Synergistic Effect of Rhodiola rosea and Caffeine Supplementation on the Improvement of Muscle Strength and Muscular Endurance: A Pilot Study for Rats, Resistance Exercise-Untrained and -Trained Volunteers.

Multi-level studies have shown that Rhodiola rosea (RHO) and Caffeine (CAF) have the potential to be nutritional supplements to enhance physical performance in resistance exercise-untrained and -trained subjects. This study examined the synergistic effects of RHO (262.7 mg/kg for rats and 2.4 g for volunteers) and CAF (19.7 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for volunteers) supplementation on improving physical performance in rats, resistance exercise-untrained volunteers and resistance exercise-trained volunteers. Rats and volunteers were randomly grouped into placebo, CAF, RHO and CAF+RHO and administered accordingly with the nutrients during the training procedure, and pre- and post-measures were collected. We found that RHO+CAF was effective in improving forelimb grip strength (13.75%), erythropoietin (23.85%), dopamine (12.65%) and oxygen consumption rate (9.29%) in the rat model. Furthermore, the current results also indicated that the combination of RHO+CAF significantly increased the bench press one-repetition maximum (1RM) (16.59%), deep squat 1RM (15.75%), maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) (14.72%) and maximum repetitions of 60% 1RM bench press (22.15%) in resistance exercise-untrained volunteers. Additionally, despite the excellent base level of the resistance exercise-trained volunteers, their deep squat 1RM and MVIC increased substantially through the synergistic effect of RHO and CAF. In conclusion, combined supplementation of RHO+CAF is more beneficial in improving the resistance exercise performance for both resistance exercise-untrained and -trained volunteers. The present results provide practical evidence that the synergies of RHO and CAF could serve as potential supplementary for individuals, especially resistance exercise-trained subjects, to ameliorate their physical performances effectively and safely.

Coffee grounds derived N enriched microporous activated carbons: Efficient adsorbent for post-combustion CO2 capture and conversion.

N enriched microporous active carbons (CACs) were successfully obtained with coffee grounds as precursor and KOH as activator, which were used for the capture and conversion of CO2 from post-combustion. The influence of preparation parameters, such as the temperature of activation and KOH/carbon ratio on textural properties of CACs were studied. N2 adsorption-desorption, XRD, Raman, SEM and XPS were used for characterization of the CACs. The adsorption capacities of CO2 CACs-2-800 are 6.22 mmol·g-1 (1 bar) and 2.37 mmol·g-1 (0.15 bar) at 273 K. CACs-2-800 also have high selectivity of CO2/N2 (SCO2/N2 = 33) and good adsorption-desorption recycle stability. Furthermore, the CACs-2-800 showed high catalytic activity for the cycloaddition of CO2 to epichlorohydrin. The good CO2 adsorption capacity, selectivity and catalytic performance indicated that CACs-2-800 could be used for the capture and conversion of CO2 from post-combustion.