The research team, led by Renuka Ekka and supervised by Bharti Ahirwar, began by collecting fresh leaves from Kunkuri in the Jashpur district and having the plant formally identified by botanists at the university’s Department of Botany, where a voucher specimen was deposited for future reference. Before any biological testing could begin, the leaves underwent a full pharmacognostic workup. Thin sections of leaf and petiole were stained with safranin, mounted in glycerin and examined under the microscope, revealing a dorsiventral lamina with a single-layered upper epidermis, two to three layers of tightly packed palisade tissue and a spongy mesophyll riddled with air spaces. The petiole showed a thick collar of collenchyma, seven to nine cell layers deep, wrapped around V- or U-shaped vascular bundles sheathed in sclerenchyma, with calcium oxalate crystals scattered through the cortex.

These anatomical details matter more than they might first appear. Microscopic fingerprints, together with physicochemical parameters such as ash values, moisture content, swelling index, foaming index and extractive values, constitute the quality-control toolkit of herbal medicine. Because a plant can degrade in storage or be adulterated with inferior material, establishing a reproducible anatomical and physical profile is the first step toward turning a folk remedy into a standardized medicine. The team’s measurements of total ash, acid-insoluble ash and water-soluble ash now provide a benchmark against which future batches of kachnar leaf material can be authenticated and graded.

With the plant material authenticated, the researchers defatted the powdered leaves with petroleum ether and then ran an exhaustive ethanol extraction in a Soxhlet apparatus at 40 to 60 degrees Celsius for eight to ten hours. The dark green extract represented a yield of roughly 6.46 percent of the starting plant material. Preliminary screening confirmed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, proteins and carbohydrates, while glycosides and steroids were absent. Quantification proved more striking: the extract contained 446.85 milligrams of flavonoids per gram, expressed as quercetin equivalents, and 137.04 milligrams of phenolics per gram, expressed as gallic acid equivalents. Flavonoids and phenolic compounds are the chemical workhorses of plant antioxidant defense, and their abundance here hinted at potent biological activity.

Two complementary assays put that hint to the test. In the ABTS radical decolorization assay, which measures a compound’s ability to quench a stable blue-green radical cation, the extract achieved half-maximal scavenging at a concentration of 218.76 micrograms per milliliter, compared with 203.52 micrograms per milliliter for the ascorbic acid standard. The FRAP assay, which tracks the reduction of ferric iron to its ferrous form at low pH, gave a nearly identical half-maximal value of 217.59 micrograms per milliliter against 185.26 for the standard. The extract therefore fell only modestly short of pure vitamin C, a remarkable result for a crude mixture, and one that the authors attribute to the hydroxyl groups on its flavonoid payload, which donate electrons and hydrogen atoms to neutralize destructive free radicals before they can peroxidize lipids or damage DNA.

The antimicrobial results were more measured but still encouraging. Using the agar well diffusion method, the extract produced inhibition zones of 5 to 30 millimeters against Escherichia coli, and follow-up testing against Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed clear concentration-dependent activity: zones grew from 2.5 millimeters at 100 milligrams per milliliter to 8.5 millimeters at 400 milligrams per milliliter for E. coli, and from 1.0 to 5.5 millimeters for P. aeruginosa. Estimated minimum inhibitory concentrations came out at 100 milligrams per milliliter for E. coli and 50 for P. aeruginosa. The standard antibiotic tetracycline outperformed the extract, as expected, but the dose-responsive pattern supports the plant’s traditional use against infection, and the authors note that broader testing against Gram-positive organisms is needed to map the full antibacterial spectrum.

Anti-inflammatory activity was assessed with the bovine serum albumin denaturation assay, a widely used surrogate in which protection of protein structure stands in for suppression of inflammatory tissue damage. At 100 micrograms per milliliter the extract inhibited denaturation by 16.45 percent, rising to 23.28 percent at 200 and 34.21 percent at 400 micrograms per milliliter. Diclofenac sodium, the reference drug, achieved 24.6, 33.86 and 47.67 percent at the same doses. The extract trailed the drug at every concentration, yet the steep, dose-dependent curve confirmed appreciable in vitro anti-inflammatory potential, providing the experimental half of the validation the study set out to achieve.

