Size effects of graphene nanoplatelets on the properties of high-density polyethylene nanocomposites: morphological, thermal, electrical, and mechanical characterization

• Tuba Evgin,
• Alpaslan Turgut,
• Georges Hamaoui,
• Zdenko Spitalsky,
• Nicolas Horny,
• Matej Micusik,
• Mihai Chirtoc,
• Mehmet Sarikanat and
• Maria Omastova

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 167–179, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.14

• was easily indicated by the low amount of carbonyl (C=Oar) in the case of the O 1s signal. There was also a small amount of surface contamination present in the case of G1, with 0.1 atom % of Si 2p at ca. 103.6, corresponding to siloxanes, and 0.1 atom % sodium (Na 1s at ca. 1072.1 eV). For G3, some

• contamination with sulfur was observed (0.3 atom %, S 2p at ≈164–169 eV). However, the small differences in the GnPs’ surfaces’ chemical composition did not affect the properties of the HDPE-based nanocomposites. The results of FTIR analysis are shown in Figure 3a (further details can be found in Figures S1–S7

Synthesis and acetone sensing properties of ZnFe₂O₄/rGO gas sensors

• Kaidi Wu,
• Yifan Luo,
• Ying Li and
• Chao Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2516–2526, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.242

• obtained percentage is higher than theoretically predicted, which may be due to a contamination arising from the carbon-containing electrically conductive adhesive or another source of carbon in the sample stage or on the sample surface. Still, the actual quantities derived by EDX are basically consistent

Incorporation of doxorubicin in different polymer nanoparticles and their anticancer activity

• Sebastian Pieper,
• Hannah Onafuye,
• Dennis Mulac,
• Jindrich Cinatl Jr.,
• Mark N. Wass,
• Martin Michaelis and
• Klaus Langer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2062–2072, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.201

• streptomycin at 37 °C. The drug-adapted sub-lines were continuously cultured in the presence of the indicated drug concentrations. Cells were routinely tested for mycoplasma contamination and authenticated by short tandem repeat profiling. Cell viability assay Cell viability was determined by 3-(4,5

Preservation of rutin nanosuspensions without the use of preservatives

• Pascal L. Stahr and
• Cornelia M. Keck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1902–1913, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.185

• . They are produced by various techniques, typically yielding aqueous nanosuspensions, which are prone to microbial contamination. Preservation of nanocrystals is possible but might not always be feasible, as preservatives might interfere with other excipients in the formulations or with chemicals used

• need to be stored, which certainly requires a sufficient stability of the nanosuspension. For this, besides chemical and physical stability, also the microbial stability needs to be considered. One method to avoid microbial contamination of aqueous formulations during storage is the use of

• confirmed by this set of data. The same trend was also observed for the growth of fungi. However, there was one exception, which was observed for the Plantacare-stabilized formulation at day 60 of storage. At this time point a slight contamination with fungi was observed for one aliquot (Figure 10 and Table

Novel hollow titanium dioxide nanospheres with antimicrobial activity against resistant bacteria

• Carol López de Dicastillo,
• Cristian Patiño,
• María José Galotto,
• Yesseny Vásquez-Martínez,
• Claudia Torrent,
• Daniela Alburquenque,
• Alejandro Pereira and
• Juan Escrig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1716–1725, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.167

• ; atomic layer deposition; electrospinning; hollow nanospheres; titanium dioxide; Introduction Microbial contamination and the increase of multidrug bacterial resistance have become two major current concerns for food safety and human health due to the number of food-borne diseases and nosocomial

Doxorubicin-loaded human serum albumin nanoparticles overcome transporter-mediated drug resistance in drug-adapted cancer cells

• Hannah Onafuye,
• Sebastian Pieper,
• Dennis Mulac,
• Jindrich Cinatl Jr.,
• Mark N. Wass,
• Klaus Langer and
• Martin Michaelis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1707–1715, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.166

• cultured in the presence of the indicated drug concentrations. The cells were routinely tested for mycoplasma contamination and authenticated by short tandem repeat profiling. Cell viability assay Cell viability was determined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay

Tuning the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries by modifying the structural defects of the carbon felt electrode

