Coatings of carbon nanoparticles dispersed in SiO2, ZnO and NiO matrices on aluminium substrates have been fabricated by a sol–gel technique. Spectrophotometry was used to determine the solar absorptance and the thermal emittance of the composite coatings with a view to apply these as selective solar absorber surfaces in solar thermal collectors. Cross-sectional high resolution transmission ele...

Crystallization represents the prime example of a disorder-order transition. In realistic situations, however, container walls and impurities are frequently present and hence crystallization is heterogeneously seeded. Rarely the seeds are perfectly compatible with the thermodynamically favoured crystal structure and thus induce elastic distortions, which impede further crystal growth. Here we u...

Four different ceria supported catalyst were prepared by impregnation method with Pt(NO3)2 solution. The two supports are commercially available (MaTeck) and the other two were prepared by precipitation and microwave assisted hydrothermal method (MAH) respectively. The phase composition and average crystallite size of the catalysts were characterised with XRD technique. Finally the catalytic ac...

Structural features of La(1-x)SrxMn0.5Co0.5O3 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5) nano-particles were investigated using X-ray powder diffraction and FT-IR spectroscopy. The characterization of compounds by X-ray powder diffraction and using Fullprof program show a cubic structure (Pm3m space group) for x = 0.0 and a rhombohedra structure (R-3c space group) for the Sr substituted La(1-x)SrxM...

Cerium-doped Tb(3)Al(5)O(12) (TAG:Ce(3+)) colloidal nanocrystals were synthesized by pulsed laser ablation (PLA) in de-ionized water and lauryl dimethylaminoacetic acid betain (LDA) aqueous solution for luminescent bio-labeling application. The influence of LDA molecules on the crystallinity, crystal morphology, crystallite size, and luminescent properties of the prepared TAG:Ce(3+) colloidal n...

Zeolite-geopolymer hybrid materials have been formed when kaolin was used as a starting material. Their characteristics are of interest because they can have a wide pore size distribution with micro- and meso-pores due to the zeolite and geopolymer, respectively. In this study, Zeolite-geopolymer hybrid bulk materials were fabricated using four kinds of kaolinitic clays (a halloysite and three ...