There is demand for application of polymer materials in electrochemical devices, especially natural polymers, because of their superiority in mechanical integrity, affordability and biodegradability. In this work, solid biopolymer electrolyte (SBEs) comprising 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (2-HEC) doped with different weight percentage of ammonium thiocyanate, NH4 SCN (0 – 44 wt.%) were prepared using a facile solution casting technique. The effects of NH4 SCN on ionic conductivity and dielectric properties of SBEs were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The ionic conductivity recorded at room temperature showed massive improvement for pure 2-HEC from the value of 5.93 x 10-8 S cm-1 to 1.16 ×10-4 S cm-1, comprising 36 wt.% NH4 SCN. Meanwhile, at elevated temperatures, the ionic conductivity revealed the Arrhenius behaviour, where it increased proportional to the temperatures. In addition, by introducing NH4 SCN content as a proton donor, it also effectively reduced the activation energy of the SBEs, which further support enhancing the ionic conductivity. In dielectric permittivity study, the εr and εi increased as the NH4 SCN content increased, revealing the non-Debye dependency of the SBEs, which indicates that the SBEs are ionic conductors. The addition of the optimum value of NH4 SCN content showed good characteristic for electrochemical devices applications.

This article presents the discovery on biopolymer electrolytes comprising of ammonium nitrate, NH4NO3 with dual-blend biopolymer materials, carboxymethyl cellulose/chitosan which were prepared via solution-casting technique. The biopolymer blend based electrolyte films were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy to investigate the formation of the dual-blend biopolymer based complexes. X-Ray Diffraction result showed that all dual-blend samples were predominantly amorphous. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was conducted to obtain their ionic conductivities. The highest conductivity at ambient temperature of 1.03 � 10�5 S cm�1 was obtained for the electrolyte film containing 40 wt% of NH4NO3. These results indicated that the dual-blend biopolymer based electrolyte has potential for application of electrochemical devices.

Corrosion is a natural phenomenon defined as the deterioration of a substance or its properties due to interactions between the substance and the environment. Prolonged exposure to corrosive environment had negative consequences, including increased repair and maintenance costs, decreased structural integrity, and fatalities. An approach to address the issue is to use a corrosion inhibitor. Numerous inhibitors have lately been developed or made accessible on the market. However, some could be dangerous or contain of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Our study introduces carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) mixed with 1-ethyl-3- methylimidazolium acetate ([EMIM][Ac]) ionic liquid, also known as CIL, as a corrosion inhibitor on mild steel in seawater. The functional group of combined CIL was examined using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The study employed mild steel specimens immersed in varying concentrations of CIL, subject to electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements at different temperatures. The obtained result of EIS measurement were analyzed to calculate corrosion inhibition efficiency (IE) of CIL. 46 of electrochemical data were fed into a machine learning technique to forecast the effectiveness of the inhibition. Results indicate when inhibition concentration rises, so does inhibition efficiency (IE). The inhibitory efficiency of CIL decreased as the temperature of the test solution rose. At an ambient temperature of 950 ppm, an IE result of 83% was recorded. Levenberg-Marquardt (LM), Bayesian Regularization (BR), and Scale Conjugate Gradient (SCG) training algorithms were compared via Neural Network Fitting Tool (NNTool). LM was found to be the best backpropagation training algorithm, providing the highest regression value (R) of 0.907 and the lowest mean square error (MSE) of 0.006 when compared to BR and SCG. With R value closer to 1 and MSE close to 0, the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) appears to offer a new insight in predicting methods with the goal of easing the hassle and time-consuming of experimental work.

