Abstract: Catalyst preparation with plasmas is increasingly attracting interest. A plasma is a partially ionized gas, consisting of electrons, ions, molecules, radicals, photons, and excited species, which are all active species for catalyst preparation and treatment. Under the influence of plasma, nucleation and crystal growth in catalyst preparation can be very different from those in the conventional thermal approach. Some thermodynamically unfavorable reactions can easily take place with plasmas. Compounds such as sulfides, nitrides, and phosphides that are produced under harsh conditions can be synthesized by plasma under mild conditions. Plasmas can produce catalysts with smaller particle sizes and controllable structure. Plasma is also a facile tool for reduction, oxidation, doping, etching, coating, alloy formation, surface treatment, and surface cleaning in a simple and direct way. A rapid and convenient plasma template removal has thus been established for zeolite synthesis. It can operate at room temperature and allows the catalyst preparation on temperature-sensitive supporting materials. Plasma is typically effective for the production of various catalysts on metallic substrates. In addition, plasma-prepared transition-metal catalysts show enhanced low-temperature activity with improved stability. This provides a useful model catalyst for further improvement of industrial catalysts. In this review, we aim to summarize the recent advances in catalyst preparation with plasmas. The present understanding of plasma-based catalyst preparation is discussed. The challenges and future development are addressed.

Abstract: A limiting factor of solvent-induced nanoparticle self-assembly is the need for constant sample dilution in assembly/disassembly cycles. Changes in the nanoparticle concentration alter the kinetics of the subsequent assembly process, limiting optical signal recovery. Herein, we show that upon confining hydrophobic nanoparticles in permeable silica nanocapsules, the number of nanoparticles participating in cyclic aggregation remains constant despite bulk changes in solution, leading to highly reproducible plasmon band shifts at different solvent compositions.

Abstract: Hydrogenotrophic denitrification is a novel and sustainable process for nitrogen removal, which utilizes hydrogen as electron donor, and carbon dioxide as carbon source. Recent studies have shown that nitrous oxide (N2O), a highly undesirable intermediate and potent greenhouse gas, can accumulate during this process. In this work, a new mathematical model is developed to describe nitrogen oxides dynamics, especially N2O, during hydrogenotrophic denitrification for the first time. The model describes electron competition among the four steps of hydrogenotrophic denitrification through decoupling hydrogen oxidation and nitrogen reduction processes using electron carriers, in contrast to the existing models that couple these two processes and also do not consider N2O accumulation. The developed model satisfactorily describes experimental data on nitrogen oxides dynamics obtained from two independent hydrogenotrophic denitrifying cultures under various hydrogen and nitrogen oxides supplying conditions, suggesting the validity and applicability of the model. The results indicated that N2O accumulation would not be intensified under hydrogen limiting conditions, due to the higher electron competition capacity of N2O reduction in comparison to nitrate and nitrite reduction during hydrogenotrophic denitrification. The model is expected to enhance our understanding of the process during hydrogenotrophic denitrification and the ability to predict N2O accumulation.

Abstract: In this study, the impact of diclofenac (DCF), an antiinflammatory drug being extensively used in human health care and veterinary treatment, on the production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from anaerobic fermentation of waste activated sludge (WAS) was investigated for the first time. Experimental results showed that when DCF concentration increased from 2.5 to 25 mg/kg total suspended solid (TSS), the maximum production of VFAs increased from 599 to 1113 mg COD/L, but further increase of DCF to 47.5 mg/kg TSS decreased VFAs yield to 896 mg COD/L. The mechanism investigation revealed that DCF had no effect on the hydrolysis process, promoted the process of acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and homoacetogenesis, but severely inhibited methanogenesis, leading to the accumulation of VFAs. Microbial community analysis showed that the addition of DCF could promote the relative abundance of VFAs (especially acetic acid) producers, which was well consistent with the results obtained above.

Abstract: In this contribution, we report a fundamental study of the factors that set the contact resistivity between metals and highly doped semiconductors. We investigate the case of n-type doped Si contacted with amorphous TiSi combining first-principles calculations with Non-Equilibrium Green functions transport simulations. The intrinsic contact resistivity is found to saturate at similar to 2x10(-10) Omega.cm(2) with the doping concentration and sets an intrinsic limit to the ultimate contact resistance achievable for n-doped Si vertical bar amorphous-TiSi. This limit arises from the intrinsic properties of the semiconductor and of the metal such as their electron effective masses and Fermi energies. We illustrate that, in this regime, contacting metals with a heavy electron effective mass helps reducing the interface intrinsic contact resistivity.

