Sharif Digital Repository

Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the friction behavior of nanocrystalline nickel (Ni) at low temperature. Grain sizes ranging from 4–11 nm are used to explore the behavior of nanocrystalline Ni near the Hall-Petch breakdown. Effects of grain size, grain morphology and scratch depth on coefficient of friction (COF) and deformation mechanism of nanocrystalline Ni are investigated. Reduction of the COF with the refinement of grain size in nanocrystalline nickel is observed, however, for a grain size of 5 nm this trend is observed to be reversed. It is also found that scratch depth can influence the estimation of friction behavior of nanocrystalline... 

Providing solar hydrogen as a clean energy resource is one of the human challenges for future. Controlling oxygen vacancies as well as surface morphology in metal oxide semiconductors enables developing PEC H2production in some understood ways. Here, the influence of simple change in annealing atmosphere, air and pure oxygen, on photoresponse of nanocrystalline WO3has been studied completely. Results revealed that such slight change in annealing procedure increases effective surface interface and donor density by 77 and 72%, respectively. These effects and also retarding recombination of photogenerated electro-hole pair resulted in photocurrent enhancement under solar like illumination more... 

Mn1.5Co1.5O4 oxide spinels are widely used as protective coatings for stainless steel interconnects within planar solid oxide fuel cell stacks. Containing both cubic and tetragonal crystalline phases, these Mn/Co oxide spinels exhibit favorable thermal stability and electronic conductivity for the SOFC interconnect application. Slurry-based coating applications of Mn/Co oxides require precursor powders, which can benefit from being nano-structured. In this study, the sol-gel synthesis of nanocrystalline Mn1.5Co1.5O4 spinel is investigated. The decomposition of sol-gel precursors, as well as the crystalline phase structures and microstructures of the product Mn1.5Co1.5O4 are characterized by... 

In this paper fabrication of a 0-3 ceramic/ceramic composite lead zirconate titanate, Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 thin film has been presented and then a pressure sensor based on multilayer thin-film PZT diaphragm contain of Lead Zirconate Titanate nanocrystalline powders was designed, modeled and optimized. This multilayer diaphragm in general acts as sensor or actuator. ANSYS was used for simulation of diaphragm. Dynamics characteristics of this multilayer diaphragm have been investigated. By this simulation the effective parameters of the multilayer PZT diaphragm for improving the performance of a pressure sensor in different ranges of pressure are optimized. The optimized thickness ratio of PZT... 

Recently, co-powder injection molding process (2C-PIM) has attained considerable interest to fabricate complex-shaped functional materials. The aim of this work is to study the sintering compatibility between nanocrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia (3Y-TZP) and PIM grade 430L stainless steel (SS) powders, which is the utmost important step in the 2C-PIM process. To evaluate the mismatch strain development during the co-sintering, the isothermal and nonisothermal behaviors of the ceramic and metal powders were studied. Small bilayers of 3Y-TZP/430L were made by a powder metallurgy technique and the feasibility of simultaneous sintering and joining of the composite layer was examined.... 

A new model is developed for the structure of nanocrystalline materials. Based on the developed model, a new approach for investigating the effect of grain size on the elastic moduli of nanocrystalline materials is introduced. The predictions of the model are strongly correlated with the experimental results reported in the existing literature  

Various compositions of maleated ethylene-propylene-rubber (EPR-g-MA) toughened polyamide 6 without and with short glass fiber, i.e. 5-20 wt.% rubber and 5-20 wt.% fiber, are prepared using an industrial twin-screw extruder at different levels of feed rate (100-250 kg/h), screw speed (200-450 rpm) and barrel temperature (230-260 °C). Trial runs designed based on the Taguchi's orthogonal arrays are subjected to tensile, impact, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy tests; and the results are used to perform the analysis of variance (ANOVA). It is shown that the rubber particle size decreases significantly by increasing the rubber content for the unreinforced blend. The... 

TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the sol - gel process using 2-hydroxylethy- lammonium formate as an ionic liquid. Nanoparticles were crystallized at various temperatures (300-700°C). The products were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption - desorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. It was found that the resulting TiO2 nanoparticles had good thermal stability either to resist collapse or the anatase-to-rutile phase transformation during heat treatment. The photocatalytic activity of the nanocrystalline TiO2 was evaluated by the degradation of Acid Blue 92 (AB92) which is commonly used as a textile dye. The results showed that the... 

The Monte Carlo simulation is utilized to model the nano-scale grain growth of two nanocrystalline materials, Pd81Zr19 and RuAl. In this regard, the relationship between the real time and the time unit of simulation, i.e. Monte Carlo step (MCS), is determined. The results of modeling show that with increasing time of heating, the grain sizes of both nano-crystalline materials increased as in the case of conventional materials. Moreover, it is found that for both nano-crystalline materials the relationship between the real time and MCS is in power law form, which is linear for the conventional materials. © Indian Academy of Sciences  

Low-temperature perovskite-type cadmium titanate (CdTiO3) with a nanocrystalline and mesoporous structure was prepared at various Ti:Cd molar ratios by a straightforward particulate sol-gel route. The prepared sols had a narrow particle size distribution, in the range 23-26 nm. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that the powders contained a mixture of ilmenite-CdTiO3, perovskite-CdTiO3, anatase and rutile phases, depending on the annealing temperature and the Ti:Cd molar ratio. Perovskite-CdTiO3 was the major type obtained from cadmium-prominent powders at low temperature, whereas ilmenite-CdTiO3 was the major type obtained from titanium-prominent powders... 

