Synthesis of boron nitride nanotubes and their applications

• Saban Kalay,
• Zehra Yilmaz,
• Ozlem Sen,
• Melis Emanet,
• Emine Kazanc and
• Mustafa Çulha

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 84–102, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.9

• humidity sensor system. The adsorption–desorption tests showed that the AgNP–BNNT material had a potentially fast response/recovery time of 100/15 s for the detection of relative humidity at room temperature [90]. The use of Ni-encapsulated BNNTs in optomagnetic-based sensors with respect to their magnetic

Materials and characterization techniques for high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

• Roswitha Zeis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 68–83, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.8

• phosphoric acid. The proton conductivity of the fully doped PBI membrane at 200 °C (0.07 S·cm−1) [23] is almost as high as that of fully hydrated perfluorinated membranes and far less dependent on the relative humidity, thus allowing its use in HT-PEMFCs without humidifying the gas reactants. A HT-PEMFC

• by an activation mechanism that obeys the Arrhenius law [29]. In contrast, the proton conductivity of Nafion is attributed to the vehicle mechanism, which has a weaker temperature dependence. Moreover, the conductivity of acid-doped PBI is less dependent on the relative humidity, although there is a

The capillary adhesion technique: a versatile method for determining the liquid adhesion force and sample stiffness

• Daniel Gandyra,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Stanislav Gorb,
• Wilhelm Barthlott and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 11–18, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.2

• in Table 1. For each type of hair coating (natural, PDMS- or Teflon-coated ends), the Young’s modulus was the same within the accuracy of the measurement. Its average value was E = (3.04 ± 0.11 ± 0.22) × 105 N/cm2, with the statistical and systematic errors follow the data, respectively. The relative

• humidity during the measurements was roughly RH = 50% and the temperature was 22 °C. Literature values citing Young’s modulus of human head hair are scarce. For example, in [27] a value of 3.89 × 105 N/cm2 (RH = 60%) was indicated. In [28], a range between 1.5 and 4.6 × 105 N/cm2 (RH = 65%) was indicated

Silica nanoparticles are less toxic to human lung cells when deposited at the air–liquid interface compared to conventional submerged exposure

• Alicja Panas,
• Andreas Comouth,
• Harald Saathoff,
• Thomas Leisner,
• Marco Al-Rawi,
• Michael Simon,
• Gunnar Seemann,
• Olaf Dössel,
• Sonja Mülhopt,
• Hanns-Rudolf Paur,
• Susanne Fritsch-Decker,
• Carsten Weiss and
• Silvia Diabaté

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1590–1602, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.171

• ALIDA exposure system described in detail by Comouth et al. [18]. For cell exposure the aerosol was humidified to 80–90% relative humidity at 37.5 °C. The humidified aerosol was then carried with identical flows of 100 mL·min−1 (sccm) through six tubes of equal dimensions to the inlets of six exposure

Liquid fuel cells

• Grigorii L. Soloveichik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1399–1418, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.153

Influence of the PDMS substrate stiffness on the adhesion of Acanthamoeba castellanii

• Sören B. Gutekunst,
• Carsten Grabosch,
• Alexander Kovalev,
• Stanislav N. Gorb and
• Christine Selhuber-Unkel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1393–1398, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.152

• . For all substrates, elastic moduli were determined from the unloading part of the curve to consider only the elastic behavior and not the plastic deformation of the sample. The measurements were performed under ambient conditions (25–26 °C temperature and 40–50% relative humidity). Analysis of the

Surface topography and contact mechanics of dry and wet human skin

• Alexander E. Kovalev,
• Kirstin Dening,
• Bo N. J. Persson and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1341–1348, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.147

• order of ΔV/LD ≈ 90 μm, where L ≈ 8 cm is the stroke length and D ≈ 0.8 cm the width of the (nominal) Hertzian contact region. A uniform water film of thickness Δd = 90 μm evaporates in about 500 s at room temperature, 50% relative humidity, and an evaporation rate of ≈ 1.7 × 10−7 m/s (see below). This

