Electrochemical synthesis of a biomedically important Co–Cr alloy

Co–30 wt.% Cr alloy was prepared by electro-deoxidation in molten calcium chloride at 1123 K. A preliminary study was conducted into the preparation of the mixture of the Co₃O₄ and Cr₂O₃ and the formation of the non-stoichiometric, spinel structured, mixed oxide nominally labeled Co_xCr_yO₄. Constant voltage chronoamperometry was used both to prepare the alloy and to investigate its mechanism of formation. Electro-deoxidation proceeds by the simultaneous rapid reduction of CoO to Co and the slower reduction/substitution of Co_xCr_yO₄ to CaCr₂O₄ and Co metal. The final step of the electro-deoxidation is the reduction of CaCr₂O₄ to Cr metal, which alloys with the Co metal, and release of Ca²⁺ back into the electrolyte.     

Periodic homogenization for heat,air, and moisture transfer of porous building materials

ABSTRACT

In this work, a macroscopic model of hygrothermal transfers in porous building materials was developed, using periodic homogenization, where the air infiltration was added to the classical mass and energy balance equations written at the microscopic scale. The corresponding infiltration, hygric, and thermal input parameters were carefully identified. Numerical calculations of thermal and diffusion tensors were performed on a representative concrete elementary cell. Further, the diffusion tensor was compared to the equivalent experimental results available in the literature, and its sensitivity to the water content variations and porosity has been evaluated on the concerned elementary cell.     

Robust Chaotic Communication Based on Indirect Coupling Synchronization

This paper proposes a chaotic communication approach using indirect coupled synchronization scheme with high power encrypted signals. The proposed scheme is carefully designed so that the encrypted signal does not deteriorate the synchronization unlike in traditional communication methods. The synchronization problem is solved using observer-based controller. The advantages of this approach are the general and systematic feedback observer design methodology suitable for convergence rate of synchronization; flexibility in selection of chaotic signals for cryptosystem secure key generator; and improvement of the frequency-domain characteristics of the transmitted message. Computer simulations show that the synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver is more robust for different amplitude values of the information signal, even in the presence of external disturbances.     

Comparative study of adatom manipulation on several fcc metal surfaces

For a set of fcc metals, our total energy calculations based on many body potentials show that activation barriers for lateral manipulation of an adatom at a step edge depend on the tip/substrate composition. Of the six homogeneous systems studied, manipulation on stepped Ag(111) showed the lowest energy barrier for adatom hopping toward the tip, although the relative probability for this process was largest on Cu(111). For a representative Cu/Pt heterogeneous system, we find lateral manipulation of a Pt adatom along a step on Pt(111) by a Cu(100) tip to be energetically much less favorable than the reverse case of a Cu adatom manipulated by a Pt(100) tip. In the case of vertical manipulation, atomic relaxations of the tip and its neighboring atoms are found to be prominent and tip-induced changes in the bonding of the adatom to its low coordinated surroundings help explain the relative ease with which an adatom next to a step edge or a kink site may be pulled as compared to that on a flat surface.     

Formation,rapid thermal oxidation and passivation of solar grade silicon nanowires for advanced photovoltaic applications

Uniform and regular silicon nanowires (SiNWs) arrays are fabricated on both sides of solar grade silicons (SiGS) by silver assist-electrochemical etching. SiNWs arrays exhibit an excellent antireflection character with an overall reflectance of 2% in the range from 300 to 1000 nm. More importantly, the effective lifetimes of the symmetric SiNWs/Si structures decreased due to the high densities of dangling bonds and surface defects. Surface passivation to overcome lifetime degradation is realized by means of rapid thermal oxidation (RTO). Following rapid oxidation, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy reveals that oxygen diffusion is enhanced inside silicon nanowires where the morphological structure is preserved during RTO. Moreover, it is shown that even the rapid thermal oxidation process is not effective to recover initial τ_eff due to the high density of imperfections involved during nanowires formation and the contamination level induced by silver. The interdiffusion between residual silver and metal contaminants in the core of the nanowire can probably limit the passivation effect due to the segregation of metal atoms at SiO₂ and to the redistribution of both impurities across the wire.     

