Electrospinning of Magnetite-Polyacrylonitrile Composites for the Production of Oxygen Reduction Reaction Catalysts.

In this study, electrospun carbon fiber electrodes were prepared by the carbonization of PAN-FeO electrospun fibers at 800 °C for their use as catalysts in the oxygen reduction reaction in an alkaline electrolyte. Magnetic nanofiber mats were fabricated using a needle-free electrospinning method by incorporating magnetic nanoparticles into a polymer solution. Electrochemical tests revealed that the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity is optimized at an intermediate magnetite loading of 30% wt.

Exchange Bias in Nanostructures: An Update.

Exchange bias (EB) is a unidirectional anisotropy occurring in exchange-coupled ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic systems, such as thin films, core-shell particles, or nanostructures. In addition to a horizontal shift of the hysteresis loop, defining the exchange bias, asymmetric loops and even vertical shifts can often be found. While the effect is used in hard disk read heads and several spintronics applications, its origin is still not fully understood.

Optical Properties of Electrospun Nanofiber Mats.

Electrospun nanofiber mats are usually applied in fields where their high specific surface area and small pore sizes are important, such as biotechnology or filtration. Optically, they are mostly white due to scattering from the irregularly distributed, thin nanofibers. Nevertheless, their optical properties can be modified and become highly important for different applications, e.

Magnetic 3D-Printed Composites-Production and Applications.

Three-dimensional printing enables building objects shaped with a large degree of freedom. Additional functionalities can be included by modifying the printing material, e.g.

Investigation of Low-Cost FDM-Printed Polymers for Elevated-Temperature Applications.

While fused deposition modeling (FDM) and other relatively inexpensive 3D printing methods are nowadays used in many applications, the possible areas of using FDM-printed objects are still limited due to mechanical and thermal constraints. Applications for space, e.g.

Measuring Biosignals with Single Circuit Boards.

To measure biosignals constantly, using textile-integrated or even textile-based electrodes and miniaturized electronics, is ideal to provide maximum comfort for patients or athletes during monitoring. While in former times, this was usually solved by integrating specialized electronics into garments, either connected to a handheld computer or including a wireless data transfer option, nowadays increasingly smaller single circuit boards are available, e.g.

Electrospinning Nanofiber Mats with Magnetite Nanoparticles Using Various Needle-Based Techniques.

Electrospinning can be used to produce nanofiber mats containing diverse nanoparticles for various purposes. Magnetic nanoparticles, such as magnetite (FeO), can be introduced to produce magnetic nanofiber mats, e.g.

Investigating the Recycling Potential of Glass Based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells-Melting Experiment.

The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly clear, and the urgency of solving the energy and resource crisis has been recognized by politicians and society. One of the most important solutions is sustainable energy technologies. The problem with the state of the art, however, is that production is energy-intensive and non-recyclable waste remains after the useful life.

Textile-Based Sensors for Biosignal Detection and Monitoring.

Biosignals often have to be detected in sports or for medical reasons. Typical biosignals are pulse and ECG (electrocardiogram), breathing, blood pressure, skin temperature, oxygen saturation, bioimpedance, etc. Typically, scientists attempt to measure these biosignals noninvasively, i.

Neuro-Inspired Signal Processing in Ferromagnetic Nanofibers.

Computers nowadays have different components for data storage and data processing, making data transfer between these units a bottleneck for computing speed. Therefore, so-called cognitive (or neuromorphic) computing approaches try combining both these tasks, as is done in the human brain, to make computing faster and less energy-consuming. One possible method to prepare new hardware solutions for neuromorphic computing is given by nanofiber networks as they can be prepared by diverse methods, from lithography to electrospinning.

Electrospun Nanofiber Mats for Filtering Applications-Technology, Structure and Materials.

Air pollution is one of the biggest health and environmental problems in the world and a huge threat to human health on a global scale. Due to the great impact of respiratory viral infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, lung disease, and heart disease, respiratory allergies are increasing significantly every year. Because of the special properties of electrospun nanofiber mats, e.

Asymmetric Hysteresis Loops in Structured Ferromagnetic Nanoparticles with Hard/Soft Areas.

Horizontally shifted and asymmetric hysteresis loops are often associated with exchange-biased samples, consisting of a ferromagnet exchange coupled with an antiferromagnet. In purely ferromagnetic samples, such effects can occur due to undetected minor loops or thermal effects. Simulations of ferromagnetic nanostructures at zero temperature with sufficiently large saturation fields should not lead to such asymmetries.

