All photosynthetic organisms contain light-harvesting antenna complexes and electron transfer complexes called reaction centers. Some photosynthetic bacteria contain large (~100 MDa) peripheral antenna complexes known as chlorosomes. Chlorosomes lose their reaction center when they are extracted from organisms. Lead sulfide (PbS) quantum dots (QDs) were used for artificial reaction centers. Successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) allows different sizes of PbS QDs with different cycles to be easily deposited onto the nanostructured columnar titanium dioxide (TiO2) film with single crystal. Chlorosomes were sequentially deposited onto the PbS QDs surface by electrospray. Compared to the typical PbS QD sensitized solar cells, overall energy conversion efficiency increased with the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) effect between PbS QDs and chlorosomes.

Graphene has been one of the most important subjects in materials science in the last years. Recently, the frictional characteristics of atomically thin sheets were experimentally investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). A new mechanism to explain the enhanced friction for these materials, based on elastic compliance has been proposed. Here, we have investigated the tribological properties of graphene and boron-nitride (single and multi-layers) membranes using fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. These simulations were carried out using classical force fields, as implemented in the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) code. The used structural models contain typically hundreds of thousands of atoms. In order to mimic the experimental conditions, an artificial AFM tip was moved over the membranes and the tribological characteristics determined in terms of forces and energies. Our results are in good agreement with the available experimental data. They show that the observed enhanced tribological properties can be explained in terms of out-of-plane geometrical distortions and elastic waves propagation. They validate the general features of the model proposed by Lee et al. (Science 328, 76 (2010).

Oleylamine stabilized copper nanoparticles with an average diameter of ~10 nm were obtained by reducing copper chloride with 1-heptanol. Surfactants such as oleylamine, poly (N-vinylpyrrolidone) and oleic acid were used to avoid the agglomeration and growth of the particles during the synthesis and consequent dispersion in organic solvent. The analyses of the samples indicated that oleylamine results to be more suitable to prepare stable copper suspensions in dodecane. The electrical resistivity of the copper thin films prepared by spin coating the copper nanoink and annealed at 250 °C under different atmospheres was less than 35 μΩ-cm, which is closer to the values reported for Cu nanoparticles.

Advances in nanotechnology observe new applications in many areas. Recently a great extent of research has been focused on the study of magnetic nanoparticles due to their potential application in areas such as bioscience and medicine. Magnetic nanoparticles are frequently used in biomedical and biotechnology applications since these particles associated to a given medicine are good candidates for drug release.

In this work zeta potential measurements of both hexagonal barium ferrites (magnetic nanoparticles), and an antibiotic known as tetracycline were carried out. The knowledge of the measured values establishes the possibility of bringing the two particles together in order to adsorb the tetracycline on the magnetic nanoparticles, since the surface charge play an essential role in the adsorption of the pharmaceutical drug on nanomaterials (i.e., tetracycline on barium ferrites).

Experimental results show the feasibility to adsorb tetracycline nanoparticles on barium hexaferrite solids at pH 7.0, based on the knowledge of the opposite electrical surface charge of the two solid species through the zeta potential measurement.

In this work was studied the partial substitution in the design of a refractory mix of the fine crystalline graphite for prefabricate nanoparticles of the seam source of graphite, improving the refractory properties of the material, getting a better resistant to the chemical attack by the slag and steel liquid metal. The raw materials and nanoparticles of crystalline graphite were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Sherrer equation, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The nanoparticles size determines the crystalline of the graphite used in the mixes obtained after different steps of mechanic milling. The nanoparticles of materials were added to the mixes in different proportions. The commercial raw materials used for this investigation were: commercial silicon carbide high purity (97% SiC), calcined bauxite (85% Al2O3), alpha calcined alumina, and crystalline graphite (94% C). Additionally, six different sizes of graphite nanoparticles were selected. The particle size of the initial commercial graphite was 0.044mm and the final nanoparticles obtained in this investigation by mechanic milling was 18 nm. The measurement of the particle size of the nanoparticles was made by the Scherrer equation, XRD and SEM.