Abstract: Complete removal of estrogens such as estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), estriol (E3) and ethinylestradiol (EE2) in wastewater treatment is essential since their release and accumulation in natural water bodies are giving rise to environment and health issues. To improve our understanding towards the estrogen bioremediation process, a mathematical model was proposed for describing estrogen removal by nitrifying activated sludge. Four pathways were involved in the developed model: i) biosorption by activated sludge flocs; ii) cometabolic biodegradation linked to ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) growth; iii) non growth biodegradation by AOB; and iv) biodegradation by heterotrophic bacteria (HB). The degradation kinetics was implemented into activated sludge model (ASM) framework with consideration of interactions between substrate update and microorganism growth as well as endogenous respiration. The model was calibrated and validated by fitting model predictions against two sets of batch experimental data under different conditions. The model could satisfactorily capture all the dynamics of nitrogen, organic matters (COD), and estrogens. Modeling results suggest that for El, E2 and EE2, AOB-linked biodegradation is dominant over biodegradation by HB at all investigated COD dosing levels. However, for E3, the increase of COD dosage triggers a shift of dominant pathway from AOB biodegradation to HB biodegradation. Adsorption becomes the main contributor to estrogen removal at high biomass concentrations. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Electrorheological (ER) fluids are considered as a type of smart fluids because their rheological characteristics can be altered through an electric field. The discovery of giant ER effect revived the researchers' interest in the ER technological area. However, the poor stability including the insufficient dynamic shear stress, the large leakage current density, and the sedimentation tendency still hinders their practical applications. Herein, we report a facile and scalable coprecipitation method for synthesizing surfactant-free tin titanyl oxalate (TTO) particles with tremella-like wrinkly microstructure (W-TTO). The W-TTO-based ER fluids exhibit enhanced ER activity compared to that of the pristine TTO because of the improved wettability between W-TTO and the silicone oil. In addition, the static yield stress and leakage current of W-TTO ER fluids also show a fine time stability during the 30 day tests. More importantly, the dynamic shear stress of W-TTO ER fluids can remain stable throughout the shear rate range, which is valuable for their use in engineering applications. The results in this work provided a promising strategy to solving the long-standing problem of ER fluid stability. Moreover, this convenient route of synthesis may be considered a green approach for the mass production of giant ER materials.

Abstract: The magnetopolaron effect on shallow-impurity states in semiconductors is investigated when subjected simultaneously to a magnetic field and an intense terahertz laser field within the Faraday configuration. We use a time-dependent nonperturbative theory to describe electron interactions. The externally applied fields are exactly included via a laser-dressed interaction potential. Through a variational approach we evaluate the binding energy of the shallow-impurity states. We find that the interaction strength of the laser-dressed Coulomb potential can not only be enhanced but also weakened by varying the two external fields. In this way, the binding energy can be tuned by the external fields and red-or blue-shifted with respect to the static binding energy. In the nonresonant polaron region, a magnetopolaron correction that includes the effects of photon process is observed. In the resonant polaron region, moreover, the resonant magnetopolaron effect accompanied by the emission and absorption of a single photon is distinctly observed. This can be modulated to be far away from the reststrahlen band. The intriguing findings of this paper can be observed experimentally and, in turn, provide a way to measure the strength of the electron-phonon interaction.

Abstract: We report the equilibrium vortex phase diagram of a rotating two-band Fermi gas confined to a cylindrically symmetric parabolic trapping potential, using the recently developed finite-temperature effective field theory (Klimin et al 2016 Phys. Rev. A 94 023620). A non-monotonic resonant dependence of the free energy as a function of the temperature and the rotation frequency is revealed for a two-band superfluid. We particularly focus on novel features that appear as a result of interband interactions and can be experimentally resolved. The resonant dependence of the free energy is directly manifested in vortex phase diagrams, where areas of stability for both integer and fractional vortex states are found. The study embraces the BCS-BEC crossover regime and the entire temperature range below the critical temperature T-c. Significantly different behavior of vortex matter as a function of the interband coupling is revealed in the BCS and BEC regimes.

Abstract: In this review, we discuss the progress of emerging dry processes for nanoscale fabrication. Experts in the fields of plasma processing have contributed to addressing the increasingly challenging demands in achieving atomic-level control of material selectivity and physicochemical reactions involving ion bombardment. The discussion encompasses major challenges shared across the plasma science and technology community. Focus is placed on advances in the development of fabrication technologies for emerging materials, especially metallic and intermetallic compounds and multiferroic, and two-dimensional (2D) materials, as well as state-of-the-art techniques used in nanoscale semiconductor manufacturing with a brief summary of future challenges.

