Chemical Synthesis of PEDOT–Au Nanocomposite

In this work, gold-incorporated polyethylenedioxythiophene nanocomposite material has been synthesized chemically, employing reverse emulsion polymerization method. Infrared and Raman spectroscopic studies revealed that the polymerization of ethylenedioxythiophene leads to the formation of polymer polyethylenedioxythiophene incorporating gold nanoparticles. Scanning electron microscope studies showed the formation of polymer nanorods of 50–100 nm diameter and the X-ray diffraction analysis clearly indicates the presence of gold nanoparticles of 50 nm in size

Review: The increasing importance of carbon nanotubes and nanostructured conducting polymers in biosensors

The growing need for analytical devices requiring smaller sample volumes, decreased power consumption and improved performance have been driving forces behind the rapid growth in nanomaterials research. Due to their dimensions, nanostructured materials display unique properties not traditionally observed in bulk materials. Characteristics such as increased surface area along with enhanced electrical/optical properties make them suitable for numerous applications such as nanoelectronics, photovoltaics and chemical/biological sensing. In this review we examine the potential that exists to use nanostructured materials for biosensor devices. By incorporating nanomaterials, it is possible to achieve enhanced sensitivity, improved response time and smaller size. Here we report some of the success that has been achieved in this area. Many nanoparticle and nanofibre geometries are particularly relevant, but in this paper we specifically focus on organic nanostructures, reviewing conducting polymer nanostructures and carbon nanotubes

Synergistic effect of citrate ethylene diamine phosphonic acid and Zn2+ on the inhibition of corrosion of mild steel in low chloride media

Synergistic effect of citrate ethylene diamine phosphonic acid (CEDPA) and Zn2+ on the inhibition of corrosion of mild steel in water containing chloride ion of 60 ppm has been evaluated by weight loss, potentiostatic polarisation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopic methods. The weight loss studies have shown that neither the CEDPA nor Zn2+ has any inhibitive action individually but when they are combined together because of synergistic effect they give higher inhibition efficiency with increase in concentration. An optimal critical concentration of 200 ppm of CEDPA and 80 ppm of Zn2+ has been established to the maximum efficiency of 93 +- 2%. Potentiostatic polarization studies have confirmed this system acts as a mixed inhibitor. X-ray diffraction technique, UV-VIS-NIR spectra and luminescence spectra have revealed that this synergistic effect is due to the formation of Fe2+ -CEDPA complex on the metal surface at a critical concentration ratio of 2:5:

Unusual seedless approach to gold nanoparticle synthesis: application to selective rapid naked eye detection of mercury(II)

Report a novel seedless Hg2+-induced synthetic approach for the preparation of gold nanostructures. This protocol is demonstrated for the highly selective and sensitive naked eye detection of Hg2+ based on the high affinity metallophilic Hg2+–Au+ interaction. The response time upon exposure to Hg2+ is almost instantaneou

Estimation of Fano factor for oversquare HPGe detector

Fano factor is a quantity used to measure the departure of the observed variance in the number of charge carriers produced from that predicted using poison statistics. Fano factor varies with the detector type. In case of proportional counters and semiconductor detectors, it is substantially less than unity, whereas, for scintillator detectors, it would be unity. Even in case of semiconductor detectors, it varies with the type and the shape of the detector. Another source of fluctuations that gives the overall resolution of the detector is preamplifier noise. Oversquare coaxial HPGe detectors are a recent development in the field. Literature on the Fano factor of oversquare large volume coaxial detector is not available. In this work, the Fano factor and the electronic noise of an oversquare HPGe coaxial detector are estimated after optimizing the shaping parameters. The Fano factor for the oversquare HPGe detector is estimated as 0.1291 keV, which agrees with the ideal value of 0.13 by 99.98%. The preamplifier noise was found to be 0.048 keV which is 35% lesser than the reported value

Evaluation of peroxide based biocides for inhibition and biocidal efficiencies

Microbially induced corrosion can be controlled through biocides that eliminate the deleterious microorganisms. However, the electrochemical properties of such biocides and their role on the corrosion process is not very well understood. The present investigation is focused on the evaluation of peroxide based biocides viz. sodium peroxide, sodium perborate, sodium dithionite and sodium chlorite for their efficiency from corrosion as well as biocidal point of view. The biocides investigated were found to alter the corrosion tendency of mild steel. Sodium peroxide was proved to be the ideal choice both as biocide and as corrosion inhibito

Electrodeposited partially oxidized Bi & NiCo alloy based thin films for aqueous hybrid high energy microcapacitor

Electrochemical energy storage (EES) devices play an important role in meeting the demand for the electrical energy. Particularly, electrochemical hybrid capacitors (HCs) are considered as one of the potential candidates for fulfilling the energy requirement. In this work, aqueous electrolyte-based high voltage HC is fabricated and its electrochemical characteristics are analyzed. Here, electrochemically prepared NiCo and Bi thin films on stainless steel substrate were used as positive and negative electrodes, respectively. The phase structure and crystalline size of the electrodeposited films are confirmed from XRD and AFM. It is observed that the as prepared NiCo film showed an excellent specific capacitance value of 83.33 mF cm−2 at 0.5 mA cm−2; on the other side, Bi film also showed a good storage capacity of 32.2 μA h cm−2 at 1 mA cm−2; To realize the high energy density, Bi||NiCo combination of the thin film HC is fabricated and the HC devices showed excellent performance at a tested potential window of 1.5 V. The cell plateau voltage is observed at 0.8 V. The maximum specific energy density of 7.3 μW h was achieved at a specific power density is 0.3 mW cm−2. Maximum specific power of 7.5 mW cm−2 at an energy density of 1.875 μW h was obtained from HSC. This indicates the excellent performance of the HC at various conditions. Thus, the binder-free, electrodeposited active electrode materials of the present work will play a significant role in the various electronic applications by supplying the energy demand