The surface of polymer nanofibers plays a significant role in many applications thus measurement of their surface properties is essential but challenging due to their relatively small size. This study details AFM wetting tests for individual electrospun Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) nanofibers in order to measure their polar and dispersive surface free energy components. Individual electrospun PVA nanofibers have been immersed and removed from three different low vapor pressure liquids using AFM. The polymer nanofiber-liquid interactions can be monitored by AFM and accurate measurements of contact angle between liquids and the nanofiber surface can be made. These wetting data were used to produce Owens-Wendt plot giving the dispersive and polar components of the nanofiber surface. Results are compared with bulk polymer films to conclude how the surface properties of electrospun polymer nanofibers are different from bulk polymer material.

Nanostructured fiber-mats have large surface area, high reactivity, low weight and low agglomeration tendency. These are advantages if compared with nanoparticles for photocatalytic application. Fiber-mats can be used not only as a photocatalytic material on their own, but also incorporated in different surfaces or fabrics and as well as a filtration membrane. In this work, high temperature stable anatase titanium dioxide fiber-mats doped with silica (0.5 to 30 %) or doped with tin (0.5 to 15 %) were produced by electrospinning technology. The precursors used were titanium propoxide (TiP), tetrapropoxysilane (TPS) and tin 2-ethylhexanoate. They were hydrolyzed in acetic acid and mixed with an alcoholic solution of 10 wt% polyvinylpirrolidone. The effect of heat treatment on the microstructure characteristics and the photocatalytic activity of the fiber-mats in comparison with a commercial TiO2 powder (Evonik P-25) were studied. After the electrospinning process, a thin, porous fiber-mat was obtained. This material was dried in air at room temperature for 24h. These fibers were then heat treated from 500 to 800°C for 3 hours at a heating rate of 1.4°C/min. The fiber-mats were then characterized using N2 adsorption (BET method) for surface area measurements, X-ray diffraction for phase determination, SEM and TEM analyses for morphological characterization. The photocatalytic activity was studied using as model system the degradation of methyl orange in water (20ppm) under UV-A light. As-obtained fibers are amorphous but become crystalline after heat treatment. As the heat treatment temperature increases the surface area decreases significantly. Quite the opposite happens with the rutile to anatase ratio and the anatase and rutile crystallite sizes, which increase with higher heat treatment temperatures. The photoactivity increases with the increment in heat treatment temperature until 650°C, when the fibers start to become denser and the surface area drops due to sintering. Fibers produced at higher temperatures and with lower amounts of Si and Sn are predominantly anatase and are generally more photoactive under UV-A radiation.

In this work, nanostructured porous silicon (PSi) hosts, synthesized by electrochemical etching of Si, are designed to carry and release the anti cancer drug, mitoxantrone dihydrochloride (MTX). We study the effect of surface chemistry of the Si scaffold on its properties as a drug carrier. The freshly-etched PSi is modified by surface alkylation using thermal hydrosilylation with 1-dodecene. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements are employed to characterize the PSi carriers after chemical modification. Both, drug loading efficiency and release kinetics are found to be significantly affected by surface chemistry of the PSi. In vitro cytotoxicity studies on human breast carcinoma (MDA-MB-231) cells show that the MTX released from the PSi hosts maintains its cytotoxic functionality.

In this report, a method is discussed to perform successive milling on yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), NiO-YSZ and Ni-alloy at the intervals of 85 nm 50 nm and 100 nm, respectively using a focused ion beam (FIB) followed by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis on each slice. The EBSD data is then reconstructed to generate 3D volume. The 3D-EBSD band quality data is superimposed on inverse pole figure (IPF) grain orientation analysis to get a correlation with quality of band indexing. For the NiO-YSZ case, grain orientations and band quality factors were matched for grains ∼250 nm diameters producing a high resolution 3D-EBSD data. For this case, a pore space in 3D volume was visible due to nanocrystalline NiO-YSZ grain network. The advantages of 3D EBSD are discussed in the context of its applications to SOFC research community.

