Sharif Digital Repository

Nano sized ZnO on TiO 2 spherical core shells were prepared by using hydrothermal method. The particle size of initial TiO 2 was around 20 nm, and the specific surface area was 50 m2/gr. Different ratios of TiO 2 and ZnO applied to synthesize core shell particle. X-ray diffraction (XRD) used to phase characterization and crystalline size, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to morphology and microstructure investigations. S. Brunauer, P. H. Emmett and E. Teller method (BET) to find specific surface area, Diffusive UV-visible-NIR spectrometry to bang gap calculations. The results indicate that powders with a shell of zinc oxide in specific range have the quantum size effect. Titanium oxide and... 

Treatment of dye pollution containing C.I. Acid Red 14 (AR14) by a coupled photocatalytic process was studied. Titanium dioxide, in the form of anatase and rutile, and zinc oxide, were used as photocatalysts. The investigated photocatalysts were Aldrich-produced nanopowders with crystallites of a mean size of 20-30 nm and a specific surface area of about 50 m 2/g. A comparison of TiO 2(anatase), TiO 2(rutile), TiO 2(a,r), and ZnO for the decolorization of the AR14 solution was performed. Results showed that color removal followed the decreasing order of TiO 2(a,r), ZnO > TiO 2(a,r) > TiO 2(a), ZnO > TiO 2(r), ZnO >TiO 2(a,r) > TiO 2(a) > ZnO > TiO 2(r). Response surface methodology (RSM) was... 

A seeding-growth approach was used to prepare Au@Ag@Au core double shell nanoparticles which were loaded on a rutile-nanorods/anatase-nanobranches thin film via the impregnation method. The thin film was synthesized on a fluorine-doped SnO 2 substrate via three stages of (i)TiCl 4 treatment, (ii)hydrothermal, and (iii)aqueous chemistry. The photocatalytic capability of the newly developed nanostructure was higher than P25 TiO 2 thin film by 40% under visible light and by 100% under UV light irradiation. Photogenerated charges separation at the junctions of rutile-nanorods and anatase-nanobranches along with localized surface plasmon resonance followed by the hot electron transfer from the... 

The thin-film of hierarchical rutile/anatase TiO2 nanorod/nanoleafs on fluorine-doped tin oxide glass was prepared via a facile method. For this purpose, the hydrothermal method was used for the synthesis of rutile-phase nanorods on the TiO2 seeded FTO, and aqueous chemistry was applied for growing anatase-phase nanoleafs on the nanorods. The structural, morphological, and optical properties of coating characterized, and the thin-film utilized as the photoelectrode for dye-sensitized solar cell. The energy conversion efficiency of the newly developed nanostructure was higher than that of TiO2 nanorod thin-film by 40%. This increase could be ascribed to: (1) superior specific surface area... 

Hierarchical TiO2 nanoleafed nanorod thin film was successfully synthesized on the fluorine doped tin oxide glass substrate. For this purpose, the nanorods were coated on the TiO2 seeded substrate via the hydrothermal method. Then, nanoleafs were grown on the nanorods by aqueous chemistry. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy were utilized for thin film characterization. The results clarified that anatase-phase nanoleafs were uniformly grown on the rutile-phase nanorods in the TiO2 coating. The photocatalytic performance of the thin film was determined by photodegradation of anionic and cationic organic pollutants, and the... 

A facile, straightforward, and low-cost method is proposed to synthesize gold@silver@gold core double-shell nanoparticles. The technique is a seed-mediated growth protocol that contains four steps of (1) gold seed synthesis, (2) gold seed growth, (3) silver layer coating through silver salt reduction, and (4) gold layer deposition via gold precursor reduction. The prepared nanoparticles had a narrow size distribution and the average particle size of 28 ± 1 nm. Cysteine was introduced to the nanoparticles solution as a coupling agent to assemble nanoparticles. Aggregation-induced two-photon photoluminescence enhancement of three types assembled nanoparticles, i.e., gold@silver@gold,... 

