Effect of Integrated Nutrient Management on Soil Health, Soil Quality, and Production of Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.).

The integrated application of inorganic fertilizers, organic fertilizers, and biofertilizers helps sustain the nutrient pool and benefits the soil quality, thereby boosting plant health. The effect of different combinations of biofertilizers (consortium biofertilizer [CBF]-non-rhizobial PGPR), inorganic fertilizers, and organic fertilizers on soil health, growth, and yield of cowpea was evaluated by conducting a field experiment. The application of N100 FYM + CBF resulted in significantly higher populations of bacteria, fungi, PSB, and diazotroph, as well as soil dehydrogenase and alkaline phosphatase enzyme activities. However, the application of N100 FYM recorded a significantly higher actinomycetes population. The application of N100 FYM + CBF resulted in significantly higher soil OC, available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The soil pH was recorded to be highest in control, and soil EC was recorded to be lowest in control. The plant uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium was significantly higher with N50 FYM + NP50 + CBF. The root-shoot biomass, number of leaves, nodules/plant, number of pods/plants, pod biomass, pod length, and pod width were significantly higher in treatment having N50 FYM + NP50 + CBF. However, the height of the plant, number of branches, and biomass of leaves were highest in treatment with N25 FYM + NP75 + CBF. The pod and stover yield were significantly higher in treatment with N50 FYM + NP50 + CBF. The results showed that the integrated application of non-rhizobial PGPR along with organic and inorganic fertilizer helps to improve overall soil health, quality, and plant growth of forage cowpea contributing to an increase in crop yield.

To inquire the effects of different geometric electrodes on current characteristics of C24 fullerene molecular junction.

Two different types of geometric electrode configurations were utilized to form C24 fullerene based molecular junction. The C24 molecule was intercalated in-between gold electrodes with two different shapes viz. knife edge and flat edge and the resultant molecular junctions (MJs) were simulated using nonequilibrium Green's function combined with semiempirical extended Huckel theory (EHT). Different transport parameters, namely projected device density of states, current-voltage curve, differential conductance curve, molecular orbitals, and transmission spectra were investigated at discrete bias voltages to gain insight about the various transport phenomena occurring in these molecular junctions. The results show that when the C24 fullerene is placed in between the flat-edged electrodes, current and conductance are higher in magnitude in comparison to the knife-edged configuration. These deductions give us a new perspective to design advanced molecular devices for electronics applications in the future.

Adenine based molecular junction as biosensor for detection of toxic phosgene gas.

The possibility of adsorption of toxic phosgene gas (COCl2) molecule on one of the nucleobase of DNA-adenine-has been analyzed using the first principle calculations based on density function theory. In accordance with the geometry of the nucleobase, two possible positions have been considered for effective adsorption of gas molecule. The calculations performed on adsorption energies suggest that the gas molecule is able to physisorb at both the considered positions with negligibly small values of charge transfer. The in-depth analysis of electron charge densities depicts that there is no orbital overlapping between the gas molecule and adenine. We observe a significant variation of transport properties of adenine-based molecular junction on adsorption of phosgene molecule while calculation the transport parameters at both the equilibrium as well as non-equilibrium. Also, the variation of HOMO-LUMO gap of adenine molecule on adsorption of phosgene leads to alteration of current and voltage, thus implying that adenine-based sensor can be effectively utilized to sense the presence of phosgene gas in a given environment. Small adsorption energies and recovery time suggest that the rate of desorption of phosgene is very high; thus, the proposed adenine sensor can be effectively used as a highly stable and selective reusable sensor.

A pursuit to design highly sensitive fullerene-based sensors: adsorption and dissociation phenomenon of toxic sulfur gases on B40 fullerene.

The adsorption phenomenon of toxic sulfur gases namely H2S and SO2 on B40 fullerene is scrutinized utilizing density functional theory-non-equilibrium Green's function (DFT-NEGF) regime. Adsorption of gas molecules is considered at both the hexagonal and heptagonal rings of the fullerene and adsorption energies, charge transfer, electron charge densities, density of states, transmission spectra, molecular energy spectra; Eigen states, HOMO-LUMO gap, current voltage curve, and differential conductance are premeditated. It is inferred that H2S molecule is physisorbed on the heptagonal ring of the fullerene while it is dissociative-chemisorbed on the hexagonal ring. SO2 dissociates into SO and O species on adsorption on both the hexagonal and heptagonal rings. From the transmission spectra and DOS analysis, LUMO dominant transmission is noticed in all the devices except the one formed with heptagonal ring adsorption of H2S which favors HOMO-dominated transmission. From the I-V curve and differential conductance investigation, different conductance values are noticed for all the junctions, thus proving that B40 is an efficient material to be engaged in sensing toxic sulfur gases.

The electronic transport properties of B40 fullerenes with chalcogens as anchor atoms.

Fullerenes are the most popular molecules to use in applications related to molecular electronics because of their superconductive nature. These molecules show a diverse range of properties, including optical, electronic, and structural characteristics. In this work, we focused on the electronic transport properties of molecular devices consisting of the fullerene B40 or B40 with different anchor atoms between two gold electrodes in a two-probe configuration. The elements used as anchor atoms in the B40 molecules were oxygen, selenium, and sulfur, i.e., chalcogens. The current characteristics of these fullerene-based molecular devices were calculated and analyzed. The analysis highlighted the superior electrical conductivity of the pure B40 device compared to the devices based on its chalcogen-anchored variants. The conductivities of the molecular devices were ranked as follows: pure B40 > selenium-anchored > sulfur-anchored > oxygen-anchored B40. It was also noted that the devices based on B40 and its chalcogen-anchored variants gave nonzero conductance values at zero bias. These results pave the way for the application of these molecules in future nanodevices utilizing extremely small bias voltages.