In this study the influence of heat input (HI) and heat treatment on submerged arc welded duplex SAF 2205 steel joints has been evaluated. In particular, multi-pass welding operations have been performed on 18 mm thick plates using four different heat inputs; a post-weld solubilizing heat treatment has been carried out in order to reduce the microstructural effects on the structure of the heat affected zone (HAZ). Instrumented impact strength tests have been performed on Charpy samples machined from the welded joints; the total absorbed energy and the two complementary contributions of initiation and propagation energies have been evaluated and correlated to the percentages of ferrite and austenite. The microstructures and the fracture profiles have been observed using an optical microscope (OM) and quantitatively analyzed by means of an image analyzer. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) has been used to study the fractured surfaces. Hardness profiles have been performed across the joints in order to verify the hardness variations. A total absence of secondary phases has been found on the joints due to the performing of a suitable solubilizing heat treatment after the welding process. The results have shown that the impact properties of the samples have been mostly affected by the different heat inputs; in some cases a partial welding penetration has been found.

Electrical properties of grain boundaries grown by Czochralski process were studied by microwave phase shift (μW-PS) and electron beam induced current (EBIC), before and after gold diffusion at 700°C. As-grown samples had similar doping levels determined by four-point probe measurements but somewhat different oxygen concentrations, obtained by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It is shown that the increase of the grain boundary activity due to Au gathering at this planar defect can be hindered by native impurities (likely oxygen). EBIC and μW-PS techniques gave respectively electron diffusion lengths and lifetime values, both in good agreement. EBIC images on deformed Σ =9 showed that extrinsic dislocations do not activate the grain boundary at 300K.

The aim of this review is to introduce the adverse health effects of indium compounds. This review consists of 2 parts: (1) a study of the toxic effects in indium compounds in humans, and (2) a study of the toxic effects of indium tin oxide (ITO) and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) in animals.

To date, 4 epidemiological surveys have been conducted of indium-handling workers in Japan, and all who were studied showed that exposure to indium compounds caused pulmonary interstitial and emphysematous changes. There were clear dose-response and dose-effect relationships between the serum indium levels and the levels of Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6), which is a serological indicator of interstitial pneumonia up until 2011, 8 cases of interstitial pneumonia in Japanese indium-exposed workers, 2 cases of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) in US indium-exposed workers, and 1 case of PAP in a Chinese indium-exposed worker have been reported.

In animals studies, it has been clearly demonstrated that ITO and CIGS particles cause pulmonary toxicity and that the dissolution of ITO and CIGS particles in the lungs is considerably slow when repeated intratracheal instillations were given to experimental animals.

Thus, more studies are needed on the effects of human exposure to indium compounds.

We are developing a new non-contact and non-destructive imaging technique which requires no sample preparation and provides similar content information as FTIR or Raman spectroscopy while being immune to fluorescence and offers a potentially faster scan rate and/or higher spatial resolution. It utilizes photo-thermal heating of the sample with a quantum cascade laser (or other suitable infrared laser) and measuring the resulting increase in thermal emissions by either an infrared (IR) detector or a laser probe consisting of a visible laser reflected from the sample. The latter case allows for further increases in the spatial resolution from ∼10 μm to ∼1 μm or better, with suitable experimental conditions. Since the thermal emission signal is proportional to the absorption coefficient, by tuning the wavelength of the IR laser we can directly measure the IR spectrum of the sample. By raster scanning over the surface of the sample we can obtain maps of the chemical composition of the sample surface. We demonstrate this technique by imaging the surface of a micro-fabricated flow-through chemical vapor preconcentrator consisting of a silicon frame and a suspended-perforated polyimide membrane with a pair of platinum heater traces, coated with a custom sorbent polymer for selective sorption of analyte. We measure the spatial resolution of our photo-thermal imaging system as well as discuss the conditions under which the spatial resolution can be further increased from the far-field diffraction limited resolution given by the combination of the imaging optic and IR excitation laser wavelength.

