Materials Chemistry Commons^™

Synthesis And Characterization Of Dielectric And Multiferroic Nanocrystalline Transition Metal Oxide Materials And Nanocomposites, Frederick A. Pearsall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nanocrystalline transition metal oxides with unique chemical, physical, magnetic and dielectric properties have very broad applications, ranging from photocatalysis, capacitor energy storage and 4-state memory. Frequency stable, high permittivity nanocomposite capacitors produced under mild processing conditions offer an attractive replacement to MLCCs derived from conventional ceramic firing. In one project reported herein, 0-3 nanocomposites were prepared using BaTiO₃ (barium titanate, BTO) nanocrystals, suspended in a poly(furfuryl alcohol) matrix, resulting in a stable, high effective permittivity, low and stable loss dielectric. Effective medium approximations were used to compare this with similar nanocomposite systems. The use of synthesized BTO nanocrystal photocatalysts …

Mild Synthesis Of Perylene Tetracarboxylic Monoanhydrides With Potential Applications In Organic Optoelectronics, Xizhe Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Perylene tetracarboxylic derivatives are considered good n-type semi-conductors. In past decades, there has been extensive study on their synthesis and electronic properties. Because of the high electron affinity, the ability to form π-π stacks, they have been widely utilized in organic photovoltaic solar cells, field-effect transistors and light-emitting diodes. Many of those applications prefer unsymmetrically substituted perylene tetracarboxylic derivatives. Perylene monoanhydrides are the most versatile intermediates for the preparation of unsymmetrically substituted perylene tetracarboxylic derivatives. In this thesis, I focused on introducing new synthesis methods for perylene monoanhydrides with labile functional group and their potential applications in organic optoelectronics.

In …

Peptide Mediated Co-Assembly Of Porphyrin: Towards Sustainable Biomaterials For Light Harvesting And Catalysis, Wsm Nadeesha K. Wijerathne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The diverse molecular functions of naturally occurring biomaterials designed from proteins are fundamentally based on a set of conserved building blocks, namely the 20 gene coded amino acids. The supramolecular structures and functions of proteins dictates by the self-assembly, where the complexity of proteins arise from a large number of amino acids. Generation of biomimetic systems that resemble the structures and functions of proteins is of great interest yet challenging due to the tremendous complexity of the natural systems. It is important to investigate alternative strategies to design much simpler systems that exhibit the same or similar function as proteins. …

Raman And Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy For Forensic Analysis: Case Studies On The Identification Of Illicit Substances And Artist Pigments, Abed Haddad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Raman spectroscopy is an effective tool for detecting trace amounts of material by fingerprint-like vibrational spectra. At times, the weak intensity of Raman scattering can make it difficult to distinguish trace materials. This shortcoming is addressed by surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which produces strong signal enhancements when target compounds are near metal nanoparticles. For the first part of this thesis, the identification of fentanyl and carfentanil, main culprits in the opioid epidemic, was done using normal Raman and the SERS spectroscopy. As an aid in the assignment of the spectral lines, a computational model was built using Density Functional Theory …

Development Of Granulated Adsorbent For Clean-Up Of Water Contaminated By Cesium, Esther Alorkpa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A study was conducted on sol-gel synthesis of an adsorbent (phosphotungstic acid embedded in silica gel, H-PTA/SiO­₂) of radioactive cesium. A novelty of this work is covalent bonding of PTA to the surface of solid support that prevents leaching from the surface of the material. The sample was granulated with a binder, aluminium oxide (γ-Al₂O₃). Solid-state NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy were used to confirm the presence of Keggin units of PTA in the bound materials. Thermal analysis of H-PTA/SiO­₂ - γ-Al₂O₃ (50 %) showed that the water content in the …

Preparation And Characterization Of Ruthenium-Gold Raman-Active Catalytic Surfaces, Thang Nguyen

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Heterogeneous reactions at the gas-solid interface play a major role in many important industrial and environmental processes. These reactions typically rely on metal surfaces, to act as a catalyst between gas phase reactants and products. The catalysts lower the transition state barrier in the formation of the products. The mechanisms of reactions on catalysts is often not fully known due to the difficulty of observing the bond breakage and formation between gaseous molecules at the interface. One method in which the catalytic mechanism can be studied is by using Raman Spectroscopy. However, one drawback of this method is the fact …

Bridging The Molecular/Material Divide: An Investigation Into The Properties Of Polyesters, Terra Marie M. Jouaneh

Senior Honors Projects

By definition, polymers consist of large molecules composed of small, repeating units called monomers. These monomers give characteristic material properties to polymers, whether they be the melting point, the folding character, or the inherent stability. Many of the objects we encounter on a daily basis are composed of polymers. These polymers may be synthetic, such as the plastic in disposable bags, or natural, like glycogen in the liver. Recent developments in biotechnology have used synthetic polymers in drug delivery, contact lenses, and even organ transplants. Polyesters, in particular, have been utilized pharmacologically due to their biodegradable properties. Understandably, not all …

Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy- Surface Sensitive In Situ Label-Free Spectroelectrochemistry, Lie Wu, Jian-Long Sun, Xiu-E Jiang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy (SEIRAS), especially in attenuated total reflectance (ATR) mode, taking advantages of surface-enhancement and near-field optical effect of enhancing substrate, is a ultra-sensitive infrared spectroscopy, which could achieve surface-selected detection at a sub-monolayer level. Since the enhancing substrate could simultaneously serve as a working electrode, ATR-SEIRAS is a readily surface-sensitive in situ label-free spectroelectrochemistry technique. With the advantages of small influence from metal species on enhancement effect, good potential reversibility of spectra, simple surface selection rule and sensitivity to polar molecules, ATR-SEIRAS has been widely applied in the fields of orientation analysis and species identification of interfacial …

High-Efficiency Nitrite Sensor Based On Cop Nanowire Array, Fu-Ling Zhou, Xiao-Li Xiong, Xu-Ping Sun

Journal of Electrochemistry

Nitrite has a negative impact on the environment and human health. The long-term consumption of nitrite-containing foods has a carcinogenic risk. Therefore, the analysis and detection of nitrite are important. It is of great significance to develop high-efficiency electrocatalysts to achieve high sensitivity and selectivity for nitrite detection. The cobalt phosphide nano-array (CoP/TM) was obtained by hydrothermal and low-temperature phosphating. The electrochemical test results show that the constructed CoP/TM was a highly efficient electrochemical reduction nitrite catalyst with the excellent sensing performance and response time less than 3 s, as well as the linear detection range of 1.0 μmol·L^{-1 …}

In Situ/Operando Visualization Of Electrode Processes In Lithium-Sulfur Batteries: A Review, Shuang-Yan Lang, Xin-Cheng Hu, Rui Wen, Li-Jun Wan

Journal of Electrochemistry

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have been regarded as one of the most promising candidates for the next-generation energy storage devices. Fundamental understanding of the structure and evolution processes at electrode-electrolyte interfaces is essential to the further development. In this review, we summarize recent advances in the interfacial observations by means of various in situ/operando visualization techniques, including scanning probe microscopy (SPM), electron microscopy (EM), X-ray microscopy (XRM) and optical microscopy (OM). The real-time investigation provides important evidence for the morphology and component changes including S/Li₂S transformation, polysulfide dissolution on cathodes and Li/solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) evolution on anodes, which …

Sensitive And Reusable Electrogenerated Chemiluminescence Aptasensor Fabricated By Electrochemically Double Covalent Coupling Method For The Detection Of Cocaine, Xiao-Feia Wang, Tinga Zhang, Bing Wang, Hong-Lan Qi, Cheng-Xiao Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

A double covalent coupling method based on click chemistry and diazonium chemistry was developed for the fabrication of a sensitive and reusable electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) aptasensor. As a proof-of-concept, cocaine was chosen as a model target, and a specific aptamer was chosen as a recognition molecule element, while ruthenium complex derivative (Ru1) as an ECL signal compound. The ECL aptasensor was fabricated by electrochemically diazotizing a phenylazide on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode, and then, coupling the alkyne functionalized Ru1-labeled cocaine aptamer through click chemistry. The ECL aptasensor was facilely used to determine cocaine in the range from …

A Facile Strategy For Two-Step Fabrication Of Gold Nanoelectrode For In Vivo Dopamine Detection, Li-Hao Guan, Chao Wang, Wang Zhang, Yu-Lu Cai, Kai Li, Yu-Qing Lin

Journal of Electrochemistry

In vivo monitoring neurochemicals with microelectrode is invasive and the damage to brain tissue may inevitably cause disturbance signals physiologically to the measurement. It is of great importance to reduce the electrode size and to decrease the damage. This study demonstrates a novel nanoelectrode preparation methodology for in vivo monitoring dopamine (DA) fluctuation in the living brain of rats with high dependability. The fabrication process of the gold nanoelectrode involving a few minutes consists of only two steps: 1) growing gold nanoseeds on surface of tip of glassy capillary by ion sputtering; 2) wet depositing a continuous conductive gold film …

Preparation And Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Performance Of Self-Doped Sludge-Derived Carbon, Ya-Li Ye, Wei-Ming Feng, Ge Li, Zhen-Chao Lei, Chun-Hua Feng

Journal of Electrochemistry

The development of low-cost, high-performance cathode catalysts is critical for practical application of fuel cells. Here, the N, P-doped porous graphene-like carbon with outstanding oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance was synthesized by pyrolysis of surplus sludge, which functioned as a self-doped, self-activated, and self-templated precursor by acclimation with continuous feedings of phenol. The results show that the amounts of microorganisms were enriched after acclimation, with increasing contents of N, P, Fe, as well as C atoms. The increasing pyrolysis temperature resulted in the formation of an ordered graphitic structure, however, the excessively high temperature induced the drop in the amounts …

Electrochemical Analysis And Sensing Preface, Yi-Tao Long, Yang Tian

Journal of Electrochemistry

No abstract provided.