The computational half proved even more provocative. The team docked five major kachnar flavonoids, rutin, quercetin, apigenin, kaempferol and catechin, into the catalytic pocket of cyclooxygenase-2, the enzyme whose overactivity drives prostaglandin-mediated inflammation and which diclofenac targets clinically. Every flavonoid outscored the drug. Rutin led with a binding affinity of minus 9.6 kilocalories per mole, followed by quercetin at minus 9.2, apigenin at minus 9.1 and kaempferol at minus 9.0, all well ahead of diclofenac’s minus 6.7. Rutin’s forest of hydroxyl groups forged multiple conventional hydrogen bonds with residues including Gln192, Gly354, His351, Tyr355 and Phe580, while quercetin and kaempferol anchored themselves through hydrogen bonding to Tyr130, Gly45 and Cys47 supplemented by pi-alkyl contacts with hydrophobic residues. Surface mapping of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors showed that the plant compounds complemented the binding pocket more thoroughly than diclofenac did.

Binding energy alone does not make a drug, so the researchers also ran the flavonoids through ADMET and drug-likeness prediction using SwissADME and pkCSM, screening against Lipinski’s Rule of Five. Apigenin, catechin, quercetin and kaempferol all passed, with molecular weights below 500 daltons and balanced lipophilicity between 0.53 and 3.22, and all four showed intestinal absorption above 70 percent, comparable to diclofenac. Apigenin emerged with the most favorable profile, combining moderate polarity with the highest predicted blood-brain barrier score among the flavonoids. Rutin, despite its stellar docking score, stumbled pharmacokinetically: its 610-dalton mass, high polar surface area and negative logP predicted poor absorption and negligible brain penetration, leading the authors to suggest that nano-delivery systems might rescue its bioavailability. Encouragingly, none of the compounds were predicted to inhibit the CYP3A4 or CYP2D6 metabolic enzymes, and all were flagged AMES-negative, indicating low risks of drug-drug interactions and mutagenicity.

Taken together, the study offers something rarer than another plant extract with activity in a dish: a mechanistic bridge between ethnobotanical tradition and molecular pharmacology. The same flavonoids that dominate the leaf chemistry also dominate the docking rankings, and the in vitro antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory results align with the computational predictions rather than sitting in isolation. The authors are careful to frame the work as a starting point rather than a finish line, calling for wider antimicrobial panels, preclinical studies and formulation development before any of these compounds reach the clinic. But the message for drug discovery is clear: when tribal healers in central India spent centuries refining their use of kachnar, they were running an experiment whose results modern science is only now learning to read, and the molecules hidden in its leaves may yet yield therapeutic leads that no laboratory would have thought to synthesize from scratch.

Subject of Research: Scientific validation of the traditional anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antioxidant uses of Bauhinia variegata through phytochemical analysis, in vitro assays and molecular docking

Article Title: Scientific validation of tribal medicinal claims of Bauhinia variegata (L.) through integrated In-Silico and experimental approaches

Article References: Ekka, R., & Ahirwar, B. (2026). Scientific validation of tribal medicinal claims of Bauhinia variegata (L.) through integrated In-Silico and experimental approaches. Discover Chemistry, 3(1), Article 455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44371-026-00908-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44371-026-00908-x

Keywords: Bauhinia variegata, ethnomedicine, flavonoids, molecular docking, COX-2, ADMET, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, phytochemistry, drug discovery, tribal medicine

The story begins with one of the most abundant and cheapest starting materials imaginable. Fresh Bauhinia variegata flowers were gathered from the campus of P P Savani University in Surat, washed thoroughly with tap water, double-distilled water and ethanol, and dried first in the sun and then overnight at about 100 degrees Celsius. The dried petals were ground into a fine powder and mixed with zinc chloride in a one-to-two weight ratio, then left for a full month to allow deep impregnation. Zinc chloride activation is a well-established chemical route to porous carbon: during subsequent high-temperature treatment it promotes dehydration, aromatization and the development of an extensive pore network throughout the carbon matrix.

