In this study, we evaluated a nanoscale random rubbed structure (nRRS) used as a scattering layer in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) through an innovative manufacturing method. The rubbing te...

We demonstrate how the formation of octahedral microcrystals of arsenic oxide As2O3 in the form of arsenolite with a size of 200 nm to 10 μm can be initiated by the electrochemical etching method w...

We present the design for a novel type of dual-band photodetector in the thermal infrared spectral range, the Optically Controlled Dual-band quantum dot Infrared Photodetector (OCDIP). This concept is based on a quantum dot ensemble with a unimodal size distribution, whose absorption spectrum can be controlled by optically injected carriers. An external pumping laser varies the electron density in the QDs, permitting to control the available electronic transitions and thus the absorption spectrum. We grew a test sample which we studied by AFM and photoluminescence. Based on the experimental data, we simulated the infrared absorption spectrum of the sample, which showed two absorption bands at 5.85 μm and 8.98 μm depending on the excitation power.

Gold nanoparticles have many applications in the biomedical field, mainly for drug delivery, cancer therapy, and detection of pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, gold nanoparticles synthesized using Platycodon grandiflorum (Balloon flower plant) extracts were evaluated for their antibacterial potential. Gold nanoparticles were synthesized at 20–50°C using different volumes of the leaf extract. Biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles was confirmed by ultraviolet–visible spectral absorption at 545 nm by surface plasmon resonance. The morphology and size of the P. grandiflorum gold nanoparticles were further characterized as spherical in shape with an average size of 15 nm in diameter by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis clearly displayed the presence of gold particles. The structural analysis results with face central cubic crystalline nature and elemental composition, including gold, were confirmed by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. In addition, Fourier transform infrared results identified the functional group in P. grandiflorum that is involved in the reduction of metal ions to gold nanoparticles. The synthesized P. grandiflorum gold nanoparticles exhibited efficient antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (16 mm) and Bacillus subtilis (11 mm). This report confirms the synthesis of gold nanoparticle from balloon flower plant extracts, which can be used as a reducing and stabilizing agent and demonstrates its antibacterial applications.

Water pollution by organic dyes continues to pose a serious health and environmental threat to the ecosystem. Although adsorption using biopolymer-based hydrogels has proven to be an ideal technique for the treatment of these dye contaminants from aqueous solutions, these hydrogels suffer from lack of mechanical stability and recovery as compared to synthetic polymers. Herein, we review the low-cost synthesis of hydrogel incorporated with inorganic components mainly focusing on strategies to improve the mechanical stability and separation of the hydrogel in removing methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution. The literature shows that hydrogel nanocomposites are a class of materials that have flourished significant consideration, especially concerning water treatment. In adsorption technology, hydrogel nanocomposites act as absorbents, prominent to enhance their removal efficiency towards contaminants. This review highlights the preparation and use of hydrogel nanocomposites as efficient adsorbents. In-depth discussions on adsorption and diverse synthetic routes of hydrogels have been devoted to applications of these nanocomposites and are compared in this contribution to the removal efficiency of MB dye from wastewater.

Perovskite solar cells have been attracted as new representatives for the third-generation photovoltaic devices. Simple strategies for high efficiency with the long-term stability of solar cells are the challenges for commercial solar cell technology. Another challenge of the development toward industrial scale in perovskite solar cells is the production under the ambient and high humidity. In this sense, we successfully fabricated perovskite solar cells via solution depositions of all layers under ambient air with a relative humidity above 50%. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles with the roles for efficient charge extraction and electron transportation properties were used as an electron-transporting layer in the cell fabrication. The modification of TiO2 nanoparticles for energy band adjustment was done by doping with nontoxic cadmium sulfide (CdS) quantum dots. With the variation of CdS concentrations, energy band is not only changeable, but the enhancement of the perovskite solar cells efficiency could be achieved compared with the conventional cells made of pristine-TiO2 film and TiO2 nanoparticles.

This study aims to investigate the efficiency of a pilot prototype system comprising coagulation/flocculation, filtration, and nano-bimetallic iron/copper (Fe/Cu) degradation and adsorption units for the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), color, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and TSS from real textile wastewater. The total removal efficiencies of the system were 96, 98, 82, 69, 88, and 97%, respectively, using 0.5 g/L ferric chlorides as a coagulant under an optimum adsorption condition of pH 6.0, nano-dosage 1.4 g/L, contact time 80 min, and stirring rate 250 r/min at room temperature. Adsorption isotherms indicated that the removal of COD and TP obeys both Koble–Corrigan and Freundlich adsorption models, removal of color obeys both Koble–Corrigan and Hill adsorption models, and removal of TN and TSS obeys Koble–Corrigan and Khan models, respectively. Avrami kinetic models adequately describe the adsorption data for COD, BOD, TN, and TSS, while pseudo-second-order and intraparticle models described the removal mechanism of color and TSS, respectively. An artificial neural network (ANN) with r2-value exceeding 0.98 is accurate and can be used with confidence in predicting removal efficiencies of the targeted parameters. Sensitivity analysis results showed that the initial concentration was the most influential parameter for TSS removal with relative importance greater than 25%, while the bimetallic Fe/Cu dosage was the most influential factor for all other studied parameters with relative importance greater than 40%. The total treatment cost of the proposed system per m3 after scaling up was found to be US$4.5 for reuse of the treated water for the irrigation of forest trees.

