Chung-Shin Lu received his PhD degree in Chemistry from the Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, in 1994. He is currently a Professor at the National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan. His interests are focused on the analysis and treatment of environmental pollutants. His team is currently working on the synthesis of various photocatalysts and investigating their photocatalytic abilities for removing organic pollutants in an aqueous solution.

Silver vanadates have received remarkable attention in recent years because of their stability, suitable band gaps, and relatively superior photocatalytic abilities. This study synthesizes silver vanadates and investigates their photocatalytic abilities for removing crystal violet (CV) and atrazine under visible-light irradiation. The silver vanadate photocatalysts with high photocatalytic performance are prepared by the hydrothermal method. The composition and morphologies of silver vanadates could be controlled by adjusting some growth parameters, including reaction pH, temperature, and the ratio of silver to vanadium in starting material. The as-prepared silver vanadates are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) and BET surface area analysis. It is demonstrated that AgVO3, Ag3VO4, and Ag4V2O7 can be selectively prepared through the hydrothermal method. Diffuse UV–Vis spectra show the three materials being the indirect semiconductors with optical bandgaps of 1.85–2.33 eV. Crystal violet and atrazine could be successfully degraded in the presence of silver vanadate catalyst under visible-light irradiation. The obtained results show complete degradation of crystal violet after 24 h, and over 97% of atrazine was degraded after 72 h of treatment. Liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry was applied to the analysis of the samples coming from the photocatalytic degradation of atrazine. The experimental results showed that there were nine intermediates existing in the photocatalytic reaction. Potential degradation pathways for atrazine were evaluated exhibiting three different degradation pathways including dechlorination–hydroxylation, alkylic-oxidation and de-alkylation. This is a study to show the superior activities of AgVO3, Ag3VO4, and Ag4V2O7 as a promising visible-light-responsive photocatalyst.

Chia-Fen Lee has her expertise in Polymer Materials and has interest in the study of the synthesis of polymer latex particles. She has synthesized various kinds of inorganic/polymer composite latex particles successfully for many years of experience in research. The conductive core-shell composite polymer particles are novel particles that can be used as fillers in anisotropic conductive films.

In this study, a modified electroless silver plating process was used to prepare the monodisperse Ag-coated polystyrene core-shell type particles (Ag-PS). Silver nuclei produced on polystyrene particles with an electroless plating method served as nucleation sites for the growth of silver shell. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the particle size and morphology of Ag-PS particles. The results showed that a dense, stable and uniform silver shell grew on the surface of PS particles to form the Ag-PS composite particles with the diameter of 3 μm. The bulk conductivity of the Ag-PS composites could achieve 2427 S/cm with only 36% silver content. According to the results, the Ag-PS composite particles have great potential to be used as fillers in anisotropic conductive films.

Valeria Pozzoli is a PhD student in the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires. She has skills in organic synthesis and is currently working on the synthesis of monomers and their polymerization reactions. She is interested in organic materials for technological applications and enjoys the interdisciplinary work. She also teaches Organic Chemistry for undergraduate students of Chemical Engineering in the University of Buenos Aires and National Technologic University.

Statement of the Problem: Transistors and other optoelectronic devices are mainly responsible for the great technological advances in recent years. Although, the improvement of their performances is a goal pursued still. Organic thin-film transistor (OTFT’s) and organic field-effect transistor (OFET’s) showed low carrier mobility and operational overvoltage which decrease their effectiveness and, in many cases, this is attributed to “pinholes” on the gate-dielectric interface. This effect is canceled by using a polymer as gate insulator. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: In order to evaluate the effect of poly N-(1-naphtyl)acrylamide (PNAM) as gate insulator, we synthesize this homopolymer as well as some co-polymers with methyl methacrylate. Using these materials we try to establish if the presence of fused aromatic rings as polymer pendant groups, are able, in addition to pinhole passivation, to induce some ordering in the deposition of the organic semiconductor. In spite of having been described the synthesis of PNAM in a 1967 patent, bibliographical data about its characterization could not be traced. In this work we report the characterization of PNAM and its co-polymers, obtained by polymerization in solution. Findings: The monomer (N-1-naphtylacrylamide, NAM) was easily synthesized by reacting 1-napthylamine with acryloyl chloride in presence of a base in a good yield, and it was characterized by NMR spectra. The polymerization yield of NAM is strongly dependent on initiator concentration, but this factor had little influence on . In every case, the found was lower than expected for a vinyl polymerization. When PNAM was synthesized in 1,4-dioxane solution, filmogenic capacities are better than when the synthesis is carried out in DMF. Conclusion & Significance: Even when this polymer is cited in many patents for technological applications, this is the first characterization informed. At this moment, we are testing ATRP polymerization techniques of NAM in order to get end functionalized PNAM for surface gate modifications.

