Theoretical Study of the Electronic and Optical Properties to Design Dye-Sensitivity for Using in Solar Cell Device

In this work, the structural and optoelectronic properties of phenanthrene-1,3,4-thaidiazoles oligomers were calculated using density functional theory (DFT) at B3LYP/6-31G(d) basis set level, to evaluate their possible application as organic semiconductor materials in photovoltaic and solar cell devices. For this reason, the energy gaps, frontier orbital (HOMO, and LUMO) distributions, total energies, Fermi level energies, work functions and maximum wavelength absorption, vertical absorption energies, and oscillator strengths have been investigated and discussed. The structures of phenanthrene-1,3,4-thiadiazoles oligomers are expanded from 1 to 10 thiadiazole monomeric units, to examine the increase of thiadiazole monomeric units on the optoelectronic properties. We observed that increased the number of monomeric units lead to significantly enhance the optoelectronic properties, which caused to decrease the gap energy from 3.69 eV in the structure with one thiadiazole ring just to 2.36 eV with 10 units. These changes give the shift of maximum absorption wavelengths from 376 to 578 nm. Consequently, these molecules have main absorption bands within the solar spectrum, to give the best performance for photovoltaic and organic solar cells devices.     

Tuning the electronic properties of the fullerene C<Subscript>20</Subscript> cage via silicon impurities

The fullerene C₂₀ represents one of the most active classes of nanostructures, and they have been widely used as active materials for important applications. In this study, we investigate and discuss the tuning of the electronic properties of the fullerene C₂₀ cage via various consternations and locations of silicon atoms. All calculations are based on the density functional theory (DFT) at the B3LYP/3-21G level through the Gaussian 09W program package. The optimized structures, density of state (DOS) analysis, total energies, dipole moments, HOMO energies, Fermi level energies, LUMO energies, energy gaps, and the work functions were performed and discussed. Our results show that the electronic properties of C₂₀ cage do not only depend on the silicon impurity concentrations, but also depend on the geometrical pattern of silicon impurities in the C₂₀ cage. The tuning of the electronic properties leads to significant changes in the charge transport and the absorption spectra for C₂₀ cage via engineering the energy gap. So, we suggest that substitutional impurities are the best viable option for enhancement of desired electronic properties of C₂₀ cage for using these structures in nanoelectronics and solar cell applications.     

Hydrolytic vs. Nonhydrolytic Sol-Gel in Preparation of Mixed Oxide Silica–Alumina Catalysts for Esterification

The development of green and sustainable materials for use as heterogeneous catalysts is a growing area of research in chemistry. In this paper, mesoporous SiO₂-Al₂O₃ mixed oxide catalysts with different Si/Al ratios were prepared via hydrolytic (HSG) and nonhydrolytic sol-gel (NHSG) processes. The HSG route was explored in acidic and basic media, while NHSG was investigated in the presence of diisopropylether as an oxygen donor. The obtained materials were characterized using EDX, N₂-physisorption, powder XRD, ²⁹Si, ²⁷Al MAS-NMR, and NH₃-TPD. This approach offered good control of composition and the Si/Al ratio was found to influence both the texture and the acidity of the mesoporous materials. According to ²⁷Al and ²⁹Si MAS NMR analyses, silicon and aluminum were more regularly distributed in NHSG samples that were also more acidic. Silica–alumina catalysts prepared via NHSG were more active in esterification of acetic acid with n-BuOH.     

Power Law and Logarithmic Entropy Corrected Ricci Dark Energy Models in Brans-Dicke Chameleon Cosmology

In this work, we study the power-law and the logarithmic entropy corrected versions of the Ricci Dark Energy (RDE) model in the framework of the Brans-Dicke cosmology non-minimally coupled with a chameleon scalar field ?. Considering the presence of interaction between Dark Energy (DE) and Dark Matter (DM), we derived the expressions of some relevant cosmological parameters, i.e. the equation of state parameter ω _D , the deceleration parameter q and the evolution of the energy density parameter $\varOmega'_{D}$ .     

Corrosion Inhibition of Mild Steel in Hydrochloric Acid Environment Using Terephthaldehyde Based on Schiff Base: Gravimetric,Thermodynamic, and Computational Studies

Using traditional weight-loss tests, as well as different electrochemical techniques (potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy), we investigated the corrosion-inhibition performance of 2,2′-(1,4-phenylenebis(methanylylidene)) bis(N-(3-methoxyphenyl) hydrazinecarbothioamide) (PMBMH) as an inhibitor for mild steel in a 1 M hydrochloric acid solution. The maximum protection efficacy of 0.0005 M of PMBMH was 95%. Due to the creation of a protective adsorption layer instead of the adsorbed H₂O molecules and acidic chloride ions, the existence of the investigated inhibitor reduced the corrosion rate and increased the inhibitory efficacy. The inhibition efficiency increased as the inhibitor concentration increased, but it decreased as the temperature increased. The PMBMH adsorption mode followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, with high adsorption-inhibition activity. Furthermore, the value of the ∆Gadso indicated that PMBMH contributed to the physical and chemical adsorption onto the mild-steel surface. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) helped in the calculation of the quantum chemical parameters for finding the correlation between the inhibition activity and the molecular structure. The experimental and theoretical findings in this investigation are in good agreement.     

DFT Investigation of Graphene Nanoribbon As a Potential Nanobiosensor for Tyrosine Amino Acid

Russian Journal of Physical Chemistry A - We investigated (2,2) graphene nanoribbon (GNR) as a nanobiosensor for tyrosine (C9H11NO3) amino acid detection using density functional theory (DFT)...