• ) temperature, pa is the water vapor pressure in the air (which is the product of the relative humidity and the saturation water pressure at the air temperature and air pressure), and v the velocity of the air (some distance from the water surface) over the water surface. Y is the latent heat of evaporation

• relative humidity of 50% giving pa = 0.5 × 2.3 kPa = 1.15 kPa. Hence, since v << 1 m/s, we get ≈ 1.7 × 10−7 m/s. Thus it takes Δt = Δd/ ≈ 60 s for the water film thickness to decrease by Δd ≈ 10 μm, which according to the theory is the film thickness range over which the capillary attraction between the

Effects of palladium on the optical and hydrogen sensing characteristics of Pd-doped ZnO nanoparticles

• Anh-Thu Thi Do,
• Hong Thai Giang,
• Thu Thi Do,
• Ngan Quang Pham and
• Giang Truong Ho

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1261–1267, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.140

• relative humidity of 65% RH. To keep the operating temperature of the sensor in the range of 200–300 °C, an applied voltage Vapplied of 1.7 V and a current of about 120 mA are required. The obtained linear curve implied that it is possible to control the operating temperature by turning the applied voltage

• the Pd/ZnO sample. The values of the output voltage maximum, Vout, were 17 and 37 mV for ZnO and Pd/ZnO samples, respectively. An operating temperature of 250 °C was selected to investigate the gas-sensitive characteristics of the Pd/ZnO sensor. With a flow speed of 100 mL/min and a relative humidity

Nanoporous composites prepared by a combination of SBA-15 with Mg–Al mixed oxides. Water vapor sorption properties

• Amaury Pérez-Verdejo,
• Alvaro Sampieri,
• Heriberto Pfeiffer,
• Mayra Ruiz-Reyes,
• Juana-Deisy Santamaría and
• Geolar Fetter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1226–1234, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.136

• are homogeneously dispersed. Vapor sorption behavior The water vapor adsorption–desorption isotherms of all samples were acquired at 60 °C with a rate of 0.5%·min−1 of relative humidity (RH) until to achieve 80% of RH (Figure 5). The calcined hydrotalcite (HT) adsorbs up to 5.0 mmol H2O/gHT and the

• /SBA(NC) and (Mg/Al)/SBA composites (Figure 6). The HT/SBA(NC) composite shows adsorption curves consistent with a Langmuir-like behavior. As expected, the amount of water vapor adsorbed increased with the RH, until equilibrium temperature is reached. Still, if the relative humidity is increased, the

• carried out on a temperature-controlled thermobalance Q5000SA from TA Instruments, equipped with a humidity-controlled chamber. The experimental variables were temperature and relative humidity (RH). Such experiments were carried out by using N2 from Praxair (grade 4.0) as a carrier gas and distilled

Trade-offs in sensitivity and sampling depth in bimodal atomic force microscopy and comparison to the trimodal case

• Babak Eslami,
• Daniel Ebeling and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1144–1151, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.125

• container. During the experiments reported in this paper, the air in the AFM chamber was monitored to be at 23 °C and 17% relative humidity. Computational For the numerical simulations the first three eigenmodes of the AFM cantilever were modeled by using individual equations of motion for each, coupled

Organic and inorganic–organic thin film structures by molecular layer deposition: A review

• Pia Sundberg and
• Maarit Karppinen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1104–1136, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.123

Dry friction of microstructured polymer surfaces inspired by snake skin

• Martina J. Baum,
• Lars Heepe,
• Elena Fadeeva and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1091–1103, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.122

• . Scans were carried out at a 1 Hz scan rate and a resolution of 1024 × 1024 pixels with an intermittent contact mode cantilever (c = 50 N·m−1, NST-NCHF, Nascatec GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany), at ambient conditions (room temperature 24° C, relative humidity 41%). NanoWizard® SPM software 3.3.23 (JPK