On the reliability of highly magnified micrographs for structural analysis in materials science.

Highly magnified micrographs are part of the majority of publications in materials science and related fields. They are often the basis for discussions and far-reaching conclusions on the nature of the specimen. In many cases, reviewers demand and researchers deliver only the bare minimum of micrographs to substantiate the research hypothesis at hand.

Magnetic Elements for Neuromorphic Computing.

Neuromorphic computing is assumed to be significantly more energy efficient than, and at the same time expected to outperform, conventional computers in several applications, such as data classification, since it overcomes the so-called von Neumann bottleneck. Artificial synapses and neurons can be implemented into conventional hardware using new software, but also be created by diverse spintronic devices and other elements to completely avoid the disadvantages of recent hardware architecture. Here, we report on diverse approaches to implement neuromorphic functionalities in novel hardware using magnetic elements, published during the last years.

3D Printed MEMS Technology-Recent Developments and Applications.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are of high interest for recent electronic applications. Their applications range from medicine to measurement technology, from microfluidics to the Internet of Things (IoT). In many cases, MEMS elements serve as sensors or actuators, e.

Micromagnetic Simulations of Chaotic Ferromagnetic Nanofiber Networks.

Electrospinning can be used to create nanofibers with diameters of typically a few tens to a few hundred nanometers. While pure polymers are often electrospun, it is also possible to use polymer blends or to include nanoparticles. In this way, e.

Magnetic Properties of Electrospun Magnetic Nanofiber Mats after Stabilization and Carbonization.

Magnetic nanofibers are of great interest in basic research, as well as for possible applications in spintronics and neuromorphic computing. Here we report on the preparation of magnetic nanofiber mats by electrospinning polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/nanoparticle solutions, creating a network of arbitrarily oriented nanofibers with a high aspect ratio. Since PAN is a typical precursor for carbon, the magnetic nanofiber mats were stabilized and carbonized after electrospinning.

Conductive Electrospun Nanofiber Mats.

Conductive nanofiber mats can be used in a broad variety of applications, such as electromagnetic shielding, sensors, multifunctional textile surfaces, organic photovoltaics, or biomedicine. While nanofibers or nanofiber from pure or blended polymers can in many cases unambiguously be prepared by electrospinning, creating conductive nanofibers is often more challenging. Integration of conductive nano-fillers often needs a calcination step to evaporate the non-conductive polymer matrix which is necessary for the electrospinning process, while conductive polymers have often relatively low molecular weights and are hard to dissolve in common solvents, both factors impeding spinning them solely and making a spinning agent necessary.

Orientation of Electrospun Magnetic Nanofibers Near Conductive Areas.

Electrospinning can be used to create nanofibers from diverse polymers in which also other materials can be embedded. Inclusion of magnetic nanoparticles, for example, results in preparation of magnetic nanofibers which are usually isotropically distributed on the substrate. One method to create a preferred direction is using a spinning cylinder as the substrate, which is not always possible, especially in commercial electrospinning machines.

Effect of Caffeine Copigmentation of Anthocyanin Dyes on DSSC Efficiency.

Caffeine is known to influence the absorbance spectrum of anthocyanin dyes. Such dyes are often used as sensitizers in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Natural dyes, like anthocyanins, yield only small DSSC efficiencies, but are of high interest since they are usually non-toxic and inexpensive.

Magnetic Nanofiber Mats for Data Storage and Transfer.

Electrospun nanofiber mats may serve as new hardware for neuromorphic computing. To enable data storage and transfer in them, they should be magnetic, possibly electrically conductive and able to respond to further external impulses. Here we report on creating magnetic nanofiber mats, consisting of magnetically doped polymer nanofibers for data transfer and polymer beads containing larger amounts of magnetic nanoparticles for storage purposes.

Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Electrospun Nanofiber Mat-Based Counter Electrodes.

Textile-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) can be created by building the necessary layers on a textile fabric or around fibers which are afterwards used to prepare a textile layer, typically by weaving. Another approach is using electrospun nanofiber mats as one or more layers. In this work, electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber mats coated by a conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiopene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) were used to produce the counter electrodes for half-textile DSSCs.

Elastic constants of the SrLaAlO4 and SrLrGagaO4 crystals measured at ultrasonic and hypersonic oustic frequencies.

Elastic constants measured by Brillouin light-scattering experiments were compared with results estimated from the pulse-echo-overlap method for the ultrasonic frequency to find dispersion in their values. In this way Brillouin hypersonic experiments complete the ultrasonic results. The present investigation includes a careful analysis of the accuracy of the results.