A simple approach for growing porous electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (pErGO) networks on copper wire, modified with galvanostatically deposited copper foam is demonstrated. The as-prepared pErGO networks on the copper wire are directly used to fabricate solid-state supercapacitor. The pErGO-based supercapacitor can deliver a specific capacitance (C_sp) as high as 81±3 F g⁻¹ at 0.5 A g⁻¹ with polyvinyl alcohol/H₃PO₄ gel electrolyte. The C_sp per unit length and area are calculated as 40.5 mF cm⁻¹ and 283.5 mF cm⁻², respectively. The shape of the voltammogram retained up to high scan rate of 100 V s⁻¹. The pErGO-based supercapacitor device exhibits noticeably high charge-discharge cycling stability, with 94.5% C_sp retained even after 5000 cycles at 5 A g⁻¹. Nominal change in the specific capacitance, as well as the shape of the voltammogram, is observed at different bending angles of the device even after 5000 cycles. The highest energy density of 11.25 W h kg⁻¹ and the highest power density of 5 kW kg⁻¹ are also achieved with this device. The wire-based supercapacitor is scalable and highly flexible, which can be assembled with/without a flexible substrate in different geometries and bending angles for illustrating promising use in smart textile and wearable device.

The Gulf countries are located in the arid and semi-arid regions where rainfall is scanty and evaporation rates are high. Surface water is limited and there are no perennial streams. The increase in population and socio-economic development has led to an imbalance between supply and demand. These countries depend mainly on desalination to meet the growing water needs. This paper reviews the history of desalination and the desalination processes used—multistage flash distillation (MSF), reverse osmosis (RO), multieffect distillation and electrodialysis. An overview of these processes and the challenges faced—like scaling of tubes in MSF and membrane fouling in RO—is discussed. This review also highlights the present trends in water pre-treatment and integrated membrane systems. The depletion of fossil fuels makes it imperative to consider alternate energy sources like solar and nuclear energy. Future prospects for integrated desalination techniques which could result in reduction of cost of desalinated water are outlined. The paper mainly focuses on RO and MSF as these are the most popular commercial processes used in the Gulf region.

Detection and characterization of fluoride is an important part of understanding the benefits as well as the potential toxicity of fluoride in biotic and abiotic natural sources. Fluoride can have a detrimental effect on human health at high concentrations (>1.5 mg L⁻¹), thus, it must be detected and quantitated. For this analytical methods play an important role. This review underlines the role of analytical methods in the detection and quantitation of fluoride. The review highlights a variety of analytical methods, for instance, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and molecular absorption spectrometry (MAS), and electrochemical methods that have been applied in the determination of fluoride. The principles of these techniques in conjunction with their pros and cons, and their applications regarding the determination and detection of fluoride are discussed. The commonly used fluoride sensing methods, including fluorescence and colorimetric methods have also been discussed. We hope this review will promote the next generation approaches and application of innovative analytical methods for fluoride detection and quantification.