• Ditty Dixon,
• Deepu Joseph Babu,
• Aiswarya Bhaskar,
• Hans-Michael Bruns,
• Joerg J. Schneider,
• Frieder Scheiba and
• Helmut Ehrenberg

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1698–1706, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.165

• single redox species, element cross-contamination issues, which are common in other redox flow batteries such as Cr/Fe, are obviously nonexistent [1]. Nevertheless, the system suffers from irreversible capacity fade due to parasitic reactions such as air oxidation of V2+ species and hydrogen evolution

Layered double hydroxide/sepiolite hybrid nanoarchitectures for the controlled release of herbicides

• Ediana Paula Rebitski,
• Margarita Darder and
• Pilar Aranda

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1679–1690, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.163

• molecules adsorbed on the inorganic solids that appear at around 1630 cm−1 [40]. In addition around 1360 and 1365 cm−1, in the initial LDH and in the MCPAie-LDH, a possible contamination with carbonate ions during the preparation of the materials is observed (Figure 2B) [41]. The amounts of MCPA present in

Subsurface imaging of flexible circuits via contact resonance atomic force microscopy

• Wenting Wang,
• Chengfu Ma,
• Yuhang Chen,
• Lei Zheng,
• Huarong Liu and
• Jiaru Chu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1636–1647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.159

• substrate on which conductive metal circuits are patterned. Another thin polymer coating is employed to protect the circuits from contamination and short circuiting. Such a sandwich structure permits the device to bend and fold flexibly, yet with other advantages including small volume, light weight, and so

Development of a new hybrid approach combining AFM and SEM for the nanoparticle dimensional metrology

• Loïc Crouzier,
• Alexandra Delvallée,
• Sébastien Ducourtieux,
• Laurent Devoille,
• Guillaume Noircler,
• Christian Ulysse,
• Olivier Taché,
• Elodie Barruet,
• Christophe Tromas and
• Nicolas Feltin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1523–1536, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.150

• ]. Precautions Before starting the measurements, several precautions must be taken. During SEM imaging, molecules already existing at the sample surface desorb in the chamber vacuum or diffuse on the substrate and accumulate in the irradiated part of the sample [19] forming a contamination layer at the sample

• surface. This layer modifies the position of the reference plane during the AFM measurement. This is why it is necessary to start with the characterization of the NPs by AFM. Moreover, a contamination layer could form on the substrate during drying of the suspension. In fact, the nanoparticles might be

• located not on the substrate surface but on a deformable contamination layer. This phenomenon has been observed in [19]. As a reminder, the height of a nanoparticle is calculated as the height maximum of the NP minus the mean surface height of the substrate. If this mean surface height cannot be clearly

Flexible freestanding MoS₂-based composite paper for energy conversion and storage

• Florian Zoller,
• Jan Luxa,
• Thomas Bein,
• Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing,
• Daniel Bouša and
• Zdeněk Sofer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1488–1496, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.147

• identified (Supporting Information File 1, Table S1) that there was about 2.1 wt % of iron in the sample. This contamination originates from the carbon nanotubes, where iron usually serves as a catalyst for their growth [36]. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to track the degree of degradation

Growth of lithium hydride thin films from solutions: Towards solution atomic layer deposition of lithiated films

• Ivan Kundrata,
• Karol Fröhlich,
• Lubomír Vančo,
• Matej Mičušík and
• Julien Bachmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1443–1451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.142

• . Contamination was a major limiting factor in the deposition setup. Examples of difficulties due to contamination include the loss of BuLi precursor when small amounts of air got into the reaction flask, and the repeating failure of the QCM measurement due to clogging and subsequent seal failure. Therefore

• , contamination was avoided as much as reasonably possible. Measures for safe handling of n-butyllithium Due to the pyrophoric nature of n-butyllithium these safety procedures were followed. (i) The n-butyllithium solution was handled in an argon-filled glovebox, set up specifically for precursor handling. (ii

• -butyllithium and atmosphere would be insufficient to ignite the diethyl ether. This approach was tested and confirmed to work. Notably, the last step of this approach increases the sensitivity of the precursor to contamination, which was a major limiting factor, as mentioned before. However, safety was chosen

