The sensitivity of SnO2 nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxide hybrid to NO2 gas is discussed in the present work using density functional theory (DFT). The SnO2 nanoparticles shapes are taken as pyramids, as proved by experiments. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) edges have oxygen or oxygen-containing functional groups. However, the upper and lower surfaces of rGO are clean, as expected from the oxide reduction procedure. Results show that SnO2 particles are connected at the edges of rGO, making a p-n heterojunction with a reduced agglomeration of SnO2 particles and high gas sensitivity. The DFT results are in good agreement with the experimental characterization of both SnO2 and rGO using energy gap and XPS values. Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of the various considered reactions are calculated. Results show that the sensitivity of the rGO/SnO2 hybrid to NO2 gas is the result of the interplay of the dissociation and oxidation reactions of NO2 gas.
This study includes the preparation of the ferrite nanoparticles CuxCe0.3-XNi0.7Fe2O4 (where: x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3) using the sol-gel (auto combustion) method, and citric acid was used as a fuel for combustion. The results of the tests conducted by X-ray diffraction (XRD), emitting-field scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray analyzer (EDX), and Vibration Sample Magnetic Device (VSM) showed that the compound has a face-centered cubic structure, and the lattice constant is increased with increasing Cu ion. On the other hand, the compound has apparent porosity and spherical particles, and t
... Show MoreDielectric barrier discharges (DBD) can be described as the presence of contact with the discharge of one or more insulating layers located between two cylindrical or flat electrodes connected to an AC/pulse dc power supply. In this work, the properties of the plasma generated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system without and with a glass insulator were studied. The plasma was generated at a constant voltage of 4 kV and fixed distance between the electrodes of 5 mm, and with a variable flow rate of argon gas (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5) L/min. The emission spectra of the DBD plasmas at different flow rates of argon gas have been recorded. Boltzmann plot method was used to calculate the plasma electron temperature (Te), and Stark broadeni
... Show MoreConstruction projects are complicated in nature and require many considerations in contractor selection. One of the complicated interactions is that between performance with the project size, and contractor financial status, and size of projects contracted. At the prequalification stage, the financial requirements restrict the contractors to meet minimum limits in financial criteria such as net worth, working capital and annual turnover, etc. In construction projects, however, there are cases when contractors meet these requirements but show low performance in practice. The model used in the study predicts the performance by training of a neural network. The data used in the study are 72 of the most recent roadw
... Show MoreObjectives: Recently, there have been important advances in the clinical application of targeted hybrid near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent-radioactive tracers. ICG-99mTc-nanocolloid, for example, is already being used by some centres for sentinel lymph node biopsy in head and neck cancer. The radioactive component allows imaging at depths which would not be possible with NIR alone and, once exposed, the NIR fluorescence reporter can be imaged at very high resolution. Gamma detection is currently carried out with a separate hand-held gamma camera or with a non-imaging probe. Visualisation of NIR fluorescence during surgery requires a dedicated NIR camera, several of which are available commercially. We describe a novel hand-held hybrid NIR-gamm
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a hybrid speech enhancement estimator that integrates the Perceptually-motivated Karhunen–Loève Transform (PKLT) with the Dual-Masking Harmonic-based (DMH) algorithm in a unified framework termed PKDMH. The main novelty lies in combining perceptual subspace projection with harmonic-residual suppression, enabling the system to jointly remove noise while preserving speech-relevant spectral cues. PKLT first performs perceptual subspace projection and suppresses inaudible components, after which DMH eliminates remaining broadband and harmonic residuals. The proposed PKDMH system was evaluated using the TIMIT dataset contaminated with five noise types: White, Pink, F16, Airport, and Car noise—across five SNR leve
... Show MoreNi2O3 nanomaterial, a phase of nickel oxide, is synthesized by a simple chemical process. The pure raw materials used in the present process were nickel chloride hexahydrate NiCl2.6H2O and potassium hydroxide KOH by utilizing temperature at 250 oC for 2 hour. The structural, morphological and optical properties of the synthesized specimens of Ni2O3 were investigated employing diverse techniques such as XRD, AFM, SEM and UV-Vis, respectively. The XRD technique confirms the presence of Ni2O3 nanomaterial with crystal size of 57.083 nm which indexing to the (2θ) of 31.82; this results revealed the Ni2O3 was a phase of nickel oxide with Nano structure. The synthesized Ni2O3 will be useful in manufacturng electrodes materials f
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