Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the important vegetables in Egypt. The study was conducted in the vegetable field to study the effect of different rates of phosphorus fertilizers and foliar application of Nano-Boron, Chitosan, and Naphthalene Acidic Acid (NAA) on growth and seed productivity of Onion plant (Allium cepa L., cv. Giza 6 Mohassan). The experiments were carried out in a split-plot design with three replicates. The main plot contains 3 rates of phosphorus treatments (30, 45 and 60 kg P₂O₅/feddan), Subplot includes foliar application of Nano-Boron, Nano-Chitosan and Naphthalene Acidic Acid (NAA) at a concentration of 50 ppm for each and sprayed at three times (50, 65 and 80 days after transplanting). Increasing the phosphorus fertilizers rate to 60 kg P₂O₅/fed significantly affects the growth and seed production of the Onion plant. Foliar application of nano-boron at 50 ppm concentration gave maximum values of onion seed yield in both seasons. Results stated that the correlation between yield and yield contributing characters over two years was highly significant. It could be recommended that P application at a rate of 60 kg P₂O₅ and sprayed onion plants at 50 ppm nano-boron three times (at 50, 65, and 80 days from transplanting) gave the highest seed yield of onion plants. Moreover, the maximum increments of inflorescence diameter (94.4%) were recorded to nano-boron foliar spray (60 p × nB) compared to the other treatments in both seasons.

Static atomic charges affect key ground-state parameters of boron quasi-planar clusters Bn, n ≤ 20, which serve as building blocks of borophenes and other two-dimensional boron-based materials promising for various advanced applications. Assuming that the outer valence shells partial electron density of the constituent B atoms are shared between them proportionally to their coordination numbers, the static atomic charges in small boron planar clusters in the electrically neutral and positively and negatively singly charged states are estimated to be in the ranges of –0.750e (B70) to +0.535e (B200), –0.500e (B7+, B8+, and B9+) to +0.556e (B17+), and –1.000e (B7–) to +0.512e (B20–), respectively.

Two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (h-BNNS) were synthesized on silver (Ag) substrates via a scalable, room-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) technique, employing borazine as a precursor. This approach overcomes the limitations of conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which requires high temperatures (>800 °C) and low pressures (10−2 Pa). The h-BNNS were characterized using FT-IR spectroscopy, confirming the presence of BN functional groups (805 cm−1 and 1632 cm−1), while FESEM/EDS revealed uniform nanosheet morphology with reduced particle size (80.66 nm at 20 min plasma exposure) and pore size (28.6 nm). XRD analysis demonstrated high crystallinity, with prominent h-BN (002) and h-BN (100) peaks, and Scherrer calculations indicated a crystallite size of ~15 nm. The coatings exhibited minimal disruption to UV-VIS reflectivity, maintaining Ag's optical properties. Crucially, Vickers hardness tests showed a 39% improvement (38.3 HV vs. 27.6 HV for pristine Ag) due to plasma-induced cross-linking and interfacial adhesion. This work establishes APP as a cost-effective, eco-friendly alternative for growing h-BNNS on temperature-sensitive substrates, with applications in optical mirrors, corrosion-resistant coatings, energy devices and gas sensing.

Boron and tungsten carbides, B₄C and WC, are hard materials widely used in modern technologies. Further improvement of their performance characteristics involves the development of new B₄C and WC-based and/or related composites in a nanodispersed state. This article provides a review of available literature research on B-C-W systems, which would be useful in future studies in this direction.

We develop a relatively cheap technology of processing a scrap in the form of already used tungsten-containing products (spirals, plates, wires, rods, etc.), as well not conditional tungsten powders. The main stages of the proposed W-scrap recycling method are its dispersing and subsequent dissolution under controlled conditions in hydrogen peroxide aqueous solution resulting in the PTA (PeroxpolyTungstic Acid) formation. The filtered solution, as well as the solid acid obtained by its evaporation, are used to synthesize various tungsten compounds and composites. Good solubility of PTA in water and some other solvents allows preparing homogeneous liquid charges, heat treatment of which yield WC and WC–Co in form of ultradispersed powders. GO (Graphene Oxide) and PTA composite is obtained and its phase transition in vacuum and reducing atmosphere (H₂) is studied. By vacuum-thermal exfoliation of GO–PTA composite at 170–500℃ the rGO (reduced GO) and WO_2.9 tungsten oxide are obtained, and at 700℃—rGO–WO₂ composite. WC, W₂C and WC–Co are obtained from PTA at high temperature (900–1000℃). By reducing PTA in a hydrogen atmosphere, metallic tungsten powder is obtained, which was used to obtain sandwich composites with boron carbide B₄C, W/B₄C, and W/(B₄C–W), as neutron shield materials. Composites of sandwich morphology are formed by SPS (Spark-Plasma Sintering) method.

The semiclassical boron–boron interatomic pair potential is constructed in an integral form allowing its converting into the analytical one. It is an ab initio B–B potential free of any semiempirical adjusting parameters, which would serve as an effective tool for the theoretical characterization of all-boron and boron-rich nanomaterials.