Gas sensing properties of individual SnO₂ nanowires and SnO₂ sol–gel nanocomposites

• Alexey V. Shaposhnik,
• Dmitry A. Shaposhnik,
• Sergey Yu. Turishchev,
• Olga A. Chuvenkova,
• Stanislav V. Ryabtsev,
• Alexey A. Vasiliev,
• Xavier Vilanova,
• Francisco Hernandez-Ramirez and
• Joan R. Morante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1380–1390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.136

• contamination on the sample surfaces. Device manufacture Manufacture of the device based on a single nanowire Individual nanowires were electrically contacted by direct focused-ion beam (FIB) platinum deposition, using an FEI dual beam Strata 235 instrument combined with a metal–organic injector to deposit

• is confirmed by the absence of impurity element lines. The position and single-component structure of the C 1s line for the nanowire sample is typical of the usual hydrocarbon contamination of ambient-stored samples. On powder samples, the same line exhibits a more complex fine structure as different

Nanoscale spatial mapping of mechanical properties through dynamic atomic force microscopy

• Zahra Abooalizadeh,
• Leszek Josef Sudak and
• Philip Egberts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1332–1347, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.132

• to surface characterization has resulted in very little water or other contamination of the exposed steps, thus allowing for the measurement of the intrinsic properties of the step edges themselves. The results contained within subsequent sections of this manuscript also showed the same trend in the

• topography, environmental contamination, the Schwoebel–Ehrlich barrier, energy dissipation through viscoelastic energy losses, applied normal force, tip shape, and modulation frequency (both for CR and FMM modes). Each examination will show that the elastic modulus measured in the previous section is

• , shows that the softening of the step is present in both scan directions. Additionally, the trend observed in the lateral forces, where both the forward and reverse scan directions showed a more negative value in the peak lateral force at the uncovered step edge, suggests an absence of contamination at

Fabrication of phase masks from amorphous carbon thin films for electron-beam shaping

• Lukas Grünewald,
• Dagmar Gerthsen and
• Simon Hettler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1290–1302, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.128

• commonly used in other phase-related techniques in the form of phase plates, e.g., Zernike phase plates in phase-plate TEM [20]. In the latter application, effects such as contamination, beam damage and charging of aC phase plates due to intense electron-beam irradiation in the back focal plane of the

• less robust compared to SixNy. No qualitative degradation of beam shape quality was observed during PM application, which suggests that no charging or contamination was present. Bessel (BBs) and vortex beams (VBs) were successfully generated in transmission electron microscopes. For BBs, we observed

Synthesis and characterization of quaternary La(Sr)S–TaS₂ misfit-layered nanotubes

• Marco Serra,
• Erumpukuthickal Ashokkumar Anumol,
• Dalit Stolovas,
• Iddo Pinkas,
• Ernesto Joselevich,
• Reshef Tenne,
• Andrey Enyashin and
• Francis Leonard Deepak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1112–1124, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.111

• and drying a drop of this dispersion onto a lacey-carbon-supported Cu/Ni grid. To minimize contamination during imaging, the TEM specimens were heated in a vacuum chamber at 60 °C overnight followed by 3 seconds of oxygen plasma exposure prior to the electron microscopy analysis. Raman spectroscopy

Concurrent nanoscale surface etching and SnO₂ loading of carbon fibers for vanadium ion redox enhancement

• Jun Maruyama,
• Shohei Maruyama,
• Tomoko Fukuhara,
• Toru Nagaoka and
• Kei Hanafusa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 985–992, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.99

• processes were attained in the full cell with the TGP-CSnPc-550Air electrodes compared to that with the TGP electrodes. A stable coulomb efficiency is demonstrated by the cycling performance, indicating no influence of a potential Sn2+ contamination on the cycling performance. The finely etched surface and

Fabrication of silver nanoisland films by pulsed laser deposition for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

• Bogusław Budner,
• Mariusz Kuźma,
• Barbara Nasiłowska,
• Bartosz Bartosewicz,
• Malwina Liszewska and
• Bartłomiej J. Jankiewicz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 882–893, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.89

