In this work, mesoporous silica SBA-15 was prepared and functionalized with amine groups (i.e., NH2) to form NH2/SBA-15. The curcumin (CUR) was encapsulated into the surface and pore of NH2/SBA-15 to create CUR@NH2/SBA-15 as an efficient carrier in drug delivery systems (DDSs). The three samples (i.e., SBA-15, NH2/SBA-15, and CUR@NH2/SBA-15) were characterized. The study investigated the effect of the carrier dose, initial CUR concentration, pH, and contact time on the CUR loading efficiency (DLE%) via adsorption. The best DLE% for the SBA-15 and NH2/SBA-15 were found to be 45% and 89.7%, respectively. The Langmuir isotherm had a greater correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.998 for SBA-15. A pseudo-secondorder kinetic model seemed to fit well

Iraq has seen many changes at the social, economic and political levels. This led to cause many shifts in the structure of its society and imposed great challenges reflected in the behavior and awareness of that society in general and youth in particular.

Those changes made the Iraqi society undergoing the transformation of value and culture aspects formed a political awareness that caused cultural and political diversity within the family and society. A greater openness to the outside world caused by the communication revolution, as the world has witnessed during the past two decades, has helped in making that change. Iraq had its share of media and political openness, which were included after the US occupation in 2003. As a re

In this work, multilayer nanostructures were prepared from two metal oxide thin films by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. These metal oxide were nickel oxide (NiO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2). The prepared nanostructures showed high structural purity as confirmed by the spectroscopic and structural characterization tests, mainly FTIR, XRD and EDX. This feature may be attributed to the fine control of operation parameters of dc reactive magnetron sputtering system as well as the preparation conditions using the same system. The nanostructures prepared in this work can be successfully used for the fabrication of nanodevices for photonics and optoelectronics requiring highly-pure nanomaterials.

In this study, an improved process was proposed for the synthesis of structure-controlled Cu2O nanoparticles, using a simplified wet chemical method at room temperature. A chemical solution route was established to synthesize Cu2O crystals with various sizes and morphologies. The structure, morphology, and optical properties of Cu2O nanoparticles were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, SEM (scanning electron microscope), and UV-Vis spectroscopy. By adjusting the aqueous mixture solutions of NaOH and NH2OH•HCl, the synthesis of Cu2O crystals with different morphology and size could be realized. Strangely, it was found that the change in the ratio of de-ionized water and NaOH aqueous solution led to the synthesis of Cu2O crystals of differen

Sol-gel derived CuCo-oxide coatings as solar selective surfaces, synthesized onto aluminium substrates at various annealing temperatures, are analysed by correlating their structural, chemical bonding states, and surface morphological topographies. As the annealing progressed, all the coatings displayed a Cu0.56Co2.44O4 (ICSD 78-2175) phase with preferential orientation along (400) reflection plane. Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) data indicate that residual stress and microstrains developed around the coating surfaces are reduced resulting in mechanically stable thin films. Enhancement of the crystallite size and preferred orientation of the surface were confirmed via XRD, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM),

The aim of this work is to enhance the mechanical properties of the glass ionomer cement GIC (dental materials) by adding Zirconium Oxide ZrO₂ in both micro and nano particles. GIC were mixed with (3, