Synthesis and gas sensing behavior of nanostructured V2O5 thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis

Nanocrystalline vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) thin films have been deposited by a spray pyrolysis technique on preheated glass substrates. The substrate temperature was changed between 300 and 500 °C. The structural and morphological properties of the films were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The influence of different substrate temperatures on ethanol response of V₂O₅ has also been investigated. XRD revealed that the films deposited at T_pyr=300 °C have low peak intensities, but the degree of crystallinity improved when the temperature was increased to 500 °C and films had orthorhombic structures with preferential orientations along the (0 0 1) direction. The fractal analysis showed a decreasing trend versus the pyrolysis temperature. Sensing properties of the samples were studied in the presence of ethanol vapor. The operating temperature of the sensor was optimized for the best gas response. The response increased linearly with different ethanol concentrations. It was found that films deposited at the lowest substrate temperature (300 °C) had the highest sensing response to ethanol.     

Production of hydrogen in a granular sludge-based anaerobic continuous stirred tank reactor

An investigation on biohydrogen production was conducted in a granular sludge-based continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The reactor performance was assessed at five different glucose concentrations of 2.5, 5, 10, 20 and 40 g/L and four hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2 h, resulting in the organic loading rates (OLRs) ranged between 2.5 and 20 g-glucose/L h. Carbon flow was traced by analyzing the composition of gaseous and soluble metabolites as well as the cell yield. Butyrate, acetate and ethanol were found to be the major soluble metabolite products in the biochemical synthesis of hydrogen. Carbon balance analysis showed that more than half of the glucose carbon was converted into unidentified soluble products at an OLR of 2.5 g-glucose/L h. It was found that high hydrogen yields corresponded to a sludge loading rate in between 0.6 and 0.8 g-glucose/g-VSS h. Substantial suppression in hydrogen yield was noted as the sludge loading rate fell beyond the optimum range. It is deduced that decreasing the sludge loading rate induced the metabolic shift of biochemical reactions at an OLR of 2.5 g-glucose/L h, which resulted in a substantial reduction in hydrogen yield to 0.36–0.41 mol-_H2${\mathrm{H}}_2$/mol-glucose. Optimal operation conditions for peak hydrogen yield (1.84 mol-_H2${\mathrm{H}}_2$/mol-glucose) and hydrogen production rate (3.26 L/L h) were achieved at an OLR of 20 g-glucose/L h, which corresponded to an HRT of 0.5 h and an influent glucose concentration of 10 g/L. Influence of HRT and substrate concentration on the reactor performance was interrelated and the adverse impact on hydrogen production was noted as substrate concentration was higher than 20 g/L or HRT was shorter than 0.5 h. The experimental study indicated that a higher OLR derived from appropriate HRTs and substrate concentrations was desirable for hydrogen production in such a granule-based CSTR.     

Influence of substrate rotation speed on the nanostructure of sculptured Cu thin films

Different rotation speeds of the substrate about its surface normal were used to produce sculptured copper thin films of ∼ 90 nm thickness. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were employed to obtain nano-structure and morphology of these films. Their optical properties were measured by spectrophotometry in the spectral range of 340-850 nm. Real and imaginary refractive indices, film thickness and fraction of metal inclusion in the film structure were obtained from optical fitting of the spectrophotometer data.     

Study on physical properties of indium-doped zinc oxide deposited by spray pyrolysis technique

Transparent conducting indium doped zinc oxide (IZO) thin films have been deposited on soda-lime glass substrates by the spray pyrolysis technique. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of these films were investigated as a function of substrate temperature. In this work the substrate temperature was varied between 350 °C and 500 °C. X-ray diffraction pattern reveals that at 350 °C dominant peak is (100) orientation. By increasing substrate temperature from 350 °C to 450 °C, sheet resistance decreases, from 302 Ω/□ to 26 Ω/□, then at 500 °C increases to 34 Ω/□. In the useful range for deposition (i.e. 450 °C to 500 °C), the orientation of the films was predominantly (002). The lowest sheet resistance (26Ω/□) is obtained at substrate temperature of about 450 °C with the transmittance of about 75%. Study of scanning electron microscopy images shows that films deposited at 400 °C, have grain size as large as 574 nm, while with increasing substrate temperature to 450 °C, grain size becomes smaller and reaches to a value of about 100 nm with spherical shape. At 500 °C grain size value would be around 70 nm with the same spherical shape.     

Quality improvement of organic thin films deposited on vibrating substrates

Most of the Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) have a multilayered structure composed of functional organic layers sandwiched between two electrodes. Thin films of small molecules are generally deposited by thermal evaporation onto glass or other rigid or flexible substrates. The interface state between two organic layers in OLED device depends on the surface morphology of the layers and affects deeply the OLED performance. The morphology of organic thin films depends mostly on substrate temperature and deposition rate. Generally, the control of the substrate temperature allows improving the quality of the deposited films. For organic compounds substrate temperature cannot be increased too much due to their poor thermal stability. However, studies in inorganic thin films indicate that it is possible to modify the morphology of a film by using substrate vibration without increasing the substrate temperature. In this work, the effect of the resonance vibration of glass and silicon substrates during thermal deposition in high vacuum environment of tris(8-quinolinolate)aluminum(III) (Alq₃) and N,N′-Bis(naphthalene-2-yl)-N,N′-bis(phenyl)-benzidine (β-NPB) organic thin films with different deposition rates was investigated. The vibration used was in the range of hundreds of Hz and the substrates were kept at room temperature during the process. The nucleation and subsequent growth of the organic films on the substrates have been studied by atomic force microscopy technique. For Alq₃ and β-NPB films grown with 0.1 nm/s as deposition rate and using a frequency of 100 Hz with oscillation amplitude of some micrometers, the results indicate a reduction of cluster density and a roughness decreasing. Moreover, OLEDs fabricated with organic films deposited under these conditions improved their power efficiency, driven at 4 mA/cm², passing from 0.11 lm/W to 0.24 lm/W with an increase in their luminance of about 352 cd/m² corresponding to an increase of about 250% in the luminance with respect to the same OLEDs fabricated in the same way and with the same conditions without substrate vibration.     