Two processes of physical liquid phase stripping and chemical redox reduction were used to obtain graphene sheets. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy test methods were used to compare and analyze the structure and disorder of graphene. The obtained graphene was modified with oleic acid and stearic acid. The dispersion stability of graphene as a lubricating oil additive was investigated by natural sedimentation method and spectrophotometry. The tribological properties of the graphene dispersion were investigated by a four-ball friction and wear tester. Scanning electron microscope and energy spectrometer were used to characterize and analyze the microscopic morphology and composition of the worn surface. The results showed that the modified liquid phase stripping graphene demonstrated the best anti-wear and anti-friction properties of the dispersion, the lowest friction coefficient is 0.0677, and the average friction coefficient is reduced by about 26%.

Hydrogel of single-walled carbon nanotubes and polyaniline has been used for thermopower engineering applications due to desirable thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties as well as tunable degradability. In this article, we fabricated nanoporous composite scaffolds from hydrogel of single-walled carbon nanotubes and polyaniline polymer using a standard in situ polymerization process. Our solution-based fabrication method prevented single-walled carbon nanotube aggregation which resulted in enhancing thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties with keeping optimum flexibility in the porous composite scaffold. We compared the mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of nanoporous composites with different single-walled carbon nanotube loadings. The porous composite scaffold with a 25 wt% showed higher electrical conductivity, ultimate tensile strength, and tensile modulus. Lastly, our solution fabrication method prevents aggregation single-walled carbon nanotube and could help to build the thermoelectrical materials for flexible electronic applications.

In this work, we report a graphene-alkaline lignin-poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate composite as a transparent conductive electrode for indium tin oxide-free optoelectronic devices. The composite was prepared by dispersing exfoliated graphene-alkaline lignin into aqueous poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate. The effect of graphene concentration on the electrical and optical properties of graphene-alkaline lignin-poly(3,4- ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate was studied. The graphene-alkaline lignin-poly(3,4- ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate thin films exhibit excellent electrical conductivity and high transparency properties. The electrical conductivity is further increased by 1.9 ± 0.01 × 103 times when graphene content was augmented in the composites; however, the optical transparency was reduced due to the high optical absorbance of graphene. In this condition, the conductivity and optical transparency are as high as (4.19 ± 0.01) × 103 S/cm and 94.2%, respectively. This achievement is attributed to the organization of higher ordered network between conductive exfoliated graphene and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) chains that induced a better conducting channel for charge transportation. The poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) chains act as a bridge connecting the graphene flakes, which, in turn, facilitate the movement of hole charges between them.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the electrical properties of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu solder joint with the incorporation of carbon nanotube instead of solder bulk. Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu solder paste with the incorporation of carbon nanotube up to 0.04 wt% was fabricated by using mechanical mixing method. Fabricated solder pastes were then soldered on printed circuit board via reflow soldering at 260°C peak temperature. Electrical resistivity of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu-carbon nanotube solder joints was measured by the four-point probe method at room temperature. Microstructure properties were observed by optical microscope and field emission scanning electron microscope. Electrical resistivity of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu solder joint was found to increase with the incorporation carbon nanotube up to 0.03 wt% and slightly decrease at 0.04 wt%. Incorporation of carbon nanotube in the solder matrix apparently changes the microstructure of Sn–Ag–Cu solder alloys. Microstructural observation found that electrical resistivity correlated with the distribution area of eutectic phase in the solder matrix due to the existence of carbon nanotube. It was revealed that eutectic phase area increases with the increasing of carbon nanotube wt% up to 0.03 and then slightly decreases at the incorporation of 0.04 wt% carbon nanotube as parallel with the trend of electrical resistivity values.

