H.Y. Zahran

Facile microwave-assisted synthesis of Te-doped hydroxyapatite nanorods and nanosheets and their characterizations for bone cement applications

In this work, the authors have fabricated the nanorods and nanosheets of pure and Te-doped HAp with different Te concentrations (0.04, 0.08, 0.16, 0.24wt%) by microwave-assisted technique at low temperature. The crystallite size, degree of crystallinity and lattice parameters are calculated. FE-SEM study confirms that the fabricated nanostructures are nanorods of diameter about 10nm in undoped and at low concentration of Te doping. However, at and higher concentration, it becomes nanosheets of about 5nm thickness. X-ray diffraction, FT-IR and FT-Raman studies shows that the prepared products are of HAp and Te has been successfully incorporated. From EDX the Ca/P molar ratio of the pure HAp is about 1.740, while this ratio for 0.04, 0.08, 0.16, 0.24 wt% Te doped is about 1.53, 1.678, 1.724, 1.792, respectively. Crystallite size was found to be increased with Te doping from 15nm to 62nm. The value of dielectric constant is found to be enhanced at higher concentrations of Te. The values of linear absorption coefficient were also determined and show that the prepared material with Te doping is more absorbable than pure and will be highly applicable in radiation detection applications. Furthermore, the antimicrobial potential of pure and Te doped HAp was examined against some Gram- negative and positive bacteria and fungi by agar disk diffusion method. The results demonstrated that the antimicrobial activity of Te doped HAp is stronger than that of pure HAp where it exhibited the highest activity against Bacillus subtilis>Candida albicans>Shigella dysenteriae.

Facile microwave-assisted synthesis of Al:Mn co-doped PbI2 nanosheets: structural, vibrational, morphological, dielectric and radiation activity studies

Abstract Herein, we report a successful development of nano-scale pure and Al and Mn co-doped PbI2 using facile microwaveassisted route. Structural study was done through X-ray diffraction analysis of grain size, dislocation density and lattice strain. The crystallite size was found to vary from 28 nm to 40 nm due to Al:Mn co-doping in PbI2. The presence of various vibrational modes was confirmed by FT-IR spectroscopy and red shifting was observed in peak positions compared to the bulk. Surface morphology, examined using a scanning electron microscope, confirmed the formation of single crystal nanosheets of a thickness in the range of 10 nm to 30 nm. The single crystal nanosheets were found to be transformed to large area nanosheets due to the doping. Enhancement in dielectric constant from ~7.5 to 11 was observed with increasing Al doping concentration. Linear attenuation coefficient was calculated and showed the enhancement of blocking gamma rays with increasing doping concentration. Its value was found to increase from 7.5 to 12.8 with the doping. The results suggest that the synthesized nanostructures can be used for detection and absorption of gamma rays emitted by 137Cs and 241Am sources.