Substrate effect on electrodeposited nanocrystalline Al-Mg alloy powders

Supersaturated dendritic Al-Mg alloy powders in globular form were produced using galvanostatic electrodeposition technique on polycrystalline Cu and Mg-substrates. The deposit produced on Cu-substrate possessed face centered cubic (fcc)-Al(Mg) phase with composition of ~ 18 at.% Mg. However, when Mg-substrate was used, initially hexagonal close packed (hcp)-Mg(Al) phase with ~ 77 at.% Mg was formed over which fcc-Al(Mg) phase with ~ 36 at.% Mg was nucleated. The results of the present study indicate that substrate crystal structure and estimated substrate-deposit lattice mismatch can influence the depositing phase and its composition but not the morphology of these powders.     

国内LED衬底材料的应用现状及发展趋势

从材料特性出发,分析了氮化镓基LED用衬底材料的性能需求,主要分析了蓝宝石和碳化硅衬底在LED制作中的应用,并描述了当前的发展状态以及未来的发展趋势。     

Steric hindrance by 2 amino acid residues determines the substrate specificity of isomaltase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The structures of the E277A isomaltase mutant from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in complex with isomaltose or maltose were determined at resolutions of 1.80 and 1.40 Å, respectively. The root mean square deviations between the corresponding main-chain atoms of free isomaltase and the E277Α-isomaltose complex structures and those of free isomaltase and the E277A-maltose complex structures were found to be 0.131 Å and 0.083 Å, respectively. Thus, the amino acid substitution and ligand binding do not affect the overall structure of isomaltase. In the E277A-isomaltose structure, the bound isomaltose was readily identified by electron densities in the active site pocket; however, the reducing end of maltose was not observed in the E277A-maltose structure. The superposition of maltose onto the E277A-maltose structure revealed that the reducing end of maltose cannot bind to the subsite + 1 due to the steric hindrance from Val216 and Gln279. The amino acid sequence comparisons with α-glucosidases showed that a bulky hydrophobic amino acid residue is conserved at the position of Val216 in α-1,6-glucosidic linkage hydrolyzing enzymes. Similarly, a bulky amino acid residue is conserved at the position of Gln279 in α-1,6-glucosidic linkage-only hydrolyzing α-glucosidases. Ala, Gly, or Asn residues were located at the position of α-1,4-glucosidic linkage hydrolyzing α-glucosidases. Two isomaltase mutant enzymes – V216T and Q279A – hydrolyzed maltose. Thus, the amino acid residues at these positions may be largely responsible for determining the substrate specificity of α-glucosidases.     

Effects of basic gas diffusion layer components on PEMFC performance with capillary pressure gradient

The gas diffusion layer (GDL) is composed of a substrate and a micro-porous layer (MPL), and is treated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) to promote water discharge. Additionally, the MPL mainly consists of carbon black and PTFE. In other words, the optimal design of these elements has a dominant effect on the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance. For the GDL, it is crucial to prevent water flooding, and the water flux within the GDL is strongly affected by the capillary pressure gradient. In this study, the PEMFC performance was systematically investigated by varying the substrate PTFE content, MPL PTFE content, and MPL carbon loading per unit area. The effects of each experimental variable on the PEMFC performance and especially on the capillary pressure gradient were quantitatively analyzed when the GDLs were manufactured by the doctor blade manufacturing method. The experimental results indicated that as the PTFE content of the anode and cathode GDL increased, the PEMFC performance deteriorated due to the deformation of the porosity and tortuosity of the GDL. Additionally, the PEMFC performance improved as the MPL PTFE content of the cathode GDL increased at low relative humidity (RH), but the PEMFC performance tendency was reversed at high RH. Further, the MPL carbon loading of 2 mg/${\text{cm}}^2$ demonstrated the best performance, and the advantages and disadvantages of the MPL carbon loading were identified. In addition, the effects of each experimental variable on liquid water, water vapor, and gas permeability were investigated.     

Effects of substrate temperature on the properties of facing-target sputtered Al-doped ZnO films

ZnO:Al films (Al 2.5 wt%) were deposited using a DC facing targets magnetron sputtering via two ZnO targets mixed with Al₂O₃. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the deposited films were strongly influenced by substrate temperature. Films with better texture, higher transmission, lower resistivity and larger carrier concentration were obtained for the samples fabricated at higher substrate temperature. The optimal condition for deposition of ZnO:Al film with the lowest resistivity of 3.18×10⁻⁴ Ω cm, the highest carrier concentration of 4.58×10²⁰ cm⁻³, and a transmission toward 85% in the visible range was obtained at 200 °C. This film proposes a promising future for the application of the practical window and contact layers for solar cells.