A new single crystal of 4-(diphenylamino)benzaldehyde-4-(methyl)thiosemicarbazone, featuring a D-π-D molecular template was synthesized and utilized as an additive in solid biopolymer electrolytes mixed with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and propylene carbonate (PC). The additive was structurally characterized using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. This revealed a triclinic crystal structure belonging to the triclinic space group, P− 1 . The lattice parameters were determined as follows: a = 6.942(6) Å; b = 11.409(11) Å; c = 12.442(10) Å; α= 91.024(16)◦; β= 104.264(12)◦; γ= 107.496(12)◦; V= 906.4(13)Å3 and Z= 2. Notably, the additive exhibited extensive π-electron delocalization, leading to the formation of infinite chains through C-H-π interactions and intermolecular hydrogen bonding, ultimately resulting in an inverse centrosymmetric dimer in the form of the R2 2(8) motif. Furthermore, a detailed Hirshfeld surface analysis of the additive revealed significant contributions from C⋅⋅⋅H/ H⋅⋅⋅C, H⋅⋅⋅S/S⋅⋅⋅H and H⋅⋅⋅N/ N⋅⋅⋅H interactions with 20.7%, 11.2% and 3.7% of the total Hirshfeld surface analysis, respectively. These interactions indicate the potential of the additive to facilitate efficient electron transfer processes. The conductivity (σ) of the CMC–PC–additive system determined at ambient temperature was 8.00 ×10− 9 Scm− 1. The dielectric properties showed that the system follows the non-Debye behavior, in which the conductivity is predominantly due to ion conduction via the hopping mechanism.

A wound dressing is important to ensure an efficient healing process while protecting the wound area. This research study combined 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (2HEC)—an etherified cellulose derivative with salicylic acid (SA) to develop a single layer and investigate the 2HEC viability as wound dressing material. Nine different samples with different compositions of SA, from 5 wt.% to 40 wt.% (with an interval of 5 wt.%) and one control sample without adding SA were prepared via the solution casting method. The 2HEC-SA films were studied regarding the effects of SA composition on antimicrobial properties (Staphylococcus aureus) via the well-diffusion method. Additionally, degradability, mechanical properties, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) of 2HEC-SA films have also been tested. The strongest antimicrobial effect of 2HEC-SA film was obtained at 40 wt.% with a 16 mm inhibition zone diameter. There was a noticeable decreasing weight loss pattern in the degradation test and the tensile strength of 2HEC-SA film when the composition of salicylic acid is increased. 2HEC-SA film changes phases from amorphous to crystalline starting at 25 wt.% of salicylic acid as seen through XRD, while FTIR shows that complexation of 2HEC and salicylic acid occurred at 1050 cm−1.

Suitable block mold formulations for copper alloy casting have been developed and the formulations used were 25% plaster of paris (POP), 75% silica sand and 31-37% water. Silica sand with a grain size of 106-212 µm was added into dilute suspension of POP and the mixing process was continued until a thick slurry (mixture) was obtained. It has been found that the mixing time of molding materials was highly depended on the type of plaster and optimum slurry viscosity around the diameter of 7.7 – 9.6 cm (slump test) was essential to ensure that the wax pattern could be fully invested. In the dewaxing process, the mold was subjected to the temperature of 170oC for 3 hours and burnout process was effectively achieved by heating the molds at 750oC for 5 hours. The pouring process was successfully carried out without any leakage and it was found that all molds can be easily broken under a force of a hammer.The developed mold also able to produce fully formed of casting without any major defects such as misrun, fin or flash and rat tail, which can be associated with inadequate mold temperature, mold cracks and the separation of mold’s material respectively.

In this study, a polymer-blend system consist of Carboxy Methylcellulose (CMC)-Chitosan (CS) as blend biopolymer host and doped with various composition of Dodecyltrimethyl Ammonium Bromide (DTAB) were successfully prepared via solution casting techniques. The new system has been analyzed through Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) from temperature 303 K until 393 K to determine the conductivity of biopolymer electrolytes in the frequency range of 50 Hz to 1 MHz and the voltage between 5 to 50 mV. The optimum conductivity (1.86×10?6 S.cm?1) at ambient temperature obtained for composition of 5 wt.% DTAB. The temperature dependence of ionic conductivity was found to obeys the Arrhenius rule where R2?1 and thermally activated. The dielectric studies show a non-Debye behavior of SBEs based on the analyzed data using complex permittivity, e* and complex electrical modulus, M* of the sample at selected temperature.