Gas sensing with gold-decorated vertically aligned carbon nanotubes

• Prasantha R. Mudimela,
• Mattia Scardamaglia,
• Oriol González-León,
• Nicolas Reckinger,
• Rony Snyders,
• Eduard Llobet,
• Carla Bittencourt and
• Jean-François Colomer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 910–918, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.104

• that the sensing response to nitrogen dioxide depends on the nanotube length. The optimum was found to be 300 µm for getting the higher response. When the background humidity level was changed from dry to 50% relative humidity, an increase in the response to NO2 was observed for all the sensors

Scale effects of nanomechanical properties and deformation behavior of Au nanoparticle and thin film using depth sensing nanoindentation

• Dave Maharaj and
• Bharat Bhushan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 822–836, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.94

• nanoparticle from slipping under the indenter during more rapid and unstable loading. Topography images were also taken before and after indentation with the same tip used for indentation. All experiments were performed at room temperature (23 °C) and 50–55% relative humidity. Compression For compression

• were performed at room temperature (23 °C) and 50–55% relative humidity. Macromechanical characterization For comparison to the macroscale, data from polycrystalline bulk Au was used from experiments presented by Lozinskii [39]. The Vickers hardness was obtained by using a four sided diamond tip under

Energy dissipation in multifrequency atomic force microscopy

• Valentina Pukhova,
• Francesco Banfi and
• Gabriele Ferrini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 494–500, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.57

• pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) without any external excitation. The experiment is conducted in air, at room temperature (296 K) an a relative humidity of 55%. The temporal trace has been recorded with a digitizing oscilloscope with a vertical resolution of 8-bit, an analog bandwidth of 250 MHz, and a maximum

The softening of human bladder cancer cells happens at an early stage of the malignancy process

• Jorge R. Ramos,
• Joanna Pabijan,
• Ricardo Garcia and
• Malgorzata Lekka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 447–457, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.52

• Standards). The cells were cultured on glass coverslips placed inside plastic Petri dishes at 37 °C in a 95% air/5% CO2 atmosphere. The relative humidity was kept above 98%. The cells were measured 3 to 4 days after seeding. The cells treated with cytochalasin D (Sigma) were first rinsed with RPMI-1640

Friction behavior of a microstructured polymer surface inspired by snake skin

• Martina J. Baum,
• Lars Heepe and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 83–97, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.8

• intermittent contact mode cantilever (c = 50 Nm−1, NST-NCHF, Nascatec GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany), at ambient conditions (room temperature 24 °C, relative humidity 41%). NanoWizard® SPM software 3.3.23 (JPK Instruments) was used to obtain AFM images and NanoWizard® image processing software 3.3.25 was applied to

Study of mesoporous CdS-quantum-dot-sensitized TiO₂ films by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and AFM

• Mohamed N. Ghazzal,
• Robert Wojcieszak,
• Gijo Raj and
• Eric M. Gaigneaux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 68–76, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.6

• nominal curvature radius of 8 nm were used for imaging under ambient conditions (23 °C and 56% relative humidity). Samples were glued onto a magnetic stainless steel disc by using double-face adhesive tape and mounted on the "J" type piezoelectric scanner. The tapping engage set point was set to 1 in

Porous polymer coatings as substrates for the formation of high-fidelity micropatterns by quill-like pens

• Michael Hirtz,
• Marcus Lyon,
• Wenqian Feng,
• Andrea E. Holmes,
• Harald Fuchs and
• Pavel A. Levkin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 377–384, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.44

• took place at a relative humidity of 60% and with the sample stage tilted by 8° with respect to the SPT tip to minimize the chance of contact between the dye solution in the reservoir and sample. For all patterns, except for the pattern used for spot size versus dwell time analysis, a dwell time of 0.5

