We recently reported a simple and cost-effective green method to produce free-standing, flexible, and highly conductive electrochemically exfoliated graphene paper (GrP) for a supercapacitor application. To improve the capacitance behavior of GrP, manganese dioxide (MnO2) was electrochemically deposited on GrP with different number of MnO2 cycles. After the electrochemical deposition process, MnO2 nanoflowers were formed, which provide a fast transfer of electrolyte ions. After 10 cycles of electrodeposition, MnO2-coated GrP (GrP/10-MnO2, which is the optimal composition) exhibited an excellent capacitive performance with a high specific capacitance of 385.2 F·g–1 at 1 mV·s–1 in 0.1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte and outstanding capacitance retention after 5000 consecutive cycles. Taking advantage of both superior mechanical and capacitance behavior of GrP and GrP/10-MnO2 electrodes, a flexible solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor (SASc) device was assembled using GrP/10-MnO2 and GrP as positive and negative electrode, respectively. The fabricated SASc device exhibited not only high areal capacitances of 76.8 mF cm–2 at a current density of 0.05 mA cm–2 but also excellent cycling stability of 82.2% after 5000 consecutive galvanostatic charge/discharge cycles. This flexible supercapacitor can also deliver a high energy density of 6.14 mWh·cm–2 with a power density of 36 mW·cm–2. This research represents a new direction for exploring the potential of free-standing GrP and its nanocomposites in flexible energy-storage systems.

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Monodispersed cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO 2 NPs) with positive and negative surface potential were synthesized by co-precipitation method using hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) and poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP), respectively, as precipitating agents. Synthesized NPs were characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV–Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). Positively charged NPs of about 30 ± 10 nm in size formed within 5 h, aggregated in number, and resulted in larger-sized NPs as a function of time. The CeO 2 NPs were administered to Drosophila as a part of their diet to study the effects on the growth and development of Drosophila . While the positively charged NPs did not affect the growth of the third instar larvae, the negatively charged NPs delayed the growth of larvae by about 7 days. It required 7 more days to reach the stage of adult fly. TEM imaging of the larvae gut showed that positively charged NPs were found to be smaller, whereas the size of negatively charged NPs remained unchanged. This biodegradability could be the reason for the delayed larvae growth in the case of negatively charged particles. The distance covered by such second instar larvae fed with diet containing negatively charged CeO 2 NPs was significantly lower, and their size was significantly smaller when compared to the crawling activity and size of the third instar larvae of the control group. Such positively charged NPs have high potential for use as drug delivery carriers for the treatment of disease, and negatively charged NPs may play a rather detrimental role.

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