Search results for " surfaces"

Impervious Surfaces Alter Soil Bacterial Communities in Urban Areas: A Case Study in Beijing, China

2018

The rapid expansion of urbanization has caused land cover change, especially the increasing area of impervious surfaces. Such alterations have significant effects on the soil ecosystem by impeding the exchange of gasses, water, and materials between soil and the atmosphere. It is unclear whether impervious surfaces have any effects on soil bacterial diversity and community composition. In the present study, we conducted an investigation of bacterial communities across five typical land cover types, including impervious surfaces (concrete), permeable pavement (bricks with round holes), shrub coverage (Buxus megistophylla Levl.), lawns (Festuca elata Keng ex E. Alexeev), and roadside trees (S…

Resolving Bio–Nano Interactions of E. coli Bacteria–Dragonfly Wing Interface with Helium Ion and 3D-Structured Illumination Microscopy to Understand …

2020

Obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the bactericidal mechanisms of natural nanotextured surfaces is crucial for the development of fabricated nanotextured surfaces with efficient bactericidal activity. However, the scale, nature, and speed of bacteria-nanotextured surface interactions make the characterization of the interaction a challenging task. There are currently several different opinions regarding the possible mechanisms by which bacterial membrane damage occurs upon interacting with nanotextured surfaces. Advanced imaging methods could clarify this by enabling visualization of the interaction. Charged particle microscopes can achieve the required nanoscale resolution but are …

Tuning molecular self-assembly on bulk insulator surfaces by anchoring of the organic building blocks.

2013

Molecular self-assembly constitutes a versatile strategy for creating functional structures on surfaces. Tuning the subtle balance between intermolecular and molecule-surface interactions allows structure formation to be tailored at the single-molecule level. While metal surfaces usually exhibit interaction strengths in an energy range that favors molecular self-assembly, dielectric surfaces having low surface energies often lack sufficient interactions with adsorbed molecules. As a consequence, application-relevant, bulk insulating materials pose significant challenges when considering them as supporting substrates for molecular self-assembly. Here, the current status of molecular self-ass…

L'ornementation des bracelets de l'âge du Bronze européen : analyse descriptive et perspectives

2013

This paper discusses the ornamental patterns of metal bracelets worn on the arms and legs of people during the European Bronze Age. A method has been specially created to study geometric patterns. Some sets of metal bands (bracelets métalliques) of Bronze Age reach a high level of complexity due to the use of combined patterns in an overall structure. This paper deals with an experimental criterion concerning this phenomenon. The methodology, developed for the purpose i.e. the experimental criterion developed for the purpose of this study, was to extract geometric patterns from the original media. The principle is to release the geometrical compositions of the deformations induced by the mo…

Transition state theory thermal rate constants and RRKM-based branching ratios for the N((2)D) + CH(4) reaction based on multi-state and multi-refere…

2012

International audience; Multireference single and double configuration interaction (MRCI) calculations including Davidson (+Q) or Pople (+P) corrections have been conducted in this work for the reactants, products, and extrema of the doublet ground state potential energy surface involved in the N(2D) + CH4 reaction. Such highly correlated ab initio calculations are then compared with previous PMP4, CCSD(T), W1, and DFT/B3LYP studies. Large relative differences are observed in particular for the transition state in the entrance channel resolving the disagreement between previous ab initio calculations. We confirm the existence of a small but positive potential barrier (3.86 +/- 0.84 kJ mol-1…

2017

For the last decades, nanocomposites materials have been widely studied in the scientific literature as they provide substantial properties enhancements, even at low nanoparticles content. Their performance depends on a number of parameters but the nanoparticles dispersion and distribution state remains the key challenge in order to obtain the full nanocomposites’ potential in terms of, e.g., flame retardance, mechanical, barrier and thermal properties, etc., that would allow extending their use in the industry. While the amount of existing research and indeed review papers regarding the formulation of nanocomposites is already significant, after listing the most common applications, this r…

Growth of low-density vertical quantum dot molecules with control in energy emission

2010

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License.-- This article is part of the series 8th International Workshop on Epitaxial Semiconductors on Patterned Substrates and Novel Index Surfaces.

Bimetallic PdAg nanoparticle arrays from monolayer films of diblock copolymer micelles

2015

MICROSCOPIE+ATARI+EEH:GMA:TBG:NSP:MAO; International audience; The self-assembly technique provides a highly efficient route to generate well-ordered structures on a nanometer scale. In this paper, well-ordered arrays of PdAg alloy nanoparticles on flat substrates with narrow distributions of particle size (6-7 nm) and interparticle spacing (about 60 nm) were synthesized by the block copolymer micelle approach. A home-made PS-b-P4VP diblock copolymer was prepared to obtain a micellar structure in toluene. Pd and Ag salts were then successfully loaded in the micellar core of the PS-b-P4VP copolymer. A self-assembled monolayer of the loaded micelles was obtained by dipping the flat substrate …

Sanitizing food contact surfaces by the use of essential oils

2018

Chemical sanitizers continue to be widely used by the food industry to disinfect food contact surfaces. However, as some chemical disinfectants have been reported to produce unhealthy by-products, alternative and natural compounds need to be investigated. To this end, nine essential oils (EOs) were screened to develop a natural sanitizing solution (SAN) for disinfecting food contact surfaces. Once extracted, their antimicrobial activity and chemical composition were determined. An exploratory multivariate approach was used to investigate the relationships between the chemical and microbiological data sets. Among the tested EOs, Thymbra capitata EO, containing up to 93.31% oxygenated monoter…

The Effect of Ni Doping on the Performance and Electronic Structure of LSCF Cathodes Used for IT-SOFCs

2018

We investigated the effect of nickel doping on the electronic structure and performance of nanostructured La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8-0.03Ni0.03O3-delta prepared by the one-pot sol gel method. The commercial undoped La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-delta (ISCF0.8) was used as reference. Moreover, for comparison, Ni (3 mol %) was deposited by wetness impregnation over the La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-delta. We show by in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy at 900 degrees C under air flow that nickel enters the B perovskite site of the material and favors the stabilization of the cobalt oxidation state, as evidenced by the delay in the decrease of the average Co valence with respect to undoped samples. Our results a…