A simple technique of seed-mediated growth has been successfully performed to grow anisotropy gold nanoparticles on solid substrates. The growth of the gold nanoparticles has been carried out in the presence of a binary surfactant mixture of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide with two different molecular weights of a capping agent, namely polyvinylpyrrolidone: 40,000 and 55,000. In this study, the effect of process parameters, growth time and molecular weight of capping agent was investigated. The growth time shows a significant impact on the shape and size of nanoparticles. The shorter growth time produced small spherical to square-like shape particles, whereas bigger particles including nanorods, nanosquares and nanotriangles were formed with longer growth time. The shape controlling agent, polyvinylpyrrolidone, was used to synthesis gold nanoparticles. It was found that monodisperse gold nanoparticles with uniform shape and size are hardly obtained when polyvinylpyrrolidone 40,000 was used as capping agent. Polyvinylpyrrolidone 55,000 produced more uniform shape and size of gold nanoparticles. Thus, these process parameters were found affected to the size, shape, surface density and uniformity of gold nanoparticles. This sample was further applied as a sensing material in the detection of toxic fungicide, namely chlorothalonil. The sensitivity of the sensor system was determined by the changes in peak positions and intensities of the transverse and longitudinal surface plasmon resonance peaks on different medium, that is, air, deionized water and chlorothalonil solution. The sensor response of gold nanoparticles thin film in 30 mM chlorothalonil showed two resonance peaks in comparison to the control experiment without gold nanoparticle thin film. The gold nanoparticles thin film sensor was successfully synthesized and potentially useful as a sensing material for fungicide detection.

The stress-strain response of pristine monolayer graphene under uniaxial loading/unloading over a more extensive size range (100 nm×100 nm) is studied by molecular dynamics simulations, which prove...

This Special Collection on Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology is devoted to the collection of articles from several different research fields and applications of nanotechnology which have been presented at the NanoMITe Annual Symposium and Nanotechnology Malaysia Annual Symposium (NanoSym2019) in Putrajaya during 21st-22nd August 2019. This Special Issue includes a selection of contributions among the papers presented at the Conference, with a peculiar emphasis on Energy, Wellness, Medical and Healthcare, Food and Agriculture and Electronics, Devices and Systems. All the published articles were peer-reviewed and selected on the base of technical novelty, scientific quality and impact in current trends of nanotechnology.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a nervous disorder, affects physical movement, and leads to difficulty in balancing, walking, and coordination. A novel sensor is mandatory to determine PD and monitor the progress of the treatment. Neurofilament light chain (NfL) has been recognized as a good biomarker for PD and also helps to distinguish between PD and atypical PD syndromes. Immunosensor was generated by current–volt measurement on gap-fingered interdigitated electrode with silicon dioxide surface to determine NfL level. To enhance the detection, anti-NfL antibody was complexed with gold-nanourchin and immobilized on the sensing electrode. The current–volt response was gradually increased at the linear detection range from 100 fM to 1 nM. Limit of detection and sensitivity were 100 fM with the signal-to-noise ratio at n = 3 on a linear curve (y = 0.081x + 1.593; R 2 = 0.9983). Limit of quantification falls at 1 pM and high performance of the sensor was demonstrated by discriminating against other neurogenerative disease markers, in addition, it was reproducible even in serum-spiked samples. This method of detection system aids to measure the level of NfL and leads to determine the condition with PD.

Dinuclear metallophthalocyanines Fe2Pc2(CP)4 containing carboxyl substitutes were wrapped with amino-functionalized carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs-NH2) to enhance electrocatalytic activity for oxygen red...

We report a simple preparation of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates with gold concave nanocubes of different sizes, deposited onto aluminum slides. The SERS substrates were char...

Metal colloids in 2-mercaptoethanol using nanoparticles (NPs) of iron (Fe), cobalt (Co), and nickel (Ni) were prepared by chemical liquid deposition method. Transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction, UV-VIS spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy characterized the resulting colloidal dispersions. The NPs exhibited sizes with ranges from 9.8 nm for Fe, 3.7 nm for Co, and 7.2 nm for Ni. The electron diffraction shows the presence of the metals in its elemental state Fe (0), Co (0), and Ni (0) and also some compounds FeO (OH), CoCo2S4, and NiNi2S4.

In this work, we improved the photocurrent of self-powered ultraviolet photodetector via doping manganese in CsPbCl3 perovskite nanocrystals light harvester. The doped manganese in nanocrystals has the following three features to assist electron transfer from CsPbCl3 nanocrystals to titanium dioxide: (i) the fast exciton-to-manganese energy transfer process benefits for competing electrons with perovskite exciton recombination, (ii) the charge carrier lifetime is very long for manganese d-states due to its spin and orbital forbidden transition, and (iii) the electrons can effectively transfer to the titanium dioxide layer from 4T1 of manganese d-states due to the smaller energy barrier. Based on the above, the self-powered photocurrent density of photodetectors has nearly twice enhancement from 0.08 mA·cm−2 to 0.14 mA·cm−2 and a high responsivity up to 7.3 mA·W−1 was achieved at 340 nm.

In microbial fuel cell (MFC), the anode is the carrier of microbial attachment and growth, and its material and surface structure play a vital role in MFC electricity generation. Therefore, anode s...