Towards Room Temperature Thermochromic Coatings with controllable NIR-IR modulation for solar heat management & smart windows applications.

Solar heat management & green air-conditioning are among the major technologies that could mitigate heat islands phenomenon while minimizing significantly the CO global foot-print within the building & automotive sectors. Chromogenic materials in general, and thermochromic smart coatings especially are promising candidates that consent a noteworthy dynamic solar radiation Infrared (NIR-IR) regulation and hence an efficient solar heat management especially with the expected increase of the global seasonal temperature. Within this contribution, two major challenging bottlenecks in vanadium oxide based smart coatings were addressed.

Spherical CaCO: Synthesis, Characterization, Surface Modification and Efficacy as a Reinforcing Filler in Natural Rubber Composites.

Natural rubber (NR), an important natural polymer derived from the tree, has been widely used in the rubber industry owing to its excellent elastic properties. However, it requires reinforcing fillers to improve its mechanical properties for the manufacturing of rubber products. Generally, calcium carbonate (CaCO) is employed as a non-reinforcing filler.

Room temperature bio-engineered multifunctional carbonates for CO sequestration and valorization.

This contribution reports, for the first time, on an entirely green bio-engineering approach for the biosynthesis of single phase crystalline 1-D nano-scaled calcite CaCO. This was validated using HO as the universal solvent and natural extract of Hyphaene thebaica fruit as an effective chelating agent. In this room temperature green process, CaCl and CO are used as the unique source of Ca and CO respectively in view of forming nano-scaled CaCO with a significant shape anisotropy and an elevated surface to volume ratio.

Insights into the precipitation kinetics of CaCO particles in the presence of polystyrene sulfonate using small-angle X-ray scattering.

The formation of calcium carbonate (CaCO) nanoparticles (NPs) in the presence of polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) as an additive was examined by time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) in a flow system that mimics experimental conditions used at home facilities where the precipitation can be achieved in a beaker. The experiments were carried out at low concentrations to remain in the dilute regime. A model-independent analysis was performed using the Porod invariant which defines the scale factor, leaving only the distribution of radii as the adjustable parameter.

Experimental and studies on the structural, magnetic, photocatalytic, and antibacterial properties of Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles.

Copper-doped ZnO nanoparticles with a dopant concentration varying from 1-7 mol% were synthesized and their structural, magnetic, and photocatalytic properties were studied using XRD, TEM, SQUID magnetometry, EPR, UV-vis spectroscopy, and first-principles methods within the framework of density functional theory (DFT). Structural analysis indicated highly crystalline Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles with a hexagonal wurtzite structure, irrespective of the dopant concentration. EDX and EPR studies indicated the incorporation of doped Cu ions in the host ZnO lattice.