• physical methods include fabrication of nanostructured silver films by electron-beam evaporation [16], gas aggregation [17] and radio-frequency sputtering [18]. The advantages of certain physical methods over chemical methods include that there is no reagent contamination and that the monodispersity of

Periodic Co/Nb pseudo spin valve for cryogenic memory

• Nikolay Klenov,
• Yury Khaydukov,
• Sergey Bakurskiy,
• Roman Morari,
• Igor Soloviev,
• Vladimir Boian,
• Thomas Keller,
• Mikhail Kupriyanov,
• Anatoli Sidorenko and
• Bernhard Keimer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 833–839, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.83

• sapphire (Al2O3) substrate. Before the deposition the substrates were etched by an argon ion beam inside the chamber. The targets Nb(99.99%) and Co(99.99%) were presputtered to remove metallic oxides and contamination absorbed on the surfaces. Additionally, immediately before deposition of the next layer

Outstanding chain-extension effect and high UV resistance of polybutylene succinate containing amino-acid-modified layered double hydroxides

• Adam A. Marek,
• Vincent Verney,
• Christine Taviot-Gueho,
• Grazia Totaro,
• Laura Sisti,
• Annamaria Celli and
• Fabrice Leroux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 684–695, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.68

• NaOH solution. When the addition of salts was finished, the reaction mixture was aged for 3.5 h at room temperature. Both the reaction and ageing processes were performed under nitrogen atmosphere to avoid contamination by carbonate. The final products were centrifuged, washed several times with

Topochemical engineering of composite hybrid fibers using layered double hydroxides and abietic acid

• Liji Sobhana,
• Lokesh Kesavan,
• Jan Gustafsson and
• Pedro Fardim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 589–605, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.60

• , causing contamination or reactions with cellulosic –OH groups. AA was only connected to the HF fibers through freely available brucite layers (cations on the top plane) of LDH through hydrogen bonding between –OH groups of LDH and –COOH groups of AA. The –OH groups present in the bottom plane of LDH

Ultraviolet patterns of flowers revealed in polymer replica – caused by surface architecture

• Anna J. Schulte,
• Matthias Mail,
• Lisa A. Hahn and
• Wilhelm Barthlott

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 459–466, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.45

• also be considered that the cuticle will interact with many different environmental influences, for example, wetting, contamination, and electromagnetic radiation [3][4] as well. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the wavelength range 280–380 nm is particularly crucial for plants, for example, when

Effects of post-lithography cleaning on the yield and performance of CVD graphene-based devices

• Eduardo Nery Duarte de Araujo,
• Thiago Alonso Stephan Lacerda de Sousa,
• Luciano de Moura Guimarães and
• Flavio Plentz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 349–355, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.34

• chemical contamination of graphene in lithography processes [11]. Because of this, in the present work we investigate by Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport measurements the effects of different post-photolithography cleaning methods on the yield and performance of CVD-based graphene devices

• increase of the device production using procedure P2 is accompanied by a significant contamination with PMGI during lift-off. To remove residual PMGI from the graphene devices produced by procedure P2, we attempted three different cleaning methods. The first method (C1) consisted of cleaning the devices in

A Ni(OH)₂ nanopetals network for high-performance supercapacitors synthesized by immersing Ni nanofoam in water

• Donghui Zheng,
• Man Li,
• Yongyan Li,
• Chunling Qin,
• Yichao Wang and
• Zhifeng Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 281–293, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.27

• Nowadays, environmental contamination and energy crisis require new energy storage devices. This leads to a considerable interest in the research of supercapacitors because of their higher power density, longer cycling stability and faster charge/discharge periods compared to batteries [1][2][3][4

Interaction of Te and Se interlayers with Ag or Au nanofilms in sandwich structures

• Arkadiusz Ciesielski,
• Lukasz Skowronski,
• Marek Trzcinski,
• Ewa Górecka,
• Wojciech Pacuski and
• Tomasz Szoplik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 238–246, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.22

• chamber molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system delivered by SVT Associates. The substrates were kept at room temperature. The background pressure was below 5 × 10−10 Torr. The purity of sublimated ingots for both Te and Se was 7N. To avoid cross-contamination during the deposition of Te or Se only one