Silicosis is a systemic disease caused by inhaling silicon dioxide (SiO2). Phagocytosis of SiO2 in the lungs initiates an inflammatory cascade that results in fibroblast proliferation and migration followed by fibrosis. According to previous data from our laboratory, monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) plays a critical role in fibroblast proliferation and migration in conventional two-dimens...

Electrochemical nature of metallurgical reaction arouses more and more attentions, and the most closely related is the electrical conductivity of molten slag. The electrical conductivity of molten slag is not only an important physical property that plays a prominent role in modeling and operating the electric smelting furnace and optimizing the metallurgical process, but also important for und...

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) incorporated ordered 2D hexagonal mesoporous silica (SiO2) films on a glass substrate were fabricated for use as a catalytic nanoreactor. Films were prepared using a tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) derived SiO2 sol and a commercially available dispersion of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) in the presence of pluronic P123 as the structure directing agent. The effect of TiO2 dopi...

The experimental conditions were optimized for the synthesis of amorphous SiO2 particles by the reaction of neutralization of sodium silicate solution with H2SO4 solution. Amorphous SiO2 particles were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, FE-SEM, EDS and microelectrophoresis. The amorphous peak was located at 2θ = 21.8 in the XRD pattern. Primary SiO2 particles were ~ 15 to ~ 30 nm in size and they agg...

In this work, the graphene/α-SiO2(0001) interface is calculated using density functional theory. On the oxygen-terminated SiO2 surface, atomic structure reconstruction occurs at the graphene/SiO2 interface to eliminate the dangling bonds. The interface interaction is 77 meV/C atom, which indicates that van der Waals force dominates the interaction, but it is stronger than the force between the ...

Ab initio density functional theory calculations are performed to study the electronic properties of a MoS2 monolayer deposited over a SiO2 substrate in the presence of interface impurities and defects. When MoS2 is placed on a defect-free substrate, the oxide plays an insignificant role since the conduction band top and the valence band minimum of MoS2 are located approximately in the middle o...

2014 Room temperature plasma anodization of silicon (growth rate of a few nm/min.) is possible through a thin calcia stabilized zirconia (CSZ) layer. The anodization kinetics, the composition and the electrical properties of the anodic SiO2 films are studied. Constant voltage or low current anodization lead to quasi defect free films with reduced surface roughness. The dielectric breakdown fiel...

pH was used as the main driving parameter for specifically immobilizing silicon nanowires onto Si3N4 microsquares at the surface of a SiO2 substrate. Different pH values of the coating aqueous solution enabled to experimentally distribute nanowires between silicon nitride and silicon dioxide: at pH 3 nanowires were mainly anchored on Si3N4; they were evenly distributed between SiO2 and Si3N4 at...

Kelvin probe microscopy in ultrahigh vacuum is used to image the local electrostatic potential fluctuations above hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and SiO2, common substrates for graphene. Results are compared to a model of randomly distributed charges in a two-dimensional (2D) plane. For SiO2, the results are well modeled by 2D charge densities ranging from 0.24 to 2.7 × 10(11) cm(-2), while h-B...

Up to now, no consensus exists about the electronic nature of phosphorus (P) as donor for SiO2-embedded silicon nanocrystals (SiNCs). Here, we report on hybrid density functional theory (h-DFT) calculations of P in the SiNC/SiO2 system matching our experimental findings. Relevant P configurations within SiNCs, at SiNC surfaces, within the sub-oxide interface shell and in the SiO2 matrix were ev...