Nanotechnology case surface effects

Recently, however, the development of nanotechnology may provide the changes on the research and development of practical catalysts. As mentioned in the previous section we can now design and synthesize a metal nanoparticle with not only various sizes and shapes, but also with various combinations of elements and their locations. Thus, we can now design the synergetic effect of two elements. In the case of core/shell structured bimetallic nanoparticles, the shell element can provide a catalytic site and the core element can give an electronic effect (a ligand effect) on the shell element. Since only the atoms on the surface can be attached by substrates, the thickness of the shell should be an important factor to control the catalytic performance. 

Many experiments and molecular simulations of the freezing of fluids confined in nanoporous solids have been reported [1]. This effort is devoted to the understanding of the effect of confinement, surface forces, and reduced dimensionality on the thermodynamics of fluids. These works are also of practical interest for applications involving confined systems (lubrication in nanotechnologies, synthesis of nano-structured materials, phase separation, etc). Beside the abundant literature for pure fluids in nanopores, few studies [2-7] have focused on the freezing of confined mixtures. As in the case of pure substances, the pore width H and the ratio of the wall/fluid to the fluid/fluid interaetions (parameter a [8]), play an important role in the phase behavior of the mixture. The ratio of the wall/fluid interaction for the two species is also a key parameter in describing freezing of these systems. 

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