Fiber optic sensors based on hybrid phenyl-silica xerogel films to detect n-hexane: determination of the isosteric enthalpy of adsorption

• Jesús C. Echeverría,
• Ignacio Calleja,
• Paula Moriones and
• Julián J. Garrido

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 475–484, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.51

• , may interact with molecules that contain lone pairs of electrons, such as acetone; π-electrons, such as toluene; or hydroxyl groups, such as alcohols. The sensing element sensitivity is lower when the xerogel is synthesized from TEOS at pH 10 rather than at pH 4.5. The effect of temperature on the

The longstanding challenge of the nanocrystallization of 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX)

• Florent Pessina and
• Denis Spitzer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 452–466, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.49

• be used. For instance, if the solubility is not very temperature dependent, evaporation will be more effective than cooling. To our knowledge, no consistent study of the behavior of the solubility of RDX has been made. Fedoroff and Sheffield [11] indicate that the RDX solubility in acetone is reduced

• due to surface defects also sensitizes the energetic materials. Kumar et al. [16] succeeded in producing finer RDX particles by quickly injecting a very small volume (100 μL) of RDX dissolved in acetone into ultrapure water. The smallest mean particle size was 38 nm as determined by scanning electron

• microscopy (SEM) for the highest temperature (70 °C) and lowest concentration of RDX in acetone (5 mM). It is worth mentioning that dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements were found to be not reliable when compared to SEM analysis, which can be explained by the lack of surfactant to stabilize the

Study of the surface properties of ZnO nanocolumns used for thin-film solar cells

• Neda Neykova,
• Jiri Stuchlik,
• Karel Hruska,
• Ales Poruba,
• Zdenek Remes and
• Ognen Pop-Georgievski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 446–451, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.48

• at a target voltage of 400 V, ratio between gas species of Ar/O = 2/0.5 for 10 min. The dimensions of all substrates were 10 × 10 mm2. Before seed layer deposition, the substrates were cleaned in an ultrasonic bath with acetone for 10 min, then rinsed with deionized water and dried under nitrogen

Template-controlled piezoactivity of ZnO thin films grown via a bioinspired approach

• Nina J. Blumenstein,
• Fabian Streb,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Zaklina Burghard and
• Joachim Bill

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 296–303, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.32

• acetone/ethanol 1:1 for 10 min in an ultrasonic bath. Afterwards, they were treated for 10 min in an O2-plasma with 30 W, followed by another cleaning in Milli-Q water in ultrasound (10 min). In-between the different steps, the wafers were dried with N2. Carboxylate-SAMs were prepared according to

Performance of natural-dye-sensitized solar cells by ZnO nanorod and nanowall enhanced photoelectrodes

• Saif Saadaoui,
• Mohamed Aziz Ben Youssef,
• Moufida Ben Karoui,
• Rached Gharbi,
• Emanuele Smecca,
• Vincenzina Strano,
• Salvo Mirabella,
• Alessandra Alberti and
• Rosaria A. Puglisi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 287–295, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.31

• , followed by 20 min annealing in air on a hot plate (at nominal 240 °C). However, in the case of the ZnO NWs, the seed layer was replaced by an Al film (100 nm thick). The basic Al films were sonicated in soapy water, water, ethanol and acetone before being used. After the pre-layer deposition, we prepared

Influence of hydrofluoric acid treatment on electroless deposition of Au clusters

• Rachela G. Milazzo,
• Antonio M. Mio,
• Giuseppe D’Arrigo,
• Emanuele Smecca,
• Alessandra Alberti,
• Gabriele Fisichella,
• Filippo Giannazzo,
• Corrado Spinella and
• Emanuele Rimini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 183–189, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.19

• substrate was a Si(100) n-type substrate with ρ = 3–5 Ω cm. Prior to plating, each sample was cut into squares of 1.5 × 1.5 cm and degreased in acetone at 60 °C and then placed in an ultrasonic bath for 6 min. This was followed by immersion in DHF (6% HF) for 10 s or 240 s. The substrates were then

• without stirring. Then the samples were rinsed in water to remove all surfactants and products. They received an additional cleaning in acetone and were dried in air. TEM sample preparation. For plan view, the samples were mechanically thinned from the backside to less than a micrometer. Then they were

Studying friction while playing the violin: exploring the stick–slip phenomenon

• Santiago Casado

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 159–166, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.16

• AFM was employed, which was coupled to a Ti-U Nikon inverted optical microscope. Pieces of samples 1 and 2 were measured before and after being cleaned by 5 min of ultrasonic bath immersed in acetone. Fastened along an optical microscope glass slide using scotch tape on both sides, the samples proved

