Douglas Letsholathebe

Elucidation of photocatalysis, photoluminescence and antibacterial studies of ZnO thin films by spin coating method

The ZnO thin films have been prepared by spin coating followed by annealing at different temperatures like 300°C, 350°C, 400°C, 450°C, 500°C & 550°C and ZnO nanoparticles have been used for photocatalytic and antibacterial applications. The morphological investigation and phase analysis of synthesized thin films well characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Photoluminescence (PL), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Raman studies. The luminescence peaks detected in the noticeable region between 350nm to 550nm for all synthesized nanosamples are associated to the existence of defects of oxygen sites. The luminescence emission bands are observed at 487nm (blue emission), and 530nm (green emission) at the RT. It is observed that there are no modification positions of PL peaks in all ZnO nanoparticles. In the current attempt, the synthesized ZnO particles have been used photocatalytic and antibacterial applications. The antibacterial activity of characterized samples was regulated using different concentrations of synthesized ZnO particles (100μg/ml, 200μg/ml, 300μg/ml, 400μg/ml, 500μg/ml and 600μg/ml) against gram positive and gram negative bacteria (S. pnemoniae, S. aureus, E. coli and E. hermannii) using agar well diffusion assay. The increase in concentration, decrease in zone of inhibition. The prepared ZnO morphologies showed photocatalytic activity under the sunlight enhancing the degradation rate of Rhodamine-B (RhB), which is one of the common water pollutant released by textile and paper industries.

Structural, Optical, Morphological and Microbial Studies on SnO2 Nanoparticles Prepared by Co-Precipitation Method

Nanoparticles of tin oxide (SnO2) powders were prepared by co-precipitation method at 500 °C, 700 °C and 900 °C temperature. The sintered SnO2 nanoparticles, structural, optical, magnetic, morphological properties and microbial activity have been studied. XRD studies reveals that sintered powder which exhibits tetragonal crystal structure and both crystallinity as well as crystal size increase with increase in temperature. The morphological studies reveal randomly arranged grains with compact nature grain size increases with sintering temperature. The compositional analyses of SnO2 nanoparticles have been studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis. The optical band gap values of SnO2 nanoparticles were calculated to be about 4.3 eV in the temperature 500 °C, comparing with that of the bulk SnO2 3.78 eV, by optical absorption measurement. Room temperature M-H curve for pure SnO2 nanoparticles exhibits ferromagnetic behaviour. The tin oxide nanoparticles are acted as potential candidate material for bacterial and fungal activity.

Effective complex permittivity of a weakly ionized vegetation litter fire at microwave frequencies

Thermal ionization of alkali species emitted from thermally decomposing vegetative matter into the combustion zone of a fire makes the zone a weakly ionized gaseous medium. Collision between the medium electrons and neutral flame particles is a dominant form of particle interaction and incident microwave energy absorption process. Electromagnetic wave absorption properties of vegetation fire have implications for the safety of fire fighters during wildfire suppression where communication blackouts have been experienced. Propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves in a vegetation fire could be deduced from its relative dielectric permittivity. In the experiment, a controlled fire burner was constructed where various dried natural vegetation could be used as fuel. The burner was equipped with thermocouples and used as a cavity for microwaves with a laboratory quality network analyser to determine effective complex permittivity from scattering parameters. A controlled vegetation fire with a maximum flame temperature of 1050 K was set in the burner and X-band microwaves (8.0–9.6 GHz) were made to propagate through the flame. For the flame, at temperatures of 800 and 1015 K, imaginary and real components of effective complex dielectric permittivity were measured to range from 0.113 to 0.119 and from 0.898 to 0.903, respectively.

Antibacterial, magnetic, optical and humidity sensor studies of β-CoMoO4 - Co3O4 nanocomposites and its synthesis and characterization

Cobalt Molybdate (β-CoMoO4) and Cobalt Oxide (Co3O4) nanocomposite was prepared via co-precipitation and solid-state methods. Various techniques like powder XRD, FESEM, HRTEM, FTIR, VSM, UV-Vis and PL spectroscopy were used to investigate the structure and morphology of as prepared samples. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) reveals monoclinic and cubic structure for β-CoMoO4 and Co3O4 respectively. The surface morphology was observed using field emission electron microscopy (FESEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), which shows the formation of nanocomposites at nanoscale range, the presence of elements were determined by energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). FTIR analysis confirms the formation and bonding nature of the samples. The anti-ferromagnetic behavior of CMCO64 composite was determined by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The bandgap values were calculated by extrapolating the straight line on the energy axis (hν), and the values of β-CoMoO4, CO3O4 and β-CoMoO4 - CO3O4 composites were determined to be 2.20, 2.09 eV and 1.54-2.44 eV respectively. The weak blue emission peak observed at 489 nm is corresponds to crystal defects only observed in CMCO01 and CMCO64 composite, for CMCO10 the peak shifted to green region. Antibacterial studies illustrate good result for the CMCO64 composite against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The sensor studies were measured at different humidity environment (RH5% to RH98%). It was found that the increase in relative humidity leads to increase in the sensitivity factor of the samples. Among the samples CMCO64 composite possess highest sensitivity factor of (Sf = 4851) with response time of 60 s and recovery time of 230 s respectively.

Nondestructive Measurement of Momentum Transfer Collision Frequency for Low Temperature Combustion Plasma

Accurately measured momentum transfer collision frequency and electron density for fire plasma enable correct simulation of electromagnetic wave propagation in the medium. The simulation is essential for designing high-performance systems suitable for the environment. Despite this, momentum transfer collision frequency for fire plumes has always been an estimated quantity and/or crudely determined. There are anecdotal reports of severe line-of-sight (LOS) radio frequency signal degradation on firegrounds. The problem has implications on safety of fire-fighters during wildfire suppression hence the need of high performance communication systems. In the experiment, a nonintrusive and direct method for measuring momentum transfer collision frequency in a fire plume was carried out. Using an automatic network analyser, -band microwaves were caused to propagate combustion zones of eucalyptus and grass litter fires to measure the flames, scattering parameters. The parameters were then used to determine average collision frequencies for the plumes. The average collision frequencies for the eucalyptus and grass fire plumes were measured to be and  rad/s, respectively.