A sensitive A3B porphyrin nanomaterial for CO2 detection.

The present report deals with the tailoring, preparation and characterization of novel nanomaterials sensitive to CO2 for use in detection of this gas during space habitation missions. A new nanostructured material based on mixed substituted asymmetrical A3B porphyrin: 5-(4-pyridyl)-10,15,20-tris(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-porphyrin (PyTDMeOPP) was synthesized and characterized by 1H-NMR, FT-IR, UV-vis, fluorescence, MS, HPLC and AFM. Introducing one pyridyl substituent in the 5-meso-position of porphyrin macrocycle confers some degree of hydrophilicity, which may cause self-assembly properties and a better response to increased acidity. The influence of pH and nature of the solvent upon H and J aggregates of the porphyrin are discussed. Porphyrin aggregation at the air-THF interface gave a triangular type morphology, randomly distributed but uniformly oriented. When deposition was made by multiple drop-casting operations, a network of triangles of uniform size was created and a porous structure was obtained, being reorganized finally in rings. When the deposition was made from CHCl3, ring structures ranging in internal diameter from 300 nm to 1 µm, but with the same width of the corona circular of approx. 200 nm were obtained. This porphyrin-based material, capable of generating ring aggregates in both THF and CHCl3, has been proven to be sensitive to CO2 detection. The dependence between the intensity of porphyrin UV-vis absorption and the concentration of CO2 has a good correlation of 98.4%.

Ce, Gd codoped YAG nanopowder for white light emitting device.

In the last years white light emitting devices have received increased attention and have been used in a wide range of applications due to their long lifetime, high luminescence efficiency, low power consumption and environment friendliness, compared to conventional light sources. The discovery and improvement of inorganic phosphors that can be excited by a GaN chip in the wavelength range 370-470 nm is essential for the efficiency and quality of the emitted light. In the white light emitting device technology, the phosphor preparation step is the most important and it's quality defines the "whiteness". The tunable yellow emission property of YAG:Ce phosphor may be improved by the incorporation of an additional codoping element. Ce, Gd codoped YAG phosphor nanopowder with an average grain size of 40 nm has been synthesized by a sol-gel method. Well-crystallized fine nanoparticles and the formation of the garnet phase have been obtained at 1000 degrees C. The chemical structure and morphology of YAG:Ce, Gd was studied.