Sharif Digital Repository

In this research, the effect of Ni, Pd and Ni-Pd catalysts have studied on morphology and structure of synthesized multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Initially, thin films of Ni (with two thicknesses of 10 and 20 nm), Pd/Ni (5/10 nm) and Pd (10 nm) were deposited as catalysts on SiO 2 (60 nm)/Si(1 0 0) substrates, using dc magnetron sputtering technique. The deposited films were annealed at 900 °C in ammonia environment for 45 min, in order to obtain nano-structured catalyst on the surface. Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the average size of Ni nano-islands (synthesized by the 10 and 20 nm Ni films), Pd and Ni-Pd nano-islands were measured about 55, 110, 45 and 50 nm,... 

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were grown on deposited Ni on macroporous silicon by thermal chemical vapor deposition (TCVD) method using CH4 as the reaction gas. Macroporous silicon was fabricated by electrochemical etching of P-type silicon in organic electrolytes. The effect of oxidation of porous silicon (PS) on growth rate, morphology and structure of CNTs has been studied. The SEM micrographs and Raman spectra indicated that the nanotubes grown on the oxidized PS are more homogeneous and regular than those grown on the pristine PS and growth rate of CNTs grown on oxidized PS higher than those grown on pristine PS. In addition, the CNTs grown on the non-oxidized PS have different morphology... 

A film composed of carbon nanoparticles and poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) or CNP-PDDAC is formed in a layer-by-layer deposition process at tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) substrates. Excess positive binding sites within this film in aqueous phosphate buffer at pH 9.5 are quantified by adsorption of iron(III)phthalocyanine tetrasulfonate and indigo carmine. Both anionic redox systems bind with Langmuirian characteristics (K ≈ 105 mol-1 dm3) and show electrochemical reactivity throughout the film at different thicknesses. Therefore, the electrical conductivity in CNP-PDDAC films is good and the positive binding sites are approximately 140 pmol cm-2 per layer. Structural instability of... 

The laser powder deposition (LPD) process is an advanced material processing technique with many applications. Despite this fact, reliable and accurate control schemes have not yet been fully developed for the process. In this paper, identification of the LPD process is examined to find a more accurate model to predict and control the height of clad in real time. The model is adaptive single inputsingle output (SISO) and its structure is very similar to the Hammerstein model when the effective power (a function of laser power and velocity) is selected as the input and the clad height as the output. Weighted extended recursive least square (WERLS) is adopted to simultaneously estimate the... 

The electrodeposition of cobalt, nickel and Ni-Co alloys was studied by electrochemical techniques. Cyclic voltammetry and current transient measurements were used to characterize the Co-Ni system in other to obtain the nucleation and growth mechanism. The cyclic voltammetry results clearly showed that electrodeposition of cobalt, nickel and Co-Ni alloy is diffusion-controlled process with a typical nucleation mechanism. The redox potentials of the Co and Ni are shifted to more cathodic potentials in the Co-Ni alloy system. In addition, the current transients revealed that nucleation mechanism is instantaneous with a typical three-dimensional (3D) nucleation and growth process. The number of... 

In this article, we have studied the properties (especially water repellency) of cotton coated by a thin layer of aluminum. The process has been performed in a low temperature plasma medium, using a magnetron sputtering device. We have also investigated the effect of different gases such as argon and oxygen as the discharge medium on the properties of the obtained samples. The results which are exposure time dependent show a good repellent property for 30 min of treating in argon medium under the condition of our experiment. However, when O2 is used in the system, the cotton property changes to become hydrophilic of which the factor decreases as we increase the time of treating. © 2006... 

The influence of annealing temperature on the hydrophilic property of WO3 thin films deposited by thermal evaporation and sol-gel dip-coating methods was studied and compared for the first time. The thermal evaporated WO3 thin films annealed at 400 °C showed a nearly super-hydrophilic property without UV and visible illumination. By analysing the O(1s) core level peak of XPS spectra, the amount of oxygen contributed at various bonds (including O2-, OH- and H2O) on the surface of the annealed samples at different temperatures were measured. In addition, a correlation between the hydrophilicity and the concentration of chemisorbed water on the film surface was suggested, independent of the... 

Fabrication of high quality zinc oxide thin films and analysis on its physical, chemical properties have applications in opto-electronic devices, UV laser, microelectronics and micro-machining schemes. Highly textured ZnO thin film with a preferred (0 0 2) orientation was prepared by two-stage chemical deposition (TSCD) using an aqueous solution containing zinc complex on a soda-lime glass substrate. From the results obtained, it can be shown that the preferred orientations of the film microcrystal changes with the doping process. The film was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), SEM, EDAX, optical technique, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in order to qualify its... 

We have studied the effect of annealing temperature on the statistical properties of WO3 surface using atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques. We have applied both level crossing and structure function methods. Level crossing analysis indicates an optimum annealing temperature of around 400°C at which the effective area of the WO3 thin film is maximum, whereas the composition of the surface remains stoichiometric. The complexity of the height fluctuation of surfaces was characterized by roughness, the roughness exponent and the lateral size of surface features. We have found that there is a phase transition at around 400°C from one set to two sets of roughness parameters. This happens due... 

A two stage chemical deposition (TSCD) technique is used to produce ZnO films on quartz glass (QG), soda lime glass (SLG) and high purity alumina (HPA) from an aqueous solution of zinc complex. The effects of the substrate material on the chemical composition and morphology of the deposited layer are investigated. The effects of different annealing temperatures (180, 300, 500 and 800°C) on the morphology and orientation of the ZnO crystallites are also determined. X-ray diffraction diffractograms show that above 300°C, the intensity of (002) peak considerably decreases with increasing temperature. Results indicate that changing the substrate from QG to SLG does not significantly influence... 

Dense underflows are continuous currents which move down-slope due to the fact that their density is heavier than that ambient water. In this work, 2-D and 3-D density current in a channel were investigated by a set of experimental studies and the data were used to simulate the density current. The velocity components were measured using Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV). The height of density current (current's depth) was also measured. In this study, the density current with a uniform velocity and concentration enters the channel via a sluice gate into a lighter ambient fluid and moves forward down-slope. A low-Reynolds number turbulent model (Launder and Sharma, 1974) has been applied to... 

Laser Powder Deposition (LPD) process is an advanced material processing technique which has many applications. Despite this fact, reliable and accurate control schemes have not yet fully developed for the process. In this paper, the problem of controlling the clad height in the LPD process is studied. Due to a faster response of the process to change in scanning velocity over the laser power, the scanning velocity is selected as the input control variable. Since the governing equations of the LPD process are complex for designing a controller, an identified nonlinear dynamic model is used. The model is a Hammerstein model with a linear dynamic and a nonlinear memoryless block. The model... 

We have investigated segregation of copper at the surface of V 2 O 5 films deposited onto Cu substrate by employing surface analysis techniques. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) confirmed that the Cu is segregated at the surface and its chemical state is Cu 2 O. According to secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) and glow discharge spectroscopy (GDS), the Cu concentration inside the deposited V 2 O 5 layer is low. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) revealed the segregation alters the surface local density of states. Surface analysis of deposited samples in ultra high vacuum (UHV) condition... 

Effect of several auxiliary carbon sources such as crude oil, different precultures, and quality of adding crude oil in treatment of petroleum wax deposits by an isolated bacterial strain, BBRC9012, was investigated. First and second experiments which compered effect of molasses, glucose and crude oil, indicated that glucose and molasses causes more microbial growth, biosurfactant production and bioemolsification than crude oil. Both optometry and Surface tension measurements showed that using molasses-BHB preculture for wax treatment is not suitable and when crude oil is used as auxiliary carbon source a one day lag phase is unavoidable. It was also shown that when crude oil is added to... 

A multiscale FD-KMC model has been developed to simulate the cyclic voltammetry test of a copper electrode in simple copper sulfate bath. In this coupled model, the FD code provides the cupric ion concentration on OHP for KMC code, while the KMC code provides the electrochemical properties of the copper electrode (surface activity and rate constants of redox reactions) as an input data for FD code. The changes in the electrode properties due to the atomistic phenomena (deposition dissolution and surface diffusion) have been studied for the present potentiodynamic system. The results showed that the CV process consists of some distinct stages, so that the electrode exhibits a specific... 

This paper presents a mathematical model of laser powder deposition (LPD) to predict temperature field, melt pool depth and dilution. The model validated by experiments is developed using the moving heat source method. In this method, the temperature distribution inside the clad and the substrate is obtained using the superposition principle and the solution of the heat diffusion due to a point heat source. The model, which can be used in real-time applications, predicts the melt pool depth and dilution as a function of clad height and clad width, which in practice can be measured by a vision system. Numerical and experimental analyses show a non-linear behaviour of the melt pool depth as a... 

Growth mechanism of a single wall carbon nanotube on the surface of a nickel nanoparticle in the CVD method has been investigated by classical molecular dynamics method. Using first principles methods, we have first constructed a classical potential to describe the interaction between a carbon atom and the nickel surface. The important ingredient in this potential is its coordination number dependence, which also provides the key to the growth mechanism of the nanotube. From the simulations, it is proposed that the growth of an armchair nanotube takes place via attachment of dimers to its end which is in contact with the nickel surface. The effect of nickel nanoparticle's radius on the... 

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings were deposited on commercially pure titanium plates using a hydrothermal-electrochemical deposition method in an electrolyte containing calcium and phosphate ions. The deposition conditions used in this study were the followings: electrolyte temperature (33-80 °C), current density (1-8 mA/cm2), and deposition time (10-120 min). Needle-like and granular crystals of apatite coating were created with different concentrations of calcium (0.0021-0.042 M) and phosphate (0.00125-0.025 M) salts. The size of HA crystals of the coating was considerably changed with different concentration of calcium and phosphate salts, temperature of the electrolyte, and deposition time.... 

The effect of one of the surfactants such as Tiron, a compound based on the benzene molecule, on the morphology and chemical composition of zinc oxide deposits, produced from a zinc complex solution using two-stage chemical deposition (TSCD) technique, has been investigated. TSCD technique is a novel and simple chemical route for the deposition of ZnO film from aqueous solution. Zinc oxide films deposited on high purity alumina (HPA) as a substrate. The results show that the addition of Tiron changes the surface morphology and causes to form the fine-grained structure. With a dense and nodular-shape appearance, the film produced from the precursor of zinc complex-containing Tiron, is... 

In this research, a series of NiO–MgO–SiO2 catalyst samples with various nickel contents (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt %) were prepared by a co-precipitation method followed by a hydrothermal treatment and employed in propane steam reforming. The analyses revealed that the enhancement of the nickel content up to 15 wt % improved the propane conversion to 98.6% at 550 °C. Nonetheless, further increase in the nickel loading reduced the catalyst activity due to the formation of larger and more poorly dispersed active sites. Besides, 15 wt % nickel loading led to the high resistance against coke deposition with no detectable carbon on the catalyst surface. In addition, it was revealed that, the decrease...