Jelena D. Zdravković

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were obtained by thermal decomposition of one-dimensional zinc?benzenepolycarboxylato complexes as single- -source precursors at 450 ?C in an air atmosphere. The mechanism and kinetics of thermal degradation of zinc?benzenepolycarboxylato complexes were analyzed under non-isothermal conditions in an air atmosphere. The results of X-ray powder diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO with an average crystallite size in the range of 39?47 nm and similar morphology. The band gap and the specific surface area of ZnO nanoparticles were determined using UV?Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and the Brunauer, Emmett and Teller method, respectively. The photoluminescent, photocatalytic and antimicrobial properties of the ZnO nanoparticles were also examined. The best photocatalytic activity in the degradation of C. I. Reactive Orange 16 dye was observed for the ZnO powder where the crystallites form the smallest agglomerates. All ZnO nanoparticles showed excellent inhibitory effect against Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli.

Origin of the intrinsic coercivity field variations observed by hysteretic measurements established by Nikolic et al. was investigated in detail by ZFC/FC measurements. In this study,...

ε-Fe2O3phase is recognized as an attractive material, in both technological and scientific point of view, since it can achieve very high room-temperature coercivity (10–20 kOe). In this...

This research describes a study of 11 selected samples of brick clays applied in roofing tile production, by using simultaneous thermal analysis. Additionally, the laboratory-sized samples were prepared and fired (850-950 ?C) and technological properties were determined. Mathematical analysis was applied to sum all the experimental results and help discriminate the samples by their behavior during firing. The samples, very similar according to mineralogical and chemical content, as well as granulometry tests, were successfully grouped using principal component analysis (PCA). The PCA was used to explore and easily visualize the differences between samples. The PCA performed for differential thermal analysis (DTA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and differential thermogravimetry (DTG) curves clearly showed that the heat flow was mainly influenced by carbonate content and its grain size, while DTG discriminated samples according to the contents of clay minerals and carbonates. In addition, dilatometry analysis revealed which samples underwent the highest densification during the firing process. The PCA analysis of fired products properties showed that the highest correlations were between water absorption with firing shrinkage and compressive strength.