Polymer inorganic nanocomposites (PINCs) have been engineered for controlling the electrical arc and to improve the arc interruption capability of the electrical switching applications, like circuit breakers. Several PINCs are fabricated by formation of ZnO quantum dots (QDs) in a poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) matrix via in-situ polymerization method to avoid agglomeration of QDs, leading to a good spatial distribution of QDs in the polymer matrix. These PINCs have been characterized in detail for the morphology of QDs, interaction between QDs and polymer matrix, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation absorption. ZnO QDs have been assessed to have particle diameter of 3.5 nm, and their presence in the PMMA is revealed by the unique luminescence characteristics of the QDs under UV light. The presence of ZnO QDs broadened the range of UV radiation absorption of PMMA and the absorption edge is gradually shifted from 270 nm to 338 nm with step-wise loading of ZnO QDs. The PINCs are tested to determine their reproducibility and impact on the electrical arcs of current 1.6 kA generated using a specially designed test-setup. Interaction of PINCs with the electrical arcs generates ablation of chemical species towards core of the electrical arc, resulting in increase of voltage leading to cool-down the arc temperature. This experimental study demonstrates for the first time that these PINCs are reproducible, reliable and provides superior arc interruption capability.

Nanofluids (NFs), wherein solid nanoparticles (NPs) are dispersed in traditional heat exchange fluids, are recognized for improving the performance of traditional fluids by enhancing their thermal conductivity (TC). The presence of impurities or undesired phases in commercial NPs may influence the thermo-physical properties of NFs including TC and viscosity, which makes it difficult to understand the real effect of NPs on heat transport characteristics of NFs. Moreover, the presence of these impurities in commercial NPs is unavoidable and their removal from commercial NPs with no negative impact on composition of NPs is challenging. To study the impact of impurities on thermo-physical properties of NFs a systematic experimental work was performed using commercial alpha-SiC and SiO2 NPs as the secondary phase as it commonly co-exists in commercial SiC batches. For this purpose, a series of NFs containing 9 wt% of alpha-SiC/SiO2 NP mixture with different content of SiO2 NPs from 5 to 50% were fabricated and investigated. The results show that as the undesired impurity phase (SiO2) increases, TC of NFs decreases slightly while viscosity increases dramatically. This may be a sound path to tuning the viscosity of the NFs while the achieved high TC is mildly influenced by the secondary phase.

Post sintering studies of BaTiO3 (BTO) nanoparticles are presented in detail. Bulk nanostructures were prepared via three different compaction processes, namely, uniaxial cold pressing (UCP), Cold Isostatic Pressing (CIP) and Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). Effect of compaction technique on microstructures have been investigated and correlated with electrical response for each sample. In addition to the transport properties, temperature and frequency dependent dielectric response of variously sintered samples and bulk counterpart was recorded. Several aspects have been identified that are essential to be taken into account in order to completely understand physical processes. Drastically distinct features were observed in paraelectric (PE) regime well above ferroelectric (FE)-PE transition temperature. These features include intra grain conduction with a reduction in the magnitude of PE to FE peak dielectric constant magnitude. Role of strain, grain boundary conduction associated with observation of Maxwell Wagner relaxation and hopping conduction in dielectric and ferroelectric response have been observed and discussed. Densification with presence of oxygen vacancies, significantly enhances conductivity associated with the hopping of the carriers, in turn deteriorated ferroelectric response.

Higher manganese silicides (HMS), represented by MnSix (x = 1.71-1.75), are promising p-type candidates for thermoelectric (TE) energy harvesting systems at intermediate temperature range. The materials are very attractive as they may replace lead based compounds due to their non-toxicity, low cost of starting materials, and high thermal and chemical stability. Dense pellets were obtained through fast reactive sintering by spark plasma sintering (SPS). The addition -or nanoinclusion, of Al and Mg permitted the figure of merit enhancement of the material obtained with this technique, reaching the highest value of 0.40 at 600°C. Morphology, composition and crystal structure of the samples were characterized by electron microscopies, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction analyses, respectively.

Polymer inorganic nanocomposites (PINCs) are developed, not only due to scientific interest but also improving theelectric arc interruption process in the electrical switching applications like circuit breakers. The novelty of this work isin integrating the current developments in PINCs into electrical switching application in order to extend the limits of thepower switching devices. Several PINCs are fabricated by using pre-synthesized Au nanoparticles (NPs) of size 2.75 ±0.4 nm and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) matrix via in-situ polymerization method. Six homogeneous PINCsamples with ultra-low wt% of Au NPs varying from 0.0003 to 0.005 wt% have been fabricated. We find that thepresence of Au NPs improved the convective heat transfer and visible optical radiation absorption of PMMA. Thefabricated PINCs are tested for their arc interruption performance and the results are compared with ZnO PINCs in ourearlier work. The results of the experiments insights demonstrate the impact of PINCs on the electrical arcs and theirpotential advantages of having PINCs for the electric arc interruption process in high power switching devices.