Mina Samadipour has done her BSc in Applied Chemistry and MSc in Inorganic Chemistry. She has expertise in R&D of synthesis and characterization of bio-properties of inorganic chemical materials as nano-hydroxyapatite. She is currently working on the biomedical properties of calcium phosphate family to create new pathways for improving healthcare.

Hydroxyapatite via the formula Ca10(PO4)6OH2 (HAP), which is an important member of calcium phosphate family, has been useful applications in biomedical, that is due to non-toxicity, biocompatibility and high osteoconductivity. There are many studies for improve HAP properties, one of them to make it more useful is doped HAP with different metal ions such as Ba2+, Co2+, Sr2+, Zn2+, etc. On the other hands incorporation of HAP with organic polymers such as chitosan (CS), gelatin, collagen, etc., that made it operational, would be used in biomaterial engineering. In this work, Mg2+ doped nano-hydroxyapatite/chitosan (Mg-nHAP/CS) fabricated by a sol-gel method. Product was characterized by powder X-ray spectroscopy (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. XRD results shown that dopants slightly effect on lattice parameters and crystallinity. On the other hand compared to the diffraction peaks of highly crystalline HAP, the broadening of the diffraction patterns shows low crystallinity of synthesized samples. According to the FTIR results it is shown that the typical peaks of (OH-) and (PO43-) groups vibrations at 3616 and 1081 cm-1. Based on the SEM images, it is observed that unique particle morphology with different shapes. The EDX spectra showed the elemental composition and all samples were pure. The synthesis samples were also found to be nontoxic based on the MTT assay. Bioactivity of a nHAp predicted from the apatite formation on its surface in SBF. Results suggested that crystallinity of nHAP decreases with doped by Mg2+ and natural polymer CS. The prepared product also showed improvement in nHAP biological properties.

Letisha Deeplal is currently pursuing her PhD degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal under the supervision of Professor Holger B Friedrich. Her field of study is within the heterogeneous catalytic hydrogenation using copper based materials and is currently investigating the effect of ionic liquids as organic modifiers to this system. Her interest and experience is based on materials chemistry involving surface science techniques such as temperature programmed experiments, chemisorption and physisorption studies.

The competitive hydrogenation of octanal in the presence of octene has applications downstream of the hydroformylation process. The octanal should be hydrogenated to the desired product, octanol, while avoiding or inhibiting the hydrogenation of octene. Solid catalysts with an ionic liquid coating (SCILL) are a relatively new field of catalysis, which aims to combine the favorable properties of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. The heterogeneous catalyst must be fully understood before the ionic liquid is introduced, as does the role of the catalyst preparation for the coated and uncoated catalysts. First, a series of monometallic copper catalysts (15 wt%), were investigated, then this was extended to the effect of the ionic liquids. The catalysts were synthesized via wet impregnation, and characterized to determine surface morphology, metal-ionic liquid and metal-support interaction on the catalyst surface. The feed used consisted of 2 (m/m)%, octene, 10 (m/m)% octanal and 88 (m/m)% octanol. The uncoated N-15Cu catalyst shows the highest activity, which could be a result of a greater metal dispersion and metal-support interaction. Irrespective of octene conversion on the uncoated catalysts, once coated with the ionic liquid, all catalysts give similar conversions due to the site blocking capability of the ionic liquid on the C=C adsorption sites. This could also be a ligand effect whereby the imidazole functionality donates electron density to the metal resulting in greater selectivity toward the C=O bond adsorption in a competitive mixed feed system.