Photo-ignition process of multiwall carbon nanotubes and ferrocene by continuous wave Xe lamp illumination

• Paolo Visconti,
• Patrizio Primiceri,
• Daniele Longo,
• Luciano Strafella,
• Paolo Carlucci,
• Mauro Lomascolo,
• Arianna Cretì and
• Giuseppe Mele

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 134–144, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.14

• with CNTs mixed with different fuel mixtures (i.e., hexane/acetone, ethylene/air). On the other hand, ferrocene (FeCp2), whose molecular structure is shown in Figure 1, was the first pure hydrocarbon derived from iron and was accidentally discovered in 1951 [16]. Starting from its discovery, many other

Graphene–polymer coating for the realization of strain sensors

• Carmela Bonavolontà,
• Carla Aramo,
• Massimo Valentino,
• Giampiero Pepe,
• Sergio De Nicola,
• Gianfranco Carotenuto,
• Angela Longo,
• Mariano Palomba,
• Simone Boccardi and
• Carosena Meola

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 21–27, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.3

• min in a muffle furnace to produce expanded graphite. The expanded graphite filaments were converted to nanostructured graphite by ultrasonic treatment in acetone, using a horn sonicator (Bandelin Sonopuls, model UW2200, 20 kHz, 200 W, Berlin, Germany). The suspension (800 mL) was sonicated for 30 min

• obtained PMMA slats coated by this very thin and optically transparent layer of graphene were rinsed in acetone and dried in air at room temperature. The graphene compound layer on the top of the PMMA surface is clearly visible in the images of Figure 1, obtained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of

Solvent-mediated conductance increase of dodecanethiol-stabilized gold nanoparticle monolayers

• Patrick A. Reissner,
• Jean-Nicolas Tisserant,
• Antoni Sánchez-Ferrer,
• Raffaele Mezzenga and
• Andreas Stemmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2057–2064, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.196

• with 10 µm deep grooves. The Si/SiO2 substrate was rinsed with acetone and isopropyl alcohol, dried with a stream of nitrogen and placed on the PDMS stamp for 10 s [17]. Immersion All immersion experiments were conducted under nitrogen atmosphere for 20 h. The solvents were bubbled for 2 min with

Nanostructured SnO₂–ZnO composite gas sensors for selective detection of carbon monoxide

• Paul Chesler,
• Cristian Hornoiu,
• Susana Mihaiu,
• Cristina Vladut,
• Jose Maria Calderon Moreno,
• Mihai Anastasescu,
• Carmen Moldovan,
• Bogdan Firtat,
• Costin Brasoveanu,
• George Muscalu,
• Ion Stan and
• Mariuca Gartner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2045–2056, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.195

• sensors Good sensitivity of ZnO–SnO2 composites towards different gases (ethanol, buthanol, dimethyl disulfide, hydrogen, propane, acetone) has been reported in various papers [3][23][27][28][29][30][31][32][33], but very few of them have reported selective detection of CO. The response of the prepared

A novel electrochemical nanobiosensor for the ultrasensitive and specific detection of femtomolar-level gastric cancer biomarker miRNA-106a

• Maryam Daneshpour,
• Kobra Omidfar and
• Hossein Ghanbarian

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2023–2036, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.193

• hydroxide, sodium iodide and acetone were purchased from Merck (Darmstadt, Germany). All other chemicals employed were of analytical grade and deionized water was utilized in all the experiments. Buffers used in the experiment included Tris buffer (including 2% BSA), the immobilization buffer (NaCl 300 mM

Effect of Anderson localization on light emission from gold nanoparticle aggregates

• Mohamed H. Abdellatif,
• Marco Salerno,
• Gaser N. Abdelrasoul,
• Ioannis Liakos,
• Alice Scarpellini,
• Sergio Marras and
• Alberto Diaspro

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2013–2022, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.192

• commercial optical microscope slides (Menzel-Gläser, Germany) and pure fused silica (Heraeus, Germany), called quartz in the following. Before use, the substrates were cleaned by successive sonication (5 min at each step) in warm acetone, then isopropanol, then water, and finally blown dry under a nitrogen

A dioxaborine cyanine dye as a photoluminescence probe for sensing carbon nanotubes

• Mohammed Al Araimi,
• Petro Lutsyk,
• Anatoly Verbitsky,
• Yuri Piryatinski,
• Mykola Shandura and
• Aleksey Rozhin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1991–1999, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.190