Surface properties of methyl methacrylate hardened hybrid poplar wood

The surface properties of fast‐growing poplar clones and their methyl methacrylate (MMA)‐hardened wood related to potential end uses were investigated. Samples from 24 trees of six hybrid poplar clones in one plantation in Quebec were hardened with MMA. The effects of MMA hardening on the density and surface properties were studied. Scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared analysis showed that filling the voids in the wood structure was the main hardening mechanism. The incorporation of the polymer increased the density of all of the poplar clones by 120–160%. The Janka hardness was found to be 2.5–4 times higher in the treated poplar wood than in the untreated poplar wood. The treated wood also exhibited superior abrasion resistance compared to the controls. The results indicate that hardening with MMA improved the surface properties and that the MMA‐hardened wood was comparable to natural hardwoods. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Water absorption in epoxy resins: The effects of the crosslinking agent and curing temperature

Epoxy systems were prepared with the same epoxide (diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A) with five different hardeners: 4,4′‐diaminodiphenylmethane (H1), diethylenetriamine (H2), a cycloaliphatic amine based on isophorone diamine (H3), a polyaminoimidazoline‐based hardener (H4), and a polyamidoamine‐based adduct hardener (H5). Samples were subjected to four different postcure treatment temperatures (23, 55, 75, and 150°C). Water absorption kinetics were obtained for each material and for each postcure treatment. The water absorption behaviors for the materials with H1, H2, and H3 were similar, whereas those for H4 and H5 were quite different. This is discussed in terms of the molecular structures of the hardeners. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 2544–2549, 2005     

Multifunctional WSe2/SnSe2/WSe2 van der Waals heterostructures

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - In this study, we report the fabrication of WSe2/SnSe2/WSe2 van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures for potential applications as tunnel...     

Vitamin B12 buccoadhesive tablets: auspicious non-invasive substitute for intra muscular injection: formulation,in vitro and in vivo appraisal

Attempting to prepare a convenient bioavailable formulation of vitamin B₁₂ (cyanocobalamin), 17 tablet formulations were prepared by direct compression. Different concentrations of hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), carbopol 971p (CP971p), and chitosan (Cs) were used. The tablets were characterized for thickness, weight, drug content, hardness, friability, surface pH, in vitro drug release, and mucoadhesion. Kinetic analysis of the release data was conducted. Vitamin B₁₂ bioavailability from the optimized formulations was studied on rabbits by the aid of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Neurotone^® I.M. injection was used for comparison. HPMC (F1-F4), CP971p (F5-F8), and HPMC/CP971p (F12-F15)-based formulations showed acceptable mechanical properties. The formulated tablets showed maximum swelling indices of 232?±?0.13. The surface pH values ranged from 5.3?±?0.03 to 6.6?±?0.02. Bioadhesive force ranged from 66?±?0.6 to 150?±?0.5?mN. Results showed that CP971p-based tablets had superior in vitro drug release, mechanical, and mucoadhesive properties. In vitro release date of selected formulations were fitted well to Peppas model. HPMC/CP971p-based formulations showed bioavailability up to 2.7-folds that of Neurotone^® I.M. injection.     

Effects of excimer laser annealing energy on the properties of thermally evaporated tin antimony sulfide thin films and TEM characterization of the powder

Tin antimony sulfide (TAS) is one of the most promising compounds for the next generation of optoelectronic and thin film photovoltaic devices. TAS material was synthesized by a solid-state reaction using earth-abundant tin, antimony and sulfur elements. The structural properties of the TAS powder were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and selected electron diffraction (SAED) were employed to establish the crystalline nature of the powder. The TEM observations demonstrated that the powder was polycrystalline in nature with rod-shaped structure. The effects of excimer laser annealing (ELA) at different pulse energies on the structural, morphological and optical properties of thermally evaporated TAS films were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy measurements showed that the films annealed by an excimer laser of 248 nm were amorphous for weak energy densities whereas the sample irradiated with 111 mJ/cm^??2 was polycrystalline with a preferential \({\text{(}}\overline {{\text{2}}} {\text{1}}\overline {{\text{3}}} {\text{)}}\) orientation. The ELA effects on the optical properties were also studied in the wavelength range 300–1800 nm by using UV–Vis–NIR spectroscopy. The absorption coefficient of all samples in the fundamental absorption region is higher than 10⁴ cm^?1. We also found that the optical band gap decreases from 2.04 to 1.84 eV after irradiating the thin films under different laser energy densities.