Three-in-one approach towards efficient organic dye-sensitized solar cells: aggregation suppression, panchromatic absorption and resonance energy transfer

• Jayita Patwari,
• Samim Sardar,
• Bo Liu,
• Peter Lemmens and
• Samir Kumar Pal

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1705–1713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.171

• two dyes increase the photocurrent as well as the efficiency of the device. From the absorption spectra of the co-sensitized photoanodes, PPIX was observed to be efficiently acting as a co-adsorbent and to reduce the dye aggregation problem of SQ2. It has further been proven by a comparison of the

• concentrations of co-adsorbent is an unavoidable constraint on the co-sensitization of organic dyes [18][28][29][30]. In order to avoid the co-adsorbent, one of the co-sensitizers can be used to counteract the aggregation of the other. Spectroscopic studies and excited-state dynamics of the two dyes can be

• major reasons for the enhanced light-harvesting over the entire solar spectrum. PPIX–SQ2 co-sensitized DSSCs were found to be more efficient compared to SQ2-sensitized DSSCs prepared using the optimum concentration of the well-known co-adsorbent chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA). The wavelength-dependent

Hierarchically structured nanoporous carbon tubes for high pressure carbon dioxide adsorption

• Julia Patzsch,
• Deepu J. Babu and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1135–1144, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.115

• used for increasing their adsorption capacity: (i) morphological structuring to increase the surface area and (ii) modification of the tube surface with functional groups to enhance the adsorbent/adsorbate attraction. For (i), new carbon materials have been studied as adsorbents such as ordered

• ultramicropores (<0.7 nm), while at high pressure, CO2 adsorption occurs on the supermicropores of the adsorbent. Since almost no change is observed in the adsorption isotherm at low pressure, and the decrease in adsorption is only observed at high pressure for 4, it is believed that the amount of supermicropores

Synthesis of graphene–transition metal oxide hybrid nanoparticles and their application in various fields

• Arpita Jana,
• Elke Scheer and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 688–714, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.74

• material [149]. Fe2O3 graphene composites also have significant applications in LIBs [150][151][152][153]. Li et al. show the application of monolithic Fe2O3 graphene hybrids in arsenic removal also due to the self-supported adsorbent properties of the material [154]. α-Fe2O3–rGO prepared by a hydrothermal

Fiber optic sensors based on hybrid phenyl-silica xerogel films to detect n-hexane: determination of the isosteric enthalpy of adsorption

• Jesús C. Echeverría,
• Ignacio Calleja,
• Paula Moriones and
• Julián J. Garrido

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 475–484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.51

• magnitude of the isosteric enthalpy of n-hexane increased with the relative response and reached a plateau that stabilized at approximately −31 kJ mol−1 for Ph40 and Ph50 and at approximately −37 kJ mol−1 for Ph30. This indicates that the adsorbate–adsorbent interaction was dominant at lower relative

• . Therefore, the adsorbent–nitrogen interaction decreased with the increasing percentage of the hybrid silicon precursor. Time-response curves Figure 4a includes the raw spectra of the as-fabricated sensing elements obtained under vacuum, in which the intensity of the reflected light by sensing elements Ph30

• approximately −37 kJ mol−1 for Ph30. At low adsorption, the adsorbate–adsorbent interaction is dominant [26]. Because n-hexane is a non-polar compound, it exhibits almost non-specific interactions with the surface of the hybrid xerogels. The enthalpy of adsorption for n-hexane for Ph40 and Ph50 was similar to

Tailoring bifunctional hybrid organic–inorganic nanoadsorbents by the choice of functional layer composition probed by adsorption of Cu²⁺ ions

• Veronika V. Tomina,
• Inna V. Melnyk,
• Yuriy L. Zub,
• Aivaras Kareiva,
• Miroslava Vaclavikova,
• Gulaim A. Seisenbaeva and
• Vadim G. Kessler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 334–347, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.36

• surface layers were analyzed by diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy, and 13C and 29Si solid-state NMR spectroscopy revealing their composition and organization. The fine chemical structure of the surface in the produced hybrid adsorbent particles and the ligand distribution

• adsorption to occur on specific sites uniformly spread on the surface of the adsorbent. It is commonly used for description of processes, where adsorbed species form a monolayer, and is described by the following equation: where Ceqv is the concentration of solute remaining in solution after equilibrium to

• adsorption capacity in the multilayer of the adsorbent [58][59]. X-band EPR spectra of the samples were recorded at room temperature using a radio spectrometer РE-1306 equipped with a frequency meter ChZ-54 and frequency converter YaZCh-87. The magnetic field was calibrated using 2,2-diphenyl-1

Nanocrystalline ZrO₂ and Pt-doped ZrO₂ catalysts for low-temperature CO oxidation

• Amit Singhania and
• Shipra Mital Gupta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 264–271, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.29

• ) with Ni-filtered Cu Kα radiation (λ = 1.542 Å) over a range of 2θ from 20 to 80°. The data were obtained with an step size of 0.02° and a scan rate of 0.5°/min. The specific surface area of the samples was obtained using a BET instrument using N2 as adsorbent (Micrometrics, ASAP 2010). UV–vis

Prediction of the mechanical properties of zeolite pellets for aerospace molecular decontamination applications

• Guillaume Rioland,
• Patrick Dutournié,
• Delphine Faye,
• T. Jean Daou and
• Joël Patarin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1761–1771, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.169

• molecular decontamination applications, especially in the aerospace field where the dimensions are very important. Indeed, the available space inside a satellite is limited, and the dimensions of any adsorbent bodies have to be controlled to avoid increased costs of the satellite. This methodology allows