Carbonization itself took place in a tubular furnace under a continuous flow of nitrogen gas. The temperature was ramped from room temperature to approximately 900 degrees Celsius at a controlled 5 degrees Celsius per minute and held there for thirty minutes, driving off oxygen-containing surface groups and locking in the porous architecture. After natural cooling, the blackened product was crushed, washed with concentrated hydrochloric acid to strip out residual activating agent and inorganic impurities, and rinsed repeatedly with hot deionized water until the filtrate reached a neutral pH. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the thoroughness of this purification: no zinc signal appears in the spectra, because at 900 degrees Celsius zinc species largely volatilize thanks to the element’s high vapor pressure, and any survivors were dissolved away during the acid wash.

The innovation that elevates this work beyond routine biomass carbonization is the manganese doping step. Rather than relying on simple soaking, the team dispersed the activated carbon in ethanol and added manganese(III) oxide corresponding to a 2 weight percent manganese loading, then subjected the suspension to 70 minutes of high-intensity probe sonication at 750 watts and 20 kilohertz in pulsed mode. Acoustic cavitation, the rapid formation and collapse of microscopic bubbles in the liquid, generates intense local temperature and pressure spikes that drive precursor particles into the carbon pores and anchor them to the surface with unusual uniformity. Ethanol was replenished periodically during treatment to compensate for evaporation, and the dried powder was subsequently annealed at 450 degrees Celsius under nitrogen for three hours to strengthen the metal-carbon interactions and stabilize the manganese species.

The spectroscopic fingerprints of the resulting Mn-doped activated carbon, abbreviated Mn-AC, tell a convincing story. High-resolution XPS of the C 1s region shows peak broadening relative to the pristine material, evidence of increased surface functionalization after manganese loading. The O 1s spectrum deconvolutes into components assigned to Mn-O-C bonding near 530.0 electron-volts, surface hydroxyl groups near 531.6 electron-volts, and highly oxygenated species near 533.5 electron-volts, reflecting the strong metal-carbon interactions forged during sonication. The Mn 2p region displays the characteristic 2p3/2 and 2p1/2 doublet, confirming coexisting Mn3+ and Mn4+ oxidation states on the carbon surface. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the complementary morphological shift: smooth, compact, plate-like structures in the pristine carbon give way to a roughened, granular, nodular texture after doping, with energy-dispersive X-ray mapping confirming that carbon, oxygen and manganese are distributed evenly across the framework without agglomeration.

With the material characterized, the team fabricated two symmetric electrochemical double-layer capacitor cells using a gel polymer electrolyte composed of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) and the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tricyanomethanide. Electrode slurries containing 90 weight percent active material and 10 weight percent binder were drop-cast onto graphite sheets to a thickness of 50 to 80 micrometers, with a mass loading of roughly 1 milligram per square centimeter. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measured from 100 kilohertz down to 10 millihertz delivered the first clear verdict: the Mn-AC cell achieved a specific capacitance of 20 farads per gram at low frequency, compared with 15 farads per gram for the undoped carbon. The authors attribute the gain to increased density of polar surface functionalities and adsorption sites, improved electrolyte wetting and ion accessibility within the pores, and additional fast surface redox contributions from the manganese species.