• product was dissolved in 80% aqueous ethanol and then the solution of sodium acetate (0.2 g) in ethanol was added. The precipitate was filtered out and purified via chromatography on a silica column (7:3 v/v acetone/methanol as an eluent) to yield 300 mg (20%) of product as a green powder. 1H NMR (300 MHz

Layered composites of PEDOT/PSS/nanoparticles and PEDOT/PSS/phthalocyanines as electron mediators for sensors and biosensors

• Celia García-Hernández,
• Cristina García-Cabezón,
• Fernando Martín-Pedrosa,
• José Antonio De Saja and
• María Luz Rodríguez-Méndez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1948–1959, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.186

• substrates (1 cm2 surface area) were used as the substrate. Prior to the film deposition, the substrates were washed in an ultrasonic bath with acetone and rinsed twice with deionized water (MilliQ). PEDOT/PSS was diluted 1:10 in deionized water and stirred in an ultrasonic bath for 10 min. Then, 100 μL of

In situ formation of reduced graphene oxide structures in ceria by combined sol–gel and solvothermal processing

• Jingxia Yang,
• Johannes Ofner,
• Bernhard Lendl and
• Ulrich Schubert

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1815–1821, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.174

• . The mixture was stirred for 30 min, ultrasonically treated for at least 2 h and then deposited onto glass sheets (20 × 30 cm2), which had been cleaned with 10% KOH, isopropanol and acetone and dried at 100 °C. The deposited films were exposed to ambient humidity at room temperature for 24 h (for

Nanostructured TiO₂-based gas sensors with enhanced sensitivity to reducing gases

• Wojciech Maziarz,
• Anna Kusior and
• Anita Trenczek-Zajac

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1718–1726, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.164

• material for application as an acetone sensor. Keywords: acetone; flower-like 3D nanostructures; gas sensors; selectivity; titanium dioxide; Introduction The market for resistive-type gas sensors is dominated by materials developed on the base of thin or thick layers composed of polycrystalline metal

• as H2 [7], NO2 [8], NOx [9], CO [10], NH3 [11], H2S [12], and VOCs (i.e., methanol, ethanol, propanol [13], and acetone [14]). The influence of effective surface area on the gas sensing properties of TiO2 thin films is also frequently observed and investigated [15]. TiO2 is a wide-band gap

• nitrogen oxides and in the presence of acetone. The effect of surface modification on the response and recovery time was studied. Experimental Sample preparation The sensing materials were prepared by thermal and chemical oxidation of Ti foils (d = 0.127 mm, 99.7%, Sigma-Aldrich). Titanium was cut into 20

Enhanced detection of nitrogen dioxide via combined heating and pulsed UV operation of indium oxide nano-octahedra

• Oriol Gonzalez,
• Sergio Roso,
• Xavier Vilanova and
• Eduard Llobet

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1507–1518, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.144

• cleaned before their insertion in the CVD reactor by three consecutive, five minutes long steps of sonication in acetone, ethanol and deionized water, respectively. Finally cleaned substrates were dried using a flow of pure dry air. In a typical synthesis, 0.3 g of high purity In metal powder (99.99% pure

The effect of dry shear aligning of nanotube thin films on the photovoltaic performance of carbon nanotube–silicon solar cells

• Benedikt W. Stolz,
• Daniel D. Tune and
• Benjamin S. Flavel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1486–1491, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.141

• by placing them, nanotube side down, on the solar cells such that they completely covered the active area; they were then wet with a drop of water, compressed with Teflon and baked in air (110 °C, 15 min). To remove the MCE from the films, the cooled substrates were placed in an acetone (EMSURE

• , Merck) bath for 30 min then transferred to two fresh acetone baths for a further 30 min each. Carbon nanotube–silicon solar cells were fabricated as described previously [36]. Briefly, Cr/Au front electrodes were patterned onto phosphorous doped n-type silicon substrates (SSP, 525 μm thick, 1–5 Ω cm

An efficient recyclable magnetic material for the selective removal of organic pollutants

• Clément Monteil,
• Nathalie Bar,
• Agnès Bee and
• Didier Villemin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1447–1453, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.136

• of 1:2, in the presence of ammonium hydroxide solution (28%), at room temperature and under mechanical stirring. Then, a solution of iron(III) nitrate in concentrated nitric acid was added at 80 °C under stirring. After the removal of the supernatant, nanoparticles were washed with acetone and