The preparation of high aspect-ratio TiO2 nanotubes and their photocatalytic activity were demonstrated in this study. The high aspect-ratio TiO2 nanotube thin films were produced by electrochemical anodic oxidation of Ti in chloride-containing electrolytes. Nanotubes were doped with different concentrations of ZnO particles through anodization. The catalytic behavior was evaluated under batch reactor with photo-degradation test of Red Dye. The experimental results collectively demonstrate the successful ZnO doping of the resultant nanotube layers with significant abundant OH groups on their increased surfaces. The nanotubes doped with high content combined with an anatase as a two phase... 

Electrochemical activity of TiO2 nanotube arrays (NTAs) is restricted by a wide band gap of TiO2. To overcome this restriction, we considered systematic research on two effective methods of doping of TiO2 NTAs such as the N-doping and electrochemical reductive doping and predicting the proper application of them. Band gap narrowing was occurred from 3.16 eV for undoped TiO2 NTAs to 2.9 and 2.7 eV at N-doped and self-doped TiO2 ones respectively. The electrochemical responses of the TiO2 NTAs before and after doping were examined by cyclic Voltammetry (CV) curve. To understand the electrochemical behavior of the undoped and doped TiO2 NTAs, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was... 

Although morphological disorder of nanotube structure is further down than the nanoparticular electrode, its density of traps are the hindering effects in the charge transport. In this study, crack-free TiO2 nanotube membranes, which obtained through a re-anodizing process, are fixed on transparent fluorine–tin-oxide glass by applying a few drops of Titanium Isopropoxide without needing the TiO2 powder paste. Front-side illuminated dye sensitized solar cells fabricated by undoped, N-doped and blue TiO2 nanotube membranes are investigated. The electrical characteristics of TiO2 nanotube based dye sensitized solar cells are followed by theoretical analysis using simple one-diode model.... 

Hierarchical TiO 2 nanorod/nanoflower thin film was synthesized on fluorine doped tin oxide glass via hydrothermal and aqueous chemistry methods. According to field emission scanning electron microscopy results, the thin film was crack-free and uniform. Primary nanorods had an average diameter of 95 nm and a length of 2 µm. They were perpendicular to the substrate owing to the TiO 2 prenucleation. Growth of the nanoflowers on the nanorods could increase both the specific surface area and roughness. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy showed that the nanorods were rutile; while the nanoflowers were anatase. Efficient electron transfer from anatase to rutile could therefore occur.... 

Titanium dioxide is a cheap, chemically stable and non-toxic material. However its photocatalytic properties are unstable and it is a modest semiconductor and a mediocre insulator. For several applications it would be interesting to make it either more insulating or more conducting. The goal of this work was to modify the photocatalytic properties of nano-crystalline TiO2 powders by wet chemical routes and hydrothermal methods to understand the mechanism leading to these modifications The principal factors that influence the photocatalytic properties are on the one hand the concentration and nature of the chemical and physical conditions in TiO2, and on the other hand the morphology of the... 

This paper focuses on the effects of low temperature (subzero) treatments on microstructure and mechanical properties of H13 hot work tool steel. Cryogenic treatment at -72 °C and deep cryogenic treatment at -196 °C were applied and it was found that by applying the subzero treatments, the retained austenite was transformed to martensite. As the temperature was decreased more retained austenite was transformed to martensite and it also led to smaller and more uniform martensite laths distributed in the microstructure. The deep cryogenic treatment also resulted in precipitation of more uniform and very fine carbide particles. The microstructural modification resulted in a significant... 

The photocatalytic decolorization of aqueous solutions of Direct Red 27 in the presence of various amounts of semiconductor powder suspensions has been investigated in a batch reactor with the use of artificial light sources. ZnO and TiO2 have been found the most active photocatalysts; the effect of catalyst loading and type on the reaction rate was optimized for maximum degradation. The results imply that 1:1 ratio is proper for the photocatalytic removal of Direct Red 27. In addition, the effects of particle size and surface area were examined in this photocatalytic process. The results showed that the decolorization efficiency increases with increase in surface area, and decrease in... 

