NIST RESEARCH SHOWS NANOCOMPOSITE CAN TAKE THE HEAT Remember the scene in “The Graduate” when a wouldbe mentor wraps his arm around young Benjamin and says, “I’ve got just one word for you . . . Are you listening? . . . Plastics!” If that film were being made in 1997, that one word might be nanocomposites. Nanocomposites are super plastics—compounds in which about 1 nm size particles of montmor...

Intense visible nano-emitters are key objects for many technologies such as single photon source, bio-labels or energy convertors. Chalcogenide nanocrystals have ruled this domain for several decades. However, there is a demand for cheaper and less toxic materials. In this scheme, ZnO nanoparticles have appeared as potential candidates. At the nanoscale, they exhibit crystalline defects which c...

It is demonstrated in this paper that silica nanoparticles coated with core/shell gold provide efficient thermal, optical, and morphological properties with respect to the cellulose-polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) hybrid system. The one-step synthesis of a silica/gold nanocomposite is achieved with a simultaneous hydrolysis and reduction of gold chloride in the presence of formic a...

Hydrogen is a valuable fuel for the next energy scenario. Unfortunately, hydrogen is highly flammable at concentrations higher than 4% in air. This aspect makes the monitoring of H2 leaks an essential issue for safety reasons, especially in the transportation field. In this paper, nanocomposites based on Pt-doped TiO2/multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been introduced as sensitive mater...

First described in 1959 by physicist Richard P Feynman, who saw it as an unavoidable development in the progress of science, nanotechnology has been part of mainstream scientific theory with potential medical and dental applications since the early 1990s. Nanoparticles, nanospheres, nanorods, nanotubes, nanofibers, dendrimers and other nanostructures have been studied for various applications t...

Semiconductor photocatalysis has been intensively studied in recent decades for a wide variety of application such as hydrogen production from water splitting and water and air treatment. The majority of photocatalysts are, however, wide band-gap semiconductors which are active only under UV irradiation. In order to effectively utilize visible solar radiation, this thesis investigates various t...