Cyclic voltammetry reinforced the picture. After identifying an optimized window of minus one to plus one volt, the researchers swept scan rates from 5 to 100 millivolts per second. The Mn-AC cell produced CV profiles that were noticeably more rectangular than those of the pristine device, a hallmark of superior double-layer formation, and the calculated specific capacitances at 5 millivolts per second were 13.20 and 8.59 farads per gram respectively. Galvanostatic charge-discharge testing added the durability data: the pristine carbon delivered about 2 farads per gram at 1 milliampere with an energy density of 0.38 watt-hours per kilogram and a power density of 1160 watts per kilogram, while Mn-AC reached approximately 9.80 farads per gram, an energy density of 1.42 watt-hours per kilogram and a power density of 1020 watts per kilogram. Crucially, both cells remained roughly stable over 10,000 charge-discharge cycles.

The second act of the study is arguably the more striking. Counter electrodes are a critical and often expensive component of dye-sensitized solar cells, which conventionally rely on platinum. Here the researchers coated layers of AC and Mn-AC onto fluorine-doped tin oxide glass, paired them with titanium dioxide working electrodes sensitized with N719 dye, and sandwiched a previously reported PEO-KI/I2-EMImSCN polymer electrolyte between them. Under one-sun illumination from a solar simulator, the Mn-AC device nearly doubled the power conversion efficiency of the pristine-carbon cell, driven primarily by a substantial increase in short-circuit current density while open-circuit voltage and fill factor stayed comparable. The improvement points to enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward the iodide-triiodide redox reaction and faster charge transfer at the electrode-electrolyte interface, both direct consequences of manganese incorporation.

The broader context makes the result notable. Recent literature has seen explosive interest in biomass-derived carbons, from machine-learning-guided designs predicting surface areas near 2822 square meters per gram and capacitances around 322 farads per gram, to nitrogen- and phosphorus-doped porous carbons achieving energy densities approaching 49 watt-hours per kilogram. Flower-derived carbons in particular have proven versatile, serving as dye adsorbents, carbon dioxide capture media and aptasensor substrates. What this study adds is a demonstration that a modest, sonochemically delivered transition-metal dose can simultaneously upgrade a carbon’s capacitive behavior and its electrocatalytic performance, without sacrificing the porous framework or requiring scarce, costly noble metals. The authors caution that excessive manganese loading could block pores and hinder ion transport, an effect not specifically investigated here, and that no systematic optimization of manganese content was performed.

The ionic liquid electrolyte deserves its own mention. Unlike volatile, flammable organic solvents, ionic liquids are essentially non-volatile salts that remain liquid below 100 degrees Celsius, offering wide operating voltage windows and a highly ionized environment. The team’s earlier work identified EMImTCM as particularly well suited to both supercapacitor and dye-sensitized solar cell platforms, and pairing it with a PVdF-HFP gel matrix here produced a mechanically robust, safer electrolyte suited to flexible device concepts. Looking forward, the authors suggest that polymer-based electrolytes, tuned through further doping and composite formation, could push device performance well beyond what aqueous-electrolyte systems reported in most prior literature achieve. For now, the takeaway is simple and compelling: a tree that dots the streets and gardens of South Asia sheds flowers that, with a zinc chloride bath, a blast of nitrogen and seventy minutes of ultrasound, become a genuine dual-purpose energy material.

Subject of Research: Sonochemically manganese-doped activated carbon derived from Bauhinia variegata flowers for supercapacitor and dye-sensitized solar cell electrodes

Article Title: Sonochemically manganese doped activated carbon from Bauhinia variegata for dual energy application

Article References: Punetha, V. D., Dhapola, P. S., Singh, P. K., Matiyani, M., Singh, R., Kumar, S., & Pathak, V. (2026). Sonochemically manganese doped activated carbon from Bauhinia variegata for dual energy application. Discover Electrochemistry, 3(1), Article 71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44373-026-00159-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44373-026-00159-6

Keywords: activated carbon, Bauhinia variegata, manganese doping, sonochemical synthesis, supercapacitor, dye-sensitized solar cell, biomass-derived carbon, ionic liquid electrolyte, energy storage, electrocatalysis, XPS, gel polymer electrolyte