Maryam Ali Bash has done her BSc and MSc in Metallurgical Engineering and is currently a PhD student in the Department of Production Engineering and Metallurgy, University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq. She has exceptional expertise in design and analysis of the relationship between the microstructure and behavior of alloys and advanced ceramics. The fields of her interest are thermal barrier coatings, hot corrosion and laser processing of advanced plasma sprayed ceramic coatings. She developed many new approaches for mixing of advanced powders and performance of advanced ceramic coatings. She has excellent record in lecturing on the materials science and engineering, non-distractive testing such as FT-IR, AFM, Raman spectroscopy, EPMA, EDS and XRD.

The backbone for thermal barrier coatings has been well recognized as zirconia based ceramics which are mostly produced using plasma spraying techniques. Defects which have been usually present in plasma sprayed coatings may lead to easily penetrate the harmful species in the fuel and then diffused into the coating which leading to accelerate degradation. The work summarizes the important highlight points relative to the gas and solid state lasers processing of advanced plasma sprayed coatings used in advanced thermal barrier coatings turbine engines. The reduction or even elimination of these problems during servicing using CO2, Nd3+-YAG and Yb3+-YAG lasers can highly improve the lifetime of the TBCs systems. The paper reports and analyzed all the relevant works of laser sealing of plasma sprayed coatings. The recent work by the authors has been investigated the effect of processing and laser parameters of continuous wave high power solid state Yb3+-YAG fiber laser on sealing thermal plasma sprayed zirconia-ceria-yttria thermal barrier coating. It was found that the sealed coatings having shinny appearance, dense microstructure with nearly nil depressions and very low thickness evaporation. They also postulated that the sealed coatings characterized with very fine cell size, very low roughness and having network crack spacing. These network crack spacing were formed due to sever laser thermal shock associated with high temperature gradient. The network crack spacing improves considerably the strain tolerance of the thermal barrier coating system and finally enhances the durability. Many different mathematical relationships were deriving between the output performances and the dependent laser variables of power density, interaction time and specific energy.

Falah A H Mutlak received a BSc in the Department of Physics in 1998, MSc degree in Spectroscopy Physics in 2002 and PhD degree in Molecular Spectroscopy Physics in 2011, from the University of Baghdad, College of Science. Currently, he is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics and member of Renewable Energy Research Group in the Department of Physics, College of Science, Baghdad University, Iraq.

In this paper, Au nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) was prepared. Various affecting parameters were studied such different laser energy (100, 300, and 500 m J). In the second part, includes the optimum results of Au NPs depositing on PS (Au NPs/PS) by drop casting. We have studied the structural, morphological, optical, surface, and electrical properties includes the current density-voltage (J-V), and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics. XRD spectra showed decrease broadening plane Si (111) and Au at increasing energy, this due to increases the crystallite size. AFM showed be the pores width increased with increasing etching time, and PS surface showed lower reflectance with increasing etching time, which is due to increase roughness index. The electrical properties showed decrease in current pass in PS layer with increases etching time, this due to increase resistivity PS layer. C-V measured showed decreases the capacitance at increase etching time and this due to increase built-in potential and width of depletion. From J-V measured in solar cell show the efficiency rang between (1.42-2.5%). Also AFM of Au NPs/PS showed increases the pores width with increasing energy. The electrical properties showed decrease in current pass in Au NPs/PS layer at increases etching time and energy, this due to increases resistivity Au NPs/PS layer. C-V measured showed decreases the capacitance of the solar cell layer at increase etching time and energy, this due to increase built-in potential and width of depletion. From J-V measured in solar cell show the efficiency rang between (3.5-6.0%).