• ) adjusted to pH 2 with diluted nitric acid under vigorous stirring. After 15 min, sodium hydroxide was added to destabilize the solution. The supernatant was removed and the precipitate redispersed in 10 mL of 1 mol·L−1 nitric acid by sonication. Then acetone was added until NP-PEIP precipitated. These were

• washed successively with acetone and diethylether and then dried in an oven at 120 °C for 24 h. Preparation of stock solutions MO or MB powders were dissolved in distilled water (5·10−4 mol·L−1) in order to prepare dye stock solutions. Extraction of methyl orange and methylene blue with NP-PEIP A

A composite structure based on reduced graphene oxide and metal oxide nanomaterials for chemical sensors

• Vardan Galstyan,
• Elisabetta Comini,
• Iskandar Kholmanov,
• Andrea Ponzoni,
• Veronica Sberveglieri,
• Nicola Poli,
• Guido Faglia and
• Giorgio Sberveglieri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1421–1427, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.133

• sensing properties of the hybrid structure have been studied for different concentrations of ethanol and acetone. The response of the hybrid material is significantly higher compared to pristine ZnO nanostructures. The obtained results have shown that the nanohybrid is a promising structure for the

• ethanol on the surface of food products is necessary in order to avoid the subsequent hazards and to take steps to decrease the spoilage rate in food products. Besides, ethanol and acetone can be assigned to specific pathologies and may be utilized as breath markers [2]. In particular, acetone is a

• selective breath marker and the presence of its certain concentrations in breath can reflect metabolic products of diabetes [3]. Due to the development of chemical industries acetone is one of the most commonly used volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and can cause dangerous health issues such as blindness

Microwave synthesis of high-quality and uniform 4 nm ZnFe₂O₄ nanocrystals for application in energy storage and nanomagnetics

• Christian Suchomski,
• Ben Breitung,
• Ralf Witte,
• Michael Knapp,
• Sondes Bauer,
• Tilo Baumbach,
• Christian Reitz and
• Torsten Brezesinski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1350–1360, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.126

• addition of n-pentane and collected by centrifugation, followed by washing twice with a solution of acetone and ethanol. Finally, the obtained brown powder was allowed to dry at room temperature. Microwave syntheses were performed using both Monowave 300 and Masterwave BTR reactors (f = 2.45 GHz, Anton

Viability and proliferation of endothelial cells upon exposure to GaN nanoparticles

• Tudor Braniste,
• Ion Tiginyanu,
• Tibor Horvath,
• Simion Raevschi,
• Serghei Cebotari,
• Marco Lux,
• Axel Haverich and
• Andres Hilfiker

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1330–1337, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.124

• involved incubation in gradually increasing acetone concentrations from 30% to 100% at room temperature. Thereafter, the acetone was gradually replaced by liquid CO2 at 10 °C in a critical drying point machine (BAL-TEC 030 CPD). In order to bring the sample from the liquid to the gas phase without crossing

Ammonia gas sensors based on In₂O₃/PANI hetero-nanofibers operating at room temperature

• Qingxin Nie,
• Zengyuan Pang,
• Hangyi Lu,
• Yibing Cai and
• Qufu Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1312–1321, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.122

• [15], acetone [16] and formaldehyde [17]. However, for most metal oxides, there is the drawback of a required high operation temperature, about 300 °C, which will increase the energy consumption [18]. Compared with metal oxides, sensors based on conducting polymers show low power consumption and can

• selectivity of In2O3/PANI-2 nanofibers sensor. Figure 8 shows the dynamic response of In2O3/PANI-2 nanofibers sensor to methanol, ethanol, acetone and ammonia at a concentration of 1000 ppm. It is obvious that the In2O3/PANI-2 nanofibers sensor was almost insensitive to methanol, ethanol and acetone vapors

• to NH3 vapor at room temperature, and this sensor was further investigated for its selectivity by interfering with methanol, ethanol and acetone vapors. The results indicated that the In2O3/PANI-2 nanofiber sensor had excellent selectivity, good repeatability and reversibility. The enhancement of gas

On the pathway of cellular uptake: new insight into the interaction between the cell membrane and very small nanoparticles

• Claudia Messerschmidt,
• Daniel Hofmann,
• Anja Kroeger,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Volker Mailänder and
• Ingo Lieberwirth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1296–1311, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.121

• -fixed within a few milliseconds at a pressure of 2000 bar under liquid nitrogen using a high-pressure freezer Compact 1 (Wohlwend GmbH, Switzerland). Freeze-substitution was conducted using a Leica EM AFS 2 device (Leica Microsystems, Germany). Here, the substitution/staining medium (acetone p.a., 0.2