Abstract: In the last twenty years, numerical modeling has become an indispensable part of magnetism research. It has become a standard tool for both the exploration of new systems and for the interpretation of experimental data. In the last five years, the capabilities of micromagnetic modeling have dramatically increased due to the deployment of graphical processing units (GPU), which have sped up calculations to a factor of 200. This has enabled many studies which were previously unfeasible. In this topical review, we give an overview of this modeling approach and show how it has contributed to the forefront of current magnetism research.

Abstract: The dependence of the excitonic photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) on the tilt angle of an applied magnetic field is studied. Starting from a four-band Hamiltonian we construct a theory which quantitatively reproduces the available experimental PL spectra for perpendicular and in-plane magnetic fields. In the presence of a tilted magnetic field, we demonstrate that the dark exciton PL peaks brighten due to the in-plane component of the magnetic field and split for light with different circular polarizations as a consequence of the perpendicular component of the magnetic field. This splitting is more than twice as large as the splitting of the bright exciton peaks in tungsten-based TMDs. We propose an experimental setup that will allow for accessing the predicted splitting of the dark exciton peaks in the PL spectrum.

Abstract: Diatom frustules were extracted from the species Thalassiosira pseudonana and functionalized with titania to be used as photocatalysts in the abatement of acetaldehyde. The synthetic procedure is water-based and environmentally friendly. The synthesis parameters were optimized to give the highest possible photocatalytic activity. The optimized material, visualized with TEM and STEM-EDX, shows the TiO2 nanoparticles grafted inside the frustule pores, as well as on the silica surface. The titania particles, stabilized by the frustules, are 2.5 times more active than the P25 benchmark material. The photocatalyst is then tested in conditions of elevated relative humidity, to simulate indoor air. The catalytic activity only shows a minor decrease at 50% relative humidity, which is a better result than for the P25 benchmark. When tested over an extended period of time, the photocatalyst only shows a minor decrease in activity.

Abstract: Epitaxially grown ultra-thin Si layers are often used to passivate Ge surfaces in the high-k gate module of (strained) Ge FinFET and Gate All Around devices. We use Si4H10 as Si precursor as it enables epitaxial Si growth at temperatures down to 330 degrees. C-V characteristics of blanket capacitors made on Ge virtual substrates point to the presence of an optimal Si thickness. In case of compressively strained Ge fin structures, the Si growth results in non-uniform and high strain levels in the strained Ge fin. These strain levels have been calculated for different shapes of the Ge fin and in function of the grown Si thickness. The high strain is the driving force for potential (unwanted) Ge surface reflow during Si deposition. The Ge surface reflow is strongly affected by the strength of the H-passivation during Si-capping and can be avoided by carefully selected process conditions. (C) The Author(s) 2018. Published by ECS.

Abstract: Structural, mechanical and electronic properties of two-dimensional single-layer hexagonal structures in the (111) crystal plane of IIIAs-ZnS systems (III = B, Ga and In) are studied by first-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). Elastic and phonon dispersion relation display that 2D h-IIIAs systems (III = B, Ga and In) are both mechanical and dynamically stable. Electronic structures analysis show that the semiconducting nature of the 3D-IIIAs compounds is retained by their 2D single layer counterpart. Furthermore, density of states reveals the influence of sigma and pi bonding in the most stable geometry (planar or buckled) for 2D h-IIIAs systems. Calculations of elastic constants show that the Young's modulus, bulk modulus and shear modulus decrease for 2D h-IIIAs binary compounds as we move down on the group of elements of the periodic table. In addition, as the bond length between the neighboring cation-anion atoms increases, the 2D h-IIIAs binary compounds display less stiffness and more plasticity. Our findings can be used to understand the contribution of the r and p bonding in the most stable geometry (planar or buckled) for 2D h-IIIAs systems. Structural and electronic properties of h-IIIAs systems as a function of the number of layers have been also studied. It is shown that h-BAs keeps its planar geometry while both h-GAs and h-InAs retained their buckled ones obtained by their single layers. Bilayer h-IIIAs present the same bandgap nature of their counterpart in 3D. As the number of layers increase from 2 to 4, the bandgap width for layered h-IIIAs decreases until they become semimetal or metal. Interestingly, these results are different to those found for layered h-GaN. The results presented in this study for single and few-layer h-IIIAs structures could give some physical insights for further theoretical and experimental studies of 2D h-IIIV-like systems. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.