Advanced Electrochemical Strategy For In Vivo Detection Of Electrochemically Inactive Molecules, Qi Zhou, Li-Min Zhang, Yang Tian

Journal of Electrochemistry

Development of efficient electrochemical strategies for in vivo analysis of electrochemically inactive molecules in brain is significant for understanding and studying their molecular mechanism and roles playing in brain and brain diseases. This review gives a brief introduction on the advanced in vivo electrochemical sensor for detection of non-redox active molecules from three aspects: 1) The selection and design of specific molecules are highly desirable to develop electrochemical sensors with high selectivity for measuring electrochemical inactive molecules through converting specific chemical reaction involved by target to electric signal; 2) The analysis based on ion current rectification occurred at spatial confined …

Recent Progress Of Electrochemiluminescence Sensors Based On Electrically Heated Electrode, Hui-Fang Zhang, Yi-Ting Chen, Fang Luo, Zhen-Yu Lin, Guo-Nan Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) has broad application in the fields of environmental monitoring and biological analysis due to its intrinsic advantages such as excellent versatility, good detection sensitivity, and high specificity. The intensity of ECL can be influenced by temperature variation in the ECL quantum efficiency and the rate of electrochemical reaction. However, traditional temperature control is commonly realized through bulk solutions heating, which is complicated and unfavorable for detection when the volatile and thermally unstable materials existed. In order to address these problems, electrically heated electrodes are used to adjust the temperature desired. The major character of this technique lies in …

Application Of Nanomaterials In The Detection Of Volatile Organic Compounds In Exhaled Breath For Cancer Diagnosis, Wan-Qiao Bai, Xue-Zhi Qiao, Tie Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) generated in human body can reflect one’s health state, and numerous diseases are identified by some VOCs biomarkers. More recently, analyses of VOCs biomarkers from exhaled breath have turned into a research frontier worldwide because it offers a noninvasive way for diseases diagnosis. Various kinds of nanomaterials are used to enhance the performance of sensing techniques, and play an essential role in miniaturization detection. In this review, several kinds of nanomaterials (metallic, metal oxide, carbon-based, composites and MOFs-based materials) used in various VOCs detection methods, especially in VOCs sensors are summarized. Learning from the successful utilization …

Sensitive Photoelectrochemical Assay Of Nucleic Acids Based On Catalytic Hairpin Assembly And Ru(Nh3)63+, Ya-Min Fu, Xiao-Xia Yan, Xiao-Hua Zhang, Jin-Hua Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

A simple “signal-on” photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensing platform for sensitive assay of nucleic acids was developed by coupling catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) signal amplification strategy with Ru(NH₃)₆³⁺. Herein, cadmium sulfide (CdS) was deposited on the TiO₂/indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode by a method of successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR), serving as one kind of photoelectric material to broaden absorption range of TiO₂ and to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency. Thereafter, the capture DNA (C-DNA) was immobilized on the CdS/TiO₂/ITO electrode. Simultaneously, Au-hairpin DNA probe 1 (Au-HP1) and hairpin DNA …

Graphene-Like Secondary-Laser-Etched Polyimide Film Decorated With CuXO Nanocomposites: A Novel Electrode Substrate For Non-Enzymatic Glucose Sensors, Wan-Lin Dai, Zhi-Wei Lu, Jian-Shan Ye

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this work, a novel electrode substrate with graphene-like surface and Cu_xO nanocomposites derived from secondary-laser-etched polyimide (SLEPI) film was synthesized and applied in non-enzymatic glucose detection for the first time. Characterizations indicate that the as-prepared SLEPI/Cu_xO film electrode (SLEPI/Cu_xO-FE) possessed huge surface area, plentiful active sites and excellent electrocatalytic performance. The obtained sensor exhibited the high sensitivity and selectivity for glucose determination with a linear range of 0.05 mmol·L^-1 to 3 mmol·L^-1 and a detection limit of 1.72 μmol·L^-1 (S/N=3), which provides a simple, flexible and low-cost electrochemical sensor for …

Preparation And Capacitive Property Of Two-Dimensional Multilayer Ti3C2TX-Mxene/Ppy-Nw Composite Material, Lu Chen, Xuan Jian, Min He, Mi-Mi Zhang, Xiao-Die Chen, Lou-Jun Gao, Zhen-Hai Liang

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this paper, the two-dimensional multilayered Ti₃C₂T_x-MXene was obtained by hydrofluoric acid etching method on the bulk phase material MAX(Ti₃AlC₂) substrate. The two-dimensional multilayered Ti₃C₂T_x-MXene/PPy-NW composite electrode materials were successfully prepared by combining the one-dimensional polypyrrole nanowires (PPy-NW) with two-dimensional multilayered Ti₃C₂T_x-MXene. The morphologies and compositions of the synthetic materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Electrochemical tests showed that Ti₃C_{2 …}