Zinc based alloys have recently attracted great attention as promising biodegradable metals. Zinc exhibits moderate degradation rates in biological fluid and the zinc releases during the degradation process is considered safe to human systems. However, these materials exhibit critical limitations in terms of mechanical properties for medical applications. Adding alloying elements as well as gra...

The nitro group in aromatic nitro compounds containing reducible substituents such as methyl, carboxylic acids and phenols, and halogens are selectively and rapidly reduced at room temperature to the corresponding amines in good yield by employing hydrazine glyoxylate in the presence of zinc powder or magnesium powder. It has been observed that hydrazine glyoxylate is more effective than hydraz...

The contrasting melting behavior of different surface orientations in metals can be explained in terms of a repulsive or attractive effective interaction between the solid-liquid and the liquid-vapor interface. We show how a crucial part of this interaction originates from the layering effects near the liquid metal surface. Its sign depends on the relative tuning of layering oscillations to the...

A procedure for calibrating the temperature scale of a DSC is described. A different calibration trend was obtained using the transition points of organic compounds compared to that found using the melting points of highly pure metals. The crystal-crystal transitions of three ammonium salts were studied by this method; ammonium dihydrogen phosphate and ammonium sulphate were found to be suitabl...

Transition metal nitrides, carbides and borides have a high potential for industrial applications as they not only have a high melting point but are generally harder and less compressible than the pure metals. Here we summarize recent advances in the synthesis of binary transition metal nitrides, carbides and borides focusing on the reaction of the elements at extreme conditions generated withi...

Thin metal fiIrns (Cu, Au, Ni) on quartz glass were illuminated with nanosecond pulse.; of a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser (A = 532 nm). The transient reflectivity behavlour was probed at the wavelength 633 nm, where these metals exhibit Drude-Iike optical behaviour: the reflectivity decreases with temperature in the solid and in the Iiquid state as well as at the solid-llquid phase transition...