Selective surface modification of lithographic silicon oxide nanostructures by organofunctional silanes

• Thomas Baumgärtel,
• Christian von Borczyskowski and
• Harald Graaf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 218–226, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.22

• electrically contacted to a voltage source by conductive ink. The oxide structures were generated in contact mode operation with a voltage in the range of −8 to −11 V applied between tip and substrate at a relative humidity (RH) of around 65% and a writing velocity of about 1 µm/s. To control the humidity of

Reversible mechano-electrochemical writing of metallic nanostructures with the tip of an atomic force microscope

• Christian Obermair,
• Marina Kress,
• Andreas Wagner and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 824–830, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.92

• as in Figure 3b 1.5 years after the electrochemical deposition of the copper structure, thus showing the long-term stability of the resulting structures under ambient conditions. The typical humidity of the laboratory air over this time period of 1.5 years varied between 30% and 90% relative humidity

Effect of spherical Au nanoparticles on nanofriction and wear reduction in dry and liquid environments

• Dave Maharaj and
• Bharat Bhushan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 759–772, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.85

• ) have also been manipulated in water and ethanol with an AFM operated in intermittent-contact mode [34]. In addition to the contact-area dependence of friction observed in these studies, the relative-humidity (RH) dependence of friction was investigated by Mougin et al. [32] and Palacio and Bhushan [31

• results section. All experiments were performed at room temperature (23 °C) and 50–55% relative humidity. Macroscale friction and wear For comparison to the nanoscale, macroscale friction tests were conducted by using a ball-on-flat tribometer to determine if similar effects would be observed on both

Friction and durability of virgin and damaged skin with and without skin cream treatment using atomic force microscopy

• Bharat Bhushan,
• Si Chen and
• Shirong Ge

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 731–746, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.83

• friction and durability of damaged skin were measured and compared with those of virgin (intact/undamaged) skin. The effect of skin cream on friction and durability of damaged and virgin skin samples is discussed. The effects of velocity, normal load, relative humidity and number of cycles were studied

• skin to study the effect of skin cream. The effect of velocity, normal load, relative humidity and number of cycles on friction was studied. Experiments were also carried out on the macroscale to study the scale effects. Both rat skin and pig skin were used as skin models in this study as they are

• varied from 0.4 to 4 mm/s over a stroke length of 2.5 mm at the normal load of 50 mN. For the effect of normal load experiments, the normal load was varied from 10 to 50 mN over a stroke length of 2.5 mm at a velocity of 0.4 mm/s. Effect of relative humidity measurements A homemade humidity-control

Paper modified with ZnO nanorods – antimicrobial studies

• Mayuree Jaisai,
• Sunandan Baruah and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 684–691, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.78

• , fungal infections in books are treated by using chemical methods. Libraries need to be maintained at a temperature and relative humidity that are not conducive to fungal growth [1]. Paper with antimicrobial properties could be an answer to the problems faced by libraries and health centers. Silver (Ag

Polymer blend lithography: A versatile method to fabricate nanopatterned self-assembled monolayers

• Cheng Huang,
• Markus Moosmann,
• Jiehong Jin,
• Tobias Heiler,
• Stefan Walheim and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 620–628, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.71

• the formed polymer blend structures in our case are also strongly dependent upon the relative humidity during the demixing. The relative humidity influences the interaction of the two polymer phases and the affinity of the polymers to the substrate [59]. This effect has to be distinguished from the

• formation of so-called breath figures, which are formed at high relative humidity (over 60%) due to water condensation on the evaporatively cooled polymer solution [60][61]. The breath figure technique can be applied to generate nearly hexagonal arrays of holes [61] or for the fabrication of 3-D structures

• complex structure-formation process. Three-phase templates For a range of relative humidity from 50 to 65%, the resulting phase morphology is different from the situation shown in Figure 3 (45% humidity). As can be seen in Figure 5b, holes in the polymer film can be observed directly after spin coating