Graphene-enhanced plasmonic nanohole arrays for environmental sensing in aqueous samples

• Christa Genslein,
• Peter Hausler,
• Eva-Maria Kirchner,
• Rudolf Bierl,
• Antje J. Baeumner and
• Thomas Hirsch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1564–1573, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.150

• that this type of plasticizers adsorbs on polystyrene resins by multiple adsorbent–adsorbate interactions such as hydrogen bonding and π-stacking [38], which makes them an ideal analyte for the evaluation of the graphene-modified gold surfaces in SPR. Nanostructured surfaces are promising in enhancing

Development of adsorptive membranes by confinement of activated biochar into electrospun nanofibers

• Mehrdad Taheran,
• Mitra Naghdi,
• Satinder K. Brar,
• Emile Knystautas,
• Mausam Verma,
• Rao. Y. Surampalli and
• Jose. R. Valero

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1556–1563, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.149

• reports on embedding adsorbent materials into NFMs to enhance the adsorption capability of the composite membranes. For example, Wu et al. [15], Xu et al. [16] and Wang et al. [17] used SiO2 particles for the fabrication of composite poly(vinyl alcohol), poly(acrylic acid) and PAN NFMs in order to adsorb

• was around 6.3 mg/g of membrane. Therefore, further research is still needed to increase the adsorption capacity through increased adsorbent loading or adsorbent specific surface area. Also, working on other applications of these adsorptive membranes, such as immobilization of enzyme would be of

Investigating organic multilayers by spectroscopic ellipsometry: specific and non-specific interactions of polyhistidine with NTA self-assembled monolayers

• Ilaria Solano,
• Pietro Parisse,
• Ornella Cavalleri,
• Federico Gramazio,
• Loredana Casalis and
• Maurizio Canepa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 544–553, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.48

• (NTA) group, after loading with nickel ions (Ni(II)), provide platforms able to specifically bind his-tag proteins [13][14][15][16][17][18] and enzymes that retain their activity upon immobilization [19][20][21]. The affinity between the adsorbent surface and the protein can be modulated, e.g., by

Synthesis, characterization and in vitro biocompatibility study of Au/TMC/Fe₃O₄ nanocomposites as a promising, nontoxic system for biomedical applications

• Hanieh Shirazi,
• Maryam Daneshpour,
• Soheila Kashanian and
• Kobra Omidfar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1677–1689, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.170

• that these polymers provide an adsorbent network on the surface of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles, it was decided to additionally assemble Au nanoparticles onto the polymer-coated magnetic particles, resulting in the development of novel nanocomposites. The final diameter of the resulting nanocomposite was

The fate of a designed protein corona on nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo

• Denise Bargheer,
• Julius Nielsen,
• Gabriella Gébel,
• Markus Heine,
• Sunhild C. Salmen,
• Roland Stauber,
• Horst Weller,
• Joerg Heeren and
• Peter Nielsen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 36–46, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.5

• nm) is much smaller than the adsorbent. If the nanoparticle and protein are in the same size, the Langmuir adsorption formalism seems not to be valid. This was discussed by Liu et al. using small CeO2-particles and bovine serum albumin with similar size of 7 nm [36]. The smaller surface free energy

Neutral and charged boron-doped fullerenes for CO₂ adsorption

• Suchitra W. de Silva,
• Aijun Du,
• Wijitha Senadeera and
• Yuantong Gu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 413–418, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.49

• common technology for the capture of CO2. However this method is criticized for its very high energy consumption and operational limitations such as corrosion, slow uptake rates, foaming and large equipment. Hence there is a huge interest in solid adsorbent materials for CCS [3][4][5][6]. In past few

• years metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as solid CO2 adsorbent materials due to their tuneable chemical and physical properties. Particularly, there is growing interest for metal free carbon-based nanomaterials for gas adsorption. Carbon-based nanomaterials such as fullerene, carbon nanotubes

• enhanced by introducing extra electrons to the system. The enhanced interaction of CO2 with adsorbent materials by electron injection has been further proved by Jiao et al. [19]. Therefore, we will investigate the CO2 adsorption on BC59 fullerene in both the neutral and the 1e−-charged states

Distribution of functional groups in periodic mesoporous organosilica materials studied by small-angle neutron scattering with in situ adsorption of nitrogen

• Monir Sharifi,
• Dirk Wallacher and
• Michael Wark

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 428–437, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.49

• the chemical nature, i.e., the electron density for SAXS or the neutron scattering length density (SLD) for SANS, of the pore walls in relation to the adsorbed gas. Thus, already small changes at the interface between the host material (the adsorbent) and the adsorbate can be monitored directly [21

• was 77 K. Before the measurement of each neutron scattering pattern, the sample was filled with a certain amount (n/n0) of adsorbent, by applying a gas-adsorption setup, which was connected to the measuring cell and enables a direct in situ SANS measurement for each point of the p–V adsorption

Inorganic–organic hybrid materials through post-synthesis modification: Impact of the treatment with azides on the mesopore structure

• Miriam Keppeler,
• Jürgen Holzbock,
• Johanna Akbarzadeh,
• Herwig Peterlik and
• Nicola Hüsing

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 486–498, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.52

• methyl-spacer samples and in the range of 270 cm3 g−1 for propyl-spacer samples (Table 1). The decreasing C-value, indicative of the adsorbent–adsorbate interactions, for gels prepared from a silica-precursor solution containing 3.0–6.0 mmol CMTMS follows the trend expected for gels with increasing