Air transports several pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), which can produce cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Thus, it is a challenge to control pollutant emissions before releasing them to the environment. Until now, filtration has been the most efficient processes for removing PM. Therefore, the electrospinning procedure has been applied to obtain membranes with a high filtration efficiency and low pressure drop. This review addressed the synthesis of polymers that are used for fabricating high-performance membranes by electrospinning to remove air pollutants. Then, the most influential parameters to produce electrospun membranes are indicated. The main results show that electrospun membranes are an excellent alternative to having air filters due to the versatility of the process, the capacity for controlling the fiber diameter, porosity, high filtration efficiency and low-pressure drop.

The intermolecular interactions in the solid state and the spectroscopic vibrational, electronic and NMR properties of new 3-methyl-substituted-2-trifluoromethylchromone derivatives with –CN (1), –NO₂ (2), –OH (3) and –NH₂ (4) groups were discussed with the assistance of DFT calculations. The crystal structures of compounds 1–3 were determined by X-ray diffraction showing molecular ribbons for compounds 1 and 2, and dimers via O–H⋯OC hydrogen bonds for 3. Hirshfeld surfaces and the corresponding fingerprint plots, as well as the electrostatic potentials mapped on the surfaces revealed C–H⋯O and C–H⋯F hydrogen bonds, and π⋯π stacking as the main cooperative driving forces for building supramolecular architectures in all compounds. The C–H⋯π and CO⋯π interactions also contribute to stabilizing the crystal structures of 1 and 2. A further analysis of Hirshfeld surfaces was performed using the enrichment ratio as a new descriptor to determine the likelihood of chemical species to establish specific interactions in the molecular packing. The lattice energies of the crystal structures and several intermolecular contacts present in different molecular pairs were also quantified. Molecular docking studies showed the interaction of the title compounds with the catalytic site of PLA₂ (PDB code 2QOG) from Crotalus durissus terrificus, and suggested that the investigated compounds could inhibit toxic effects of snake venom.

Many heterocyclic compounds can be synthetized using diaza-1,3-butadienes (DADs) as key structural precursors. Isolated and in situ diaza-1,3-butadienes, produced from their respective precursors (typically imines and hydrazones) under a variety of conditions, can both react with a wide range of substrates in many kinds of reactions. Most of these reactions discussed here include nucleophilic additions, Michael-type reactions, cycloadditions, Diels–Alder, inverse electron demand Diels–Alder, and aza-Diels–Alder reactions. This review focuses on the reports during the last 10 years employing 1,2-diaza-, 1,3-diaza-, 2,3-diaza-, and 1,4-diaza-1,3-butadienes as intermediates to synthesize heterocycles such as indole, pyrazole, 1,2,3-triazole, imidazoline, pyrimidinone, pyrazoline, -lactam, and imidazolidine, among others. Fused heterocycles, such as quinazoline, isoquinoline, and dihydroquinoxaline derivatives, are also included in the review.

Antibiotic resistance is a global threat to public health, and the search for new antibacterial therapies is a current research priority. The aim of this in silico study was to test nine new fluoroquinolones previously designed with potential leishmanicidal activity against Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Salmonella typhi, all of which are considered by the World Health Organization to resistant pathogens of global concern, through molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using wild-type (WT) and mutant-type (MT) DNA gyrases as biological targets. Our results showed that compound 9FQ had the best binding energy with the active site of E. coli in both molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Compound 9FQ interacted with residues of quinolone resistance-determining region (QRDR) in GyrA and GyrB chains, which are important to enzyme activity and through which it could block DNA replication. In addition to compound 9FQ, compound 1FQ also showed a good affinity for DNA gyrase. Thus, these newly designed molecules could have antibacterial activity against Gram-negative microorganisms. These findings represent a promising starting point for further investigation through in vitro assays, which can validate the hypothesis and potentially facilitate the development of novel antibiotic drugs.