Purpose - This paper aims to develop an adaptive unscented Kalman filter (AUKF) formulation for orientation estimation of aircraft and UAV utilizing low-cost attitude and heading reference systems (AHRS). Design/methodology/approach - A recursive least-square algorithm with exponential age weighting in time is utilized for estimation of the unknown inputs. The proposed AUKF tunes its measurement covariance to yield optimal performance. Owing to nonlinear nature of the dynamic model as well as the measurement equations, an unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is chosen against the extended Kalman filter, due to its better performance characteristics. The unscented transformation of the UKF is shown... 

The influence of concrete strength on the ductility of RC flexural members is investigated. Tests were carried out on beams with three ranges of concrete strengths, and moment-curvature and deflection curves obtained. It is concluded that when the concrete is laterally confined by closed steel ties beams with various levels of concrete strength and very high tensile strength steel exhibit high ductility  

The dilemma with the deficiencies of the nonlocal kernel functions as the building blocks of the Eringen’s nonlocal theory has been of concern. The aim of the current work is to provide a remedy for the calculation of the components of the nonlocal moduli tensor pertinent to face center cubic (fcc) crystals accounting for their true symmetry group. To this end, three new distinct nonlocal kernel functions which are the discrete atomistic Green’s functions in the stress space are obtained through the nonlocal dispersion relations associated with the longitudinal and shear waves in fcc crystals combined with the corresponding ones calculated via ab initio based on density functional... 

Myocardial infarction (MI) causes a high mortality rate in the world every year. Myocardial tissue engineering using extracellular matrix-derived substrate and cytocompatible biopolymers is a promising approach for treating MI. Besides, injectable porous microspheres are developing engineer constructs to use as dual-purpose microcarriers for cell culture and injectable scaffolds in trivial invasiveness for tissue implantation. This study aimed to fabricate porous microcarriers composed of myocardial extracellular matrix and chitosan using an electrospraying technique. The effect of electrospraying parameters, including extracellular matrix/chitosan ratio and voltage, on MCs diameter was... 

High rates of mortality and morbidity stemming from cardiovascular diseases unveil extreme limitations in current therapies despite enormous advances in medical and pharmaceutical sciences. Following myocardial infarction (MI), parts of myocardium undergo irreversible remodeling and is substituted by a scar tissue which eventually leads to heart failure (HF). To address this issue, cardiac patches have been utilized to initiate myocardial regeneration. In this study, a porous cardiac patch is fabricated using a mixture of decellularized myocardium extracellular matrix (ECM) and chitosan (CS). Results of rheological measurements, SEM, biodegradation test, and MTT assay showed that the... 

Purpose: Drowsy driving accounts for many accidents and has attracted substantial research attention in recent years. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are shown to be a reliable measure for the early detection of drowsiness. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive study showing the applicability of drowsiness detection systems with EEG signals. In this research, we targeted the studies under the category of drowsiness detection, which adopted an EEG-based approach, to inspect the applicability of these systems from different aspects. Materials and Methods: We included documented studies that utilized clinical devices and consumer-grade EEG headsets for detection of drowsiness and... 

This article aims to compensate the velocity and position errors that exist when the star sensor starts to work in a strapdown inertial navigation system aided by celestial navigation. These systems are integrated via unscented Kalman filter to estimate the current attitude and the gyros fixed bias, precisely. Since an accurate integration is desired, the nonlinear attitude equations are utilized in filter and these equations are propagated through a precise discretization method. Then, implementing the back-propagation and smoothing techniques, the initial attitude and the accelerometers fixed bias are also estimated. Finally, carrying out a parallel navigation, the velocity and position...