Electron beam evaporated vs. magnetron sputtered nanocolumnar porous stainless steel: Corrosion resistance, wetting behavior and anti-bacterial activity

Stainless steel (SS), widely used because of its outstanding corrosion protection properties, does not possess any particular anti-stain or anti-bacterial activity as required for household and sanitary applications. This work reports the fabrication of SS thin films that, keeping a similar corrosion resistance than the bulk material, presents hydrophobicity and anti-bacterial activity. These thin films…

Comparative analysis of the germination of barley seeds subjected to drying, hydrogen peroxide, or oxidative air plasma treatments

Acceleration in germination time by 12-24 h for barley seeds treated with atmospheric air plasmas may have a significant economic impact on malting processes. In this study, the increase in germination rate and decrease in contamination level upon plasma treatment could not be directly correlated with any significant increase in the water uptake capacity, except…

Influence of Femtosecond Laser Modification on Biomechanical and Biofunctional Behavior of Porous Titanium Substrates

Bone resorption and inadequate osseointegration are considered the main problems of titanium implants. In this investigation, the texture and surface roughness of porous titanium samples obtained by the space holder technique were modified with a femtosecond Yb-doped fiber laser. Different percentages of porosity (30, 40, 50, and 60 vol.%) and particle range size (100-200 and…

Characterization of Re-Mo/ZSM-5 catalysts: How Re improves the performance of Mo in the methane dehydroaromatization reaction

In this study, the promoting effect of rhenium addition as a co-dopant on Mo/ZSM-5 catalysts system has been analysed. Hence, bimetallic (Re-Mo/ZSM-5) catalysts have been synthesized using a sequential impregnation methodology. The catalytic performance for direct aromatization of methane reaction has been determined and correlated with their physical and chemical state combining multiple characterization techniques.…

Transparent, UV-blocking, and high barrier cellulose-based bioplastics with naringin as active food packaging materials

Free-standing, robust, and transparent bioplastics were obtained by blending cellulose and naringin at different proportions. Optical, thermal, mechanical, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties were systematically investigated. In general, the incorporation of naringin produced important UV blocking and plasticizer effects and good antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Moreover, the barrier properties were characterized by determination of their water and oxygen transmission rates, finding that both parameters decreased by increasing…

Versatile Ni-Ru catalysts for gas phase CO2 conversion: Bringing closer dry reforming, reverse water gas shift and methanation to enable end-products flexibility

Advanced catalytic materials able to catalyse more than one reaction efficiently are needed within the CO2 utilisation schemes to benefit from end-products flexibility. In this study, the combination of Ni and Ru (15 and 1 wt%, respectively) was tested in three reactions, i.e. dry reforming of methane (DRM), reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) and CO2 methanation.…

Neodymium doped lanthanide fluoride nanoparticles as contrast agents for luminescent bioimaging and X-ray computed tomography

The synthesis of uniform neodymium-doped lanthanum trifluoride nanoparticles with lenticular shape and a mean diameter around 45 nm by using a homogeneous precipitation method is reported. The luminescent properties of the synthesized samples in terms of their emission spectra and emission lifetime are analyzed as a function of the Nd content to find the optimum…

Effect of sintering under CO+N-2/H-2 and CO2+air atmospheres on the physicochemical features of a commercial nano-YSZ

Given the need to process anodes and composites based on nano-YSZ in reducing or in air containing additional CO2 atmospheres for the fabrication of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), and solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs), we have studied the effect of the exposure to CO+N2/H2 or CO2+air mixtures during sintering of YSZ green pellets, prepared from commercial nanopowders,…