Porous Graphene-like Carbon from Fast Catalytic Decomposition of Biomass for Energy Storage Applications

A novel carbon material made of porous graphene-like nanosheets was synthesized from biomass resources by a simple catalytic graphitization process using nickel as a catalyst for applications in electrodes for energy storage devices. A recycled fiberboard precursor was impregnated with saturated nickel nitrate followed by high-temperature pyrolysis. The highly exothermic combustion of in situ formed…

Enhancing Luminescence and X-ray Absorption Capacity of Eu3+:LaF3 Nanoparticles by Bi3+ Codoping

Bi3+ codoping has been proposed in this work with a twofold objective, namely, enhancing the luminescence emission of Eu3+:LaF3 nanoparticles (NPs) and increasing their X-ray attenuation capacity, with the purpose of obtaining a bimodal bioprobe for luminescence bioimaging and X-ray computed tomography. The synthesis method, reported here for the first time for LaF3 particles, allowed…

Characterization and Validation of a-Si Magnetron-Sputtered Thin Films as Solid He Targets with High Stability for Nuclear Reactions

In this work, we present our magnetron sputtering based methodology to produce amorphous silicon coatings with closed porosity, as a strategy to fabricate solid helium targets, in the form of supported or self-supported thin films, for nuclear reactions. We show how by changing the He working pressure it is possible to obtain highly porous homogeneous…