Hermetically coated superparamagnetic Fe2O3 particles with SiO2 nanofilms

Magnetic nanoparticles are frequently coated with SiO2 to improve their functionality and biocom-patibility in a range of biomedical and polymer nanocomposite applications. In this paper, a scalable flame aerosol technology is used to produce highly dispersible, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles hermetically coated with silica to retain full magnetization performance. Iron oxide particles were produced by flame spray pyrolysis of iron acetylacetonate in xylene/acetonitrile solutions and the resulting aerosol was in situ coated with silicon dioxide by oxidation of swirling hexamethlydisiloxane vapor. The process allows independent control of the core Fe2O3 (maghemite) particle properties and the thickness of their silica coating film. This ensures that the nonmagnetic SiO2 layer can be closely controlled and minimized. The optimal SiO2 content for complete (hermetic) encapsulation of the magnetic core particles was determined by isopropanol chemisorption. The magnetization of Fe 2O3 coated with about 2 nm thin SiO2 layers was nearly identical to that of uncoated, pure Fe2O3 nanoparticles. © 2009 American Chemical Society.

The influence of corrosion on the erosion of aluminium by aqueous silica slurries

The slurry erosion-corrosion behaviour of aluminium in aqueous silica slurries containing 0.5 M NaCl, acetic acid and 0.1 M Na2CO3 at open circuit has been investigated using a modified slurry erosion rig. The erosion rates of aluminium in the NaCl and acetic acid slurries were much higher than those in an aqueous slurry without electrolyte additives even though the pure corrosion component was very small. Eroded specimens were examined by scanning electron and optical microscopy. In pure aqueous slurry erosion, the basic mechanism leading to mass loss was the ductile fracture of flakes formed on the eroded surface. In corrosive slurries, however, the mass loss was enhanced by cracking of the flakes induced by stress and corrosion. © 1995.

Transparent electrode with a nanostructured coating.

Using single-walled nanotubes as an example, we fabricated transparent conductive coatings and demonstrated a new technique of centrifuge coating as a potential low-waste, solution-based batch process for the fabrication of nanostructured coatings. A theoretical model is developed to account for the sheet resistance exhibited by layered random-network coatings such as nanofilaments and graphene. The model equation is analytical and compact, and allows the correlation of very different scaling regimes reported in the literature to the underlying coating microstructure. Finally, we also show a refined experimental setup to systematically measure the curvature-dependent sheet resistance.