0D nanocomposites formed by small nanoparticles embedded in a second phase are very interesting systems which may show properties that are beyond those observed in the original constituents alone. One of the main parameters to understand the behavior of such nanocomposites is the determination of the separation between two adjacent nanoparticles, in other words, the…
In this work, a new photocatalyst based on bismuth titanates with outstanding visible photocatalytic activity was prepared by a facile hydrothermal method. The synthesised material showed visible activity as high as UV activity of commercial TiO2 P25 under the same experimental conditions for phenol degradation. A wide characterisation of the photocatalyst was performed. The material…
This work is devoted to the investigation of zirconium oxynitride (ZrOxNy) films with varied optical responses prompted by the variations in their compositional and structural properties. The films were prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering of Zr, using Ar and a reactive gas mixture of N-2 + O-2 ( 17:3). The colour of the films…
CrAlYN coatings with different aluminum (4–12 at.%) and yttrium (2–5 at.%) contents are deposited by d.c. reactive magnetron sputtering on silicon and M2 steel substrates using metallic targets and Ar/N2 mixtures. The influence of the nanostructure and chemical elemental distribution on the oxidation resistance after heating in air at 1000 °C is studied by means of cross-sectional scanning electron…
Amorphous carbon nitride (a-C:N) thin films are a interesting class of carbon-based electrode materials. Therefore, synthesis and characterization of these materials have found lot of interest in environmental analytical microsystems. Herein, we report the nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon thin film elaboration by femtosecond pulsed laser deposition (fs-PLD) both with and without a plasma assistance. The chemical…
CaO has been deposited on a nanosilica powder matrix by a procedure based on atomic layer deposition (ALD) in a fluidized bed reactor at atmospheric pressure following a potentially scalable process. In previous works ALD in gas fluidized bed has been mostly performed under reduced pressure, which hampers scaling-up the production technology. The material synthesized…
The acid-base properties of MgO-Al2O3 supports and NiSn/MgO-Al2O3 catalysts were evaluated by IR spectroscopy using pyridine as a probe molecule. The results indicate that only Lewis acid sites were detected on the surface of the supports as well as on the catalysts. Nevertheless, Bronsted acid sites were not detected. In the support without MgO three…
In this research work, the production of undoped and silver (Ag) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films for food-packaging applications were developed. The main goal was to determine the influence of coatings morphology and thickness on the antimicrobial performance of the produced samples. The ZnO based thin films were deposited on PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) substrates…
The aim of this paper is to compare the mechanical and tribological properties of TiN coatings prepared in a conventional magnetron sputtering chamber according to two different routes: the usual reactive sputtering of a Ti target in an Ar/N2 atmosphere vs. the comparatively more simple sputtering of a TiN target in a pure Ar atmosphere.…
The preparation of hard coatings with low friction coefficient over a wide temperature range is still a challenge for the tribological community. The development of new nanocomposite materials consisting of different metal-ceramic phases, each of which exhibiting self-lubricating characteristics at different temperatures, may help to solve this problem. We report on the structure and tribological…