Recently, porous silicon (PS) gains a lot of research interest with its potential applications in optoelectronics, flat panel displays technology, and chemical sensor. In this work, PS was chemically etched on p-type silicon (Si) wafer by hydrofluoric acid (HF) with 40% nitric acid (HNO3) concentration at different etching time. The PS has porosity dependent on etching time in the range (38-60) % that gives orange-red photoluminescence (PL) between 657 nm to 661 nm. The PL intensity increases and the peak wavelength shows slight blue shift as etching time increases. The energy gap obtained are higher than pure Si (1.11eV). Meanwhile, the conductivity of the PS decreases as the porosity and energy gap increase.

Ionic conductivity is one of the important properties for an electrolyte to be considered before it can used as practical application in energy storage. Therefore, this study aims to improve the ionic conductivity of solid biopolymer electrolyte (SBE) based on carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) doped with ammonium acetate (AA) by incorporating plasticizer, namely, dimethyl carbonate (DMC). The SBEs were prepared using solution casting technique. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) was used to as certain the complexation among CMC, AA and DMC. From FTIR analysis, DMC is believed to have created new pathways for ionic conduction. The electrical properties of SBEs were investigated using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The highest conducting value achieved for the plasticized system was4.27×10-5S cm-1for sample containing 10 wt% DMC. Dielectric analysis revealed that frequency and plasticizer content affect the dielectric constant value. By employing Transference Number Measurement (TNM), the charge transport in the SBE system proved to be predominantly ions where DMC 10 has the highest tion(0.95). Overall, addition of 10 wt% of DMC has the best electrical properties.

In this research, solid biopolymer electrolytes (SBEs) based on carboxy methylcellulose (CMC) has been prepared by doping different concentration of salicylic acid (SA) via solution casting technique. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy was used to study the interaction between the host and ionic dopant. New peaks were observed at 1700, 2890, 2920 cm-1.The highest ionic conductivity achieved at room temperature is 9.50 × 108 S cm1 for CMC incorporated with 7 wt. % SA. In addition, the temperature dependence of the SBEs exhibit Arrhenius behavior.

In this work, a plasticised carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) solid biopolymer electrolytes (PSBEs) system was prepared via solution casting technique with ammonium acetate (NH4 CH3 COO), ethylene glycol (EG) as doping salt and plasticiser respectively. Upon addition of 35 wt.% of EG (PSBE 4), the ionic conductivity obtained is 1.81 × 10-5 Scm-1 which represents the optimum value for the system. The PSBE also tested at elevated temperatures and fitted to an Arrhenius equation. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis found no significant changes to the molecular structure of CMC with addition of EG. Jonscher’s power law indicates that quantum tunnelling is the well-matched model to describe ionic conduction for PSBE 4 and it appears that it is also highly ionic with good transference number obtain from dc polarisation analysis technique.

The present study aims to investigate the structural and ionic conductivity of carboxymethyl cellulose - ammonium chloride as proton conducting polymer electrolytes. The complexion of polymer electrolyte films has been confirmed via FTIR studies. The conductivity enhancement with the addition of ammonium chloride concentration was proved due to the increase in amorphous nature of the films as evidenced XRD analysis. Impedance studies indicate that the highest ionic conductivity of 1.43 x 10-3 Scm-1 was observed with the addition of 16 wt.% ammonium chloride in polymer electrolyte system obtained at ambient temperature.

Solid polymer electrolyte (SPE), which contained of 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (2-HEC) and ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), was prepared using solution casting method. The ionic conductivity and a.c. conduction mechanism of the SPE was analysed using electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The highest ionic conductivity of (4.51±0.10) × 10-4 Scm-1 was achieved for film containing 12 wt.% of NH4NO3. The temperature dependence of exponent s was observed to be almost independent of temperature. This conduction mechanism study of 2-HEC-NH4NO3 SPE was proven to follow quantum mechanical tunneling (QMT) model.