We have investigated the polycrystalline growth by means of an excimer laser assisted metal organic deposition process and the strategy for the efficient growth. It was revealed that the pulsed photo thermal heating properties must be controlled by changing the laser fluence according to the substrate properties, such as thermal diffusivity. The threshold of the t eff value for initial crystal nucleation is approximately 70 ns for oxide thin films. For the fabrication of good quality films with high crystallinity and without a laser ablation of the film surface, it is necessary that the irradiated laser fluence is adjusted to the conditions of t eff (efficient annealing time) > 70 ns and T max (maximum temperature) < T m (melting point). Obtained oxide films by using the pulsed UV laser has large crystallite size, and it well functioned to enhance physical properties of films. For further efficient growth for polycrystalline growth of the oxide films, the starting solution containing nanoparticles is very useful: it is named as photo-reaction of nanoparticles process.

Inelastic x-ray scattering measurements of the phonon density of states (DOS) of PuO2(+2%Ga) were made and compared to recent predictions from the literature made using three leading theoretical approaches; Density Functional Theory (DFT), DFT plus the Hubbard U (DFT+U), and Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT). The DFT prediction, which does not account for strong electronic correlations, underestimates the measured energies of most features. The DFT+U and DMFT predictions, which include approximations to strong correlation effects, more accurately reflect the low energy features but exaggerate splitting in the highest energy optic oxygen modes. The exaggeration of the splitting is worse for DFT+U than for DMFT. The transverse acoustic mode shows the least sensitivity to calculation type, and is well reproduced by all three theories. The longitudinal acoustic mode, which is thought to control the thermal conductivity, is more sensitive to calculation type, suggesting an important role for electronic correlations in making application-critical predictions.

Vanadium-beard bone coal is one of important vanadium resources in China. to extract vanadium tailings from Stone coal is prduced after extracted vanadium from stone coal through the roasting, leaching and other processes. About 120-150 tons of tailings will be produced in extracting 1 ton of vanadium pentoxide. A lot of tailings that are willfully piled up have caused serious environmental pollution and wasting of resources; it is therefore necessary to realize its resource utilization. This study increases the activity of vanadium tailings by means of alkali fusion, and then uses different alkali activators to react with vanadium tailings so that geopolymer with high value added is produced. Sample of geopolymer is acquired from mixture containing vanadium tailings, alkali activators, water and a little sodium aluminate through compression-molding process under 20MPa pressure. After cured in room temperature for three days, the maximum compressive strength of the sample can reach 36.2MPa. XRD analysis indicates: quartz, the major crystal phase in vanadium tailings is decomposed and the activity of vanadium tailings is heightened. FTIR and SEM analyses show: structural change having important impact on the mechanical strength of geopolymer occurred during the process of vanadium tailings generating geopolymer.

In this paper we use the Atomic Force Microscope to measure the Young’s modulus for two types of neuronal cell bodies: cortical neurons obtained from rat embryos and neurons derived from P19 mouse embryonic carcinoma stem cells. The neurons are plated on different substrates coated with two types of protein growth factors, poly-D-lysine and laminin. We report on the Young’s modulus of each type of neuron as well as the variation of modulus between cells plated on different protein substrates. We compare these results to various individual cell and bulk tissue measurements reported in literature. We additionally report on an observed change in the Young’s modulus of cortical neurons when subjected to a short-term reduction in ambient temperature.

Graphene-based all-solid-state supercapacitors the using ionic liquid gel polymer electrolyte have been fabricated and characterized. The gel polymer electrolyte has been prepared by immobilizing ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMIBF4) with poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene). Cyclic voltammetry studies show highly capacitive behavior under fast scan rates. Impedance analysis show nominal charge transfer and ion diffusion at pores related resistance contributions. The graphene-based solid-state supercapacitor shows optimum capacitance of 80 mF cm-2 (equivalent to the single electrode specific capacitance of 76 F g-1). This corresponded to the specific energy of 7.4 Wh kg-1 and specific power of 4.5 kW kg-1. The supercapacitor cell shows stable cyclic performances for up to 5000 cycles and possibly beyond.