We present the frequency- and temperature-dependent dielectric response of Eu1-xBaxTiO3 (0 <= x <= 0.5) in detail. Excluding grain boundary effects, four relaxation mechanisms were observed. Relaxation dynamics were observed to arise due to hopping conduction associated with defects, namely oxygen vacancies as well as Eu3+ and Ti3+ ions. Dielectric relaxation analysis led to the identification of Ti ions in two different environments with different relaxation rates in the overall EuTiO3 perovskite structure. The emergence of another relaxation mechanism associated with ferroelectric order as a consequence of the formation of polar regions was also observed for higher Ba concentrations. The addition of Ba led to the identification of relaxation dynamics associated with hopping conduction between Eu ions, Ti ions (in the regions with and without oxygen vacancies) and with the formation of ferroelectric polar regions. Furthermore, the polydispersivity and relaxation times were extracted within the framework of the modified Debye model. Relaxation times have been observed to increase with a decrease in temperature while larger values of polydispersivity reveal a wide distribution of relaxation times due to the presence of lattice parameter and energy barrier distributions.

Low temperature thermoelectric (TE) materials are in demand for more efficient cooling and power generation applications. Iron antimonide (FeSb2) draws great attention over the past few years because of its enhanced power factor values. Polycrystalline bulk FeSb2 nanopowder was prepared via a low-temperature molten salts approach followed by subsequent thermal treatment in synthetic air and hydrogen gas for calcination and reduction reactions, respectively. Structural analysis confirms the desired final phase with submicrometer grain size and high compaction density after consolidation using spark plasma sintering (SPS). TE transport properties revealed that the material is n-type below 150 K and p-type above this temperature; this suggests antimony vacancies in FeSb2. The electrical conductivity increased significantly, and the highest conductivity achieved was 6000 S/cm at 100 K. The maximum figure-of-merit, ZT, of 0.04 is achieved at 500 K, which is about 6 times higher than the earlier reported state-of-the art ZT value for the same material.

Perovskite Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-delta (BSCF) is synthesized via a chemical co-precipitation technique for a low temperature solid oxide fuel cell (LTSOFC) (300-600 degrees C) and electrolyte-layer free fuel cell (EFFC) in a comprehensive study. The EFFC with a homogeneous mixture of samarium doped ceria (SDC): BSCF (60%:40% by weight) which is rather similar to the cathode (SDC: BSCF in 50%:50% by weight) used for a three layer SOFC demonstrates peak power densities up to 655 mW/cm(2), while a three layer (anode/ electrolyte/cathode) SOFC has reached only 425 mW/cm(2) at 550 degrees C. Chemical phase, crystal structure and morphology of the as-prepared sample are characterized by X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy. The electrochemical performances of 3-layer SOFC and EFFC are studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). As-prepared BSCF has exhibited a maximum conductivity above 300 S/cm at 550 degrees C. High performance of the EFFC device corresponds to a balanced combination between ionic and electronic (holes) conduction characteristic. The Schottky barrier prevents the EFFC from the electronic short circuiting problem which also enhances power output. The results provide a new way to produce highly effective cathode materials for LTSOFC and semiconductor designs for EFFC functions using a semiconducting-ionic material.

In this article an alternative high yield route for the synthesis of CoSb3-based unfilled skutterudites is presented. Using low-melting temperature salts of the constituents, melting and mixing them homogeneously in a hydrophobic liquid with postprocessing of the powders we achieve a more intimately mixed alloy compared to the conventional melting and metallurgical processes. The proposed method consists of a fast and low-temperature processing step followed by a thermochemical post-processing step, compared to the conventional methods of fabricating skutterudites, which require high temperatures and long processing times. Several structural characterization techniques were used to assess the mechanism of synthesis, verify the purity of the material as well as the reproducibility of the process. Detailed analysis and results are presented in support of the proposed process. Additionally, compaction of the powders with SPS technique provided a safe route to maintaining the nanopowder size and achieving low thermal conductivity (3 W/mK). The proposed method can easily be scaled up and adopted by the industry.

An experimental study is undertaken on the fabrication of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/iron oxide nanocomposites to determine their potential use for electrical arc interruption in the electrical switching applications such as circuit breakers. Monodisperse iron oxide nanoparticles of average size ¡«11 nmare synthesized via thermal decomposition method and then homogeneously dispersed in the PMMAmatrix by in situ polymerization.PMMA/iron oxide nanocomposites with different nanoparticle loading have been fabricated to study the effect of loading content on the thermal energy absorption. Detailed physicochemical characterizations on synthesized material are performed using X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, TEM, thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry at different processing stages. Atest-setup was designed to evaluate the quality of the nanocomposites for electric arc interruption capability. The results showed that PMMA/iron oxide nanocomposites have a clear impact on the electric arc interruption and therefore should be considered as promising candidates for electrical switching applications.