In the past few decades, the unique properties of acetylide and thiourea moieties individually have attracted great attention from researchers in various fields to be developed in numerous applications in advanced materials technology, especially as active layer in gas sensing devices. Acetylide and thiourea molecular system provides a wide range of electronic properties as they possess rigid π-systems in their designated structures. In this study, a derivative of acetylide-thiourea featuring N-(4[4-aminophenyl] ethynyl benzonitrile)-N’-(4-ethyl benzoyl)thiourea (TCN) has been synthesised having general formula of ArC(O)NHC(S)NHC≡C)Ar adopting the system of D-π-A for significant development of conductive materials. The derivative consists of donating substituent which has been characterised by typical spectroscopic techniques namely infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, and 1H and 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. In turn, TCN was deposited onto interdigitated electrode (IDE) for the measurement of thin-film resistance. The resistance values of synthesised compound is due to the effect of donating substituent attached to the acetylide-thiourea, which indeed altered the conductivity performances of fabricated IDE substrate. In fact, the theoretical calculation also was carried out using Gaussian 09 to evaluate the relationship between experimental and theoretical analyses of acetylide-thiourea semiconductor properties in term of energy band gap and sensing response towards selected analyte.

Ginger has a high moisture content, which makes it highly susceptible to spoilage. Therefore, the shelf life can be extended through drying. In the drying process, osmotic dehydration is applied as pre-treatment due to its simple operation and energy-saving process for removing moisture from food. However, large solute gain during the osmotic dehydration has become the major challenge of this process as it has a negative impact on the final product. The edible coating is the key step to circumventing this issue. Alginate is a potential candidate for the coating material to enhance the mass transfer kinetics of the osmotic dehydration process. This study investigated the surface modification of ginger slices caused by the cross-linker calcium chloride and plasticizer glycerol on alginate coating using a Scanning Electron Microscope. Furthermore, the kinetics of water loss and solute gain were evaluated and modelling aspects were conducted. It was observed that the surface roughness of ginger coated with a combination of alginate, glycerol and calcium ions has reduced. This facilitated the mass transfer process, which was observed to have a high water loss and a lower solute gain. The Peleg model presented the best fitting model of mass transfer kinetics during osmotic dehydration of ginger slices. From this work, it can be deduced that alginate-based coating can be a promising pre-treatment step in the osmotic dehydration process.

A nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) with different percentages of argon and oxygen gas flow rate was deposited on a silicon wafer by a simple hot tube thermal evaporation technique. The effect of different percentages of gas flow rate on the crystal structure, surface morphology and optical properties were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and RAMAN spectroscopy, respectively. The changes of morphologies from FESEM were significant where the grown ZnO nanostructures show three different shapes which are nanotripods, nanoclusters and nanorods at 5%, 10% and 25% of oxygen gas, respectively. EDX results revealed that Zn and O elements have a major percentage in the sample indicating a composition has high purity of ZnO. XRD patterns displayed the most intense diffraction peak of ZnO at (101), which exhibited a single crystalline hexagonal structure with preferred growth orientation in the c-axis. RAMAN scattering study found that synthesized ZnO shows the high intensity of E2 mode and low intensity of E1 mode attributed to all the samples having good crystal quality containing fewer structural defects. In conclusion, the E15 sample with a 25% oxygen gas flow rate was selected as an optimum result for synthesizing a homogenous surface and high crystallinity of ZnO by using a hot tube thermal evaporation process. This work can enhance the development of ZnO production in various applications.

Conjugated polymers have been widely used for electronic purpose applications due to their numerous advantages. This has led many researches to pay their major attention in studying on characteristics of conjugated polymer thin films. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of undoped conjugated polymer thin films on their optical and electrical properties. Poly(3- thiophene acetic acid), Polypyrrole and Polythiophene thin film was fabricated on ITO glass substrate by using EIS. Film thickness, energy band gap and electrical conductivity of thin films were characterized by using profilometer, ultraviolet-visible spectrometer and four point probe method respectively. The thickness of each thin film varied between 50.534 nm to 97.03 nm. The result has shown that thicker film has lower energy band gap compared to the thinner one. However the electrical conductivity showed an opposite behavior.