The present study focuses on synthesizing solar selective absorber thin films, combining nanostructured, binary transition metal spinel features and a composite oxide of Co and Ni. Single-layered designs of crystalline spinel-type oxides using a facile, easy and relatively cost-effective wet chemical spray pyrolysis method were prepared with a crystalline structure of MxCo3−xO4. The role of the annealing temperature on the solar selective performance of nickel-cobalt oxide thin films (∼725 ± 20 nm thick) was investigated. XRD analysis confirmed the formation of high crystalline quality thin films with a crystallite size in the range of 27–52 nm. The highest solar absorptance (∼85.2%) and the lowest thermal emittance (∼4.45%) along with the highest values of both hardness and the Young’s modulus (19.1 GPa and 104 GPa, respectively) were obtained for the film annealed at 600 °C. In addition, the synthesized nickel-cobalt oxide thin films show band gap energies in the range of 1.15–1.38 eV and excellent thermal stability at higher temperatures, which makes them interesting candidates for solar absorbing applications.
Nanoparticles (NPs) have unique capabilities that make them an eye-opener opportunity for the upstream oil industry. Their nano-size allows them to flow within reservoir rocks without the fear of retention between micro-sized pores. Incorporating NPs with drilling and completion fluids has proved to be an effective additive that improves various properties such as mud rheology, filtration, thermal conductivity, and wellbore stability. However, the biodegradability of drilling fluid chemicals is becoming a global issue as the discharged wetted cuttings raise toxicity concerns and environmental hazards. Therefore, it is urged to utilize chemicals that tend to break down and susceptible to biodegradation. This research presents the pra
... Show MoreIn this work, metal oxide nanostructures, mainly copper oxide (CuO), nickel oxide (NiO), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and multilayer structure, were synthesized by the DC reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The effect of deposition time on the spectroscopic characteristics, as well as on the nanoparticle size, was determined. A long deposition time allows more metal atoms sputtered from the target to bond to oxygen atoms and form CuO, NiO, or TiO2 molecules deposited as thin films on glass substrates. The structural characteristics of the final samples showed high structural purity as no other compounds than CuO, NiO, and TiO2 were found in the final samples. Also, the prepared multilayer structures did not show new compounds other than th
... Show MoreThe aim of this work is to enhance the mechanical properties of the glass ionomer cement GIC (dental materials) by adding Zirconium Oxide ZrO2 in both micro and nano particles. GIC were mixed with (3, 5 and 7) wt% of both ZrO2 micro and nanoparticles separately. Compressive strength (CS), biaxial flexural strength (BFS), Vickers Microhardness (VH) and wear rate losses (WR) were investigated. The maximum compression strength was 122.31 MPa with 5 wt. % ZrO2 micro particle, while 3wt% nanoparticles give highest Microhardness and biaxial flexural strength of 88.8 VHN and 35.79 MPa respectively. The minimum wear rate losses were 3.776µg/m with 7 wt. % ZrO2 nanoparticle. GIC-contai
... Show MoreIn this work we used the environmentally friendly method to prepared ZrO2 nanoparticles utilizing the extract of Thyms plant In basic medium and at pH 12, the ZrO2 NPs was characterized by different techniques such as FTIR, ultraviolet visible, Atomic force microscope, Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Energy dispersive X-ray. The average crystalline size was calculated using the Debye Scherres equation in value 7.65 nm. Atomic force microscope results showed the size values for ZrO2 NPs were 45.11nm, and there are several distortions due to the presence of some large sizes. Atomic force microscope results showed the typical size values for ZrO2 NPs were 45.11 nm, and there are several distortions due to the presence of so
... Show MoreIn this study, an improved process was proposed for the synthesis of structure-controlled Cu2O nanoparticles, using a simplified wet chemical method at room temperature. A chemical solution route was established to synthesize Cu2O crystals with various sizes and morphologies. The structure, morphology, and optical properties of Cu2O nanoparticles were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, SEM (scanning electron microscope), and UV-Vis spectroscopy. By adjusting the aqueous mixture solutions of NaOH and NH2OH•HCl, the synthesis of Cu2O crystals with different morphology and size could be realized. Strangely, it was found that the change in the ratio of de-ionized water and NaOH aqueous solution led to the synthesis of Cu2O crystals of differen
... Show MoreSol-gel derived CuCo-oxide coatings as solar selective surfaces, synthesized onto aluminium substrates at various annealing temperatures, are analysed by correlating their structural, chemical bonding states, and surface morphological topographies. As the annealing progressed, all the coatings displayed a Cu0.56Co2.44O4 (ICSD 78-2175) phase with preferential orientation along (400) reflection plane. Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) data indicate that residual stress and microstrains developed around the coating surfaces are reduced resulting in mechanically stable thin films. Enhancement of the crystallite size and preferred orientation of the surface were confirmed via XRD, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM),
... Show MoreIn this paper, a subspace identification method for bilinear systems is used . Wherein a " three-block " and " four-block " subspace algorithms are used. In this algorithms the input signal to the system does not have to be white . Simulation of these algorithms shows that the " four-block " gives fast convergence and the dimensions of the matrices involved are significantly smaller so that the computational complexity is lower as a comparison with " three-block " algorithm .
Interval methods for verified integration of initial value problems (IVPs) for ODEs have been used for more than 40 years. For many classes of IVPs, these methods have the ability to compute guaranteed error bounds for the flow of an ODE, where traditional methods provide only approximations to a solution. Overestimation, however, is a potential drawback of verified methods. For some problems, the computed error bounds become overly pessimistic, or integration even breaks down. The dependency problem and the wrapping effect are particular sources of overestimations in interval computations. Berz (see [1]) and his co-workers have developed Taylor model methods, which extend interval arithmetic with symbolic computations. The latter is an ef
... Show MoreA coin has two sides. Steganography although conceals the existence of a message but is not completely secure. It is not meant to supersede cryptography but to supplement it. The main goal of this method is to minimize the number of LSBs that are changed when substituting them with the bits of characters in the secret message. This will lead to decrease the distortion (noise) that is occurred in the pixels of the stego-image and as a result increase the immunity of the stego-image against the visual attack. The experiment shows that the proposed method gives good enhancement to the steganoraphy technique and there is no difference between the cover-image and the stego-image that can be seen by the human vision system (HVS), so this method c
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