In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN) model has been developed to predict the yield and tensile strengths of hot pressed NiAl intermetallic compound based on the experimental data from Albiter et al. [A. Albiter, M. Salazar, E. Bedolla, R.A.L. Drew, R. Perez, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 347 (2003) 154]. The predicted results, with a correlation relation between 0.9791 and 0.9921, show a very good agreement with the experimental values. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the importance of the effects of chemical composition and temperature on the mechanical behavior of hot pressed NiAl intermetallic compound. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

Highly stable, water-based barium titanate (BaTiO3) sols were developed by a low cost and straightforward sol-gel process. Nanocrystalline barium titanate thin films and powders with various Ba:Ti atomic ratios were produced from the aqueous sols. The prepared sols had a narrow particle size distribution in the range 21-23 nm and they were stable over 5 months. X-ray diffraction pattern revealed that powders contained mixture of hexagonal- or perovskite-BaTiO3 as well as a trace of Ba2Ti 13O22 and Ba4Ti2O27 phases, depending on annealing temperature and Ba:Ti atomic ratio. Highly pure barium titanate with cubic perovskite structure achieved with Ba:Ti = 50:50 atomic ratio at the high... 

A systematic comparison of single and binary metal oxide TiO2, TiO2-Er2O3 and TiO2-Ta2O5 thin film gas sensors with nanocrystalline and mesoporous microstructure, prepared by sol-gel route, was conducted. The gas sensitivity was increased by secondary phase introduction into TiO2 film via two mechanisms, firstly due to the inhibition of anatase-to-rutile transformation, since the anatase phase accommodates larger amounts of adsorbed oxygen, and secondly due to the retardation of grain growth, since the higher surface area provides more active sites for gas molecule adsorption. The binary metal oxide gas sensors exhibited a remarkable response towards low concentrations of CO and NO2 gases at... 

TiO2nanocrystals were prepared by hydrolysis and peptisation of titanium isopropoxide under different pH values. The as-prepared powder of very fine anatase crystallites ranges from 8 nm in acidic solution of pH 3 to 10 nm in basic solution of pH 8. Heat treatment of the powders leads to grain growth and anatase - rutile transformation. Experimental results have shown that the anatase to rutile phase transformation in the heat-treated powders depend not only on primary crystallite size but also the presence of brookite phase. It is observed that in the powders with the same size the presence brookite phase would accelerate the anatase to rutile transformation. Furthermore it has been found... 

An efficient synthesis of tetrahydrobenzofurans is carried out in one pot through the reaction of 1,3-diketone and phenacyl bromides compound using a heterogeneous basic nano particles copper oxide catalyst. The protocol offers advantages in terms of higher yields, short reaction times, and mild reaction conditions, with reusability of the catalyst. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved  

The crack growth process in columnar nanocrystalline samples is simulated using the molecular dynamics method. The effects of grain size, grain boundary, crystallographic orientation and crack tip position on the crack growth behavior are investigated. Different sets of samples with mean grain sizes ranging from 4 nm to 14 nm are prepared. Samples with a similar number of grains and identical dimensions are considered for examining the impact of grain boundary and crystallographic orientation. To assess the effect of the grain boundary, no constraint is considered on the position and orientation of grains, while only the grain orientations are changed to examine the effect of... 

Herein, the CO methanation reaction is studied over Ni/Fe–Al mixed oxides with various Fe and Al contents. The mesoporous nanocrystalline supports are prepared by a novel sol–gel process using propylene oxide as a gelation agent. The deposition–precipitation method is used for the deposition of nickel on the catalyst support. The samples are characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), temperature programmed oxidation (TPO), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicate that increasing the iron content and reducing the Al percentage in the catalyst support reduces the... 

Co-Ce doped Ni nanocrystalline ferrites having composition Ni0.8Ce0.2CoxFe2-xO4 with x = 0.00, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 were fabricated by sol gel auto combustion method. Synthesized samples were investigated by thermal gravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive analysis (EDX) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) to study the phase, vibrational modes, structure, surface analysis and magnetic properties respectively. Structural parameters (lattice parameters, cell volume, crystallite size and micro strains) were also calculated from XRD recorded data.... 

Pr doped spinel nanoferrites having following composition Cu Pr x Fe 2-x O 4 (x = 0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00) were synthesized using sol-gel route. Prosademium (Pr) which is a rare earth metal was doped to tailor the properties of the Cu spinel nanoferrites. Characterization tools such as FTIR, XRD, FESEM and VSM were employed to investigate the phase, absorption bands, structure, microstructure and magnetic properties. FTIR was used to see the absorption bands and force constants of the Pr doped Cu spinel nanoferrites. Crystallite size, lattice parameters, cell volume and micro strains were determined from XRD data. Bulk density, X-ray density and porosity of the Pr doped Cu spinel... 

In this study, SiC/Ti–Cu nanocomposite was fabricated by mechanical alloying and sintering process. Effects of SiC nano-reinforcement on phase transformation, microstructure and tribological and antibacterial properties Ti–Cu intermetallic alloy were studied. The microstructure of the powders and sintered materials was investigated using X-ray diffraction, and scanning/transmission electron microscopy. The results exhibited the formation of major TiCu and TiCu 4 , and minor Ti 2 Cu and Ti 2 Cu 3 nanocrystalline phases in the sintered Ti–Cu and SiC/Ti–Cu samples. With the addition of the nanoparticles, the amount of TiCu 4 phase increased. Reinforcing Ti–Cu intermetallic alloy by SiC...