenced the ionic conductivity where the highest obtained value was 0.0153 S.cm-1 at 800 °C for the sample calcinaed at 600 °C. The results suggest that the calcination temperature affected the properties of GDC10 for solid oxide fuel cell application.

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Lithium-ion battery has been drawing attention from researchers due to its excellent properties in terms of electrochemical and structural stability, low cost, and high safety feature, leading to prospective applications in electric vehicles and other large-scale applications. However, lithium-ion batteries are still in charging time owing to its low conductivity, restricting its wide applications in large-scale applications. In this work, therefore, lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO) was synthesized derived from lanthanum oxalate, as a lanthanum source, for an anode active material application in the lithium-ion batteries due its high electrochemical conductivity and pseudocapacitive characteristics. To the best our knowledge, our work is the first one to synthesize LLTO from lanthanum oxalate as the lanthanum source. Commercial lithium carbonate and commercial titanium oxide were used as the lithium and titanium sources, respectively. It was used low cost and simple solid-state reaction process to synthesize this material and performed a two-step calcination processs at 800 oC for 8 hours and 1050 oC for 12 hours under ambient atmosphere. The physical characteristics showed that LLTO possesses high purity (98.141%) and micro sized grains with abundant empty spaces between the grains. This, therefore, lead to improve electrochemical performances such as stable discharge capacity at low potential even near to zero (98.67 mAh), and a high conductivity of 2.45 × 10-2 S/cm at room temperature. This LLTO is interesting to be used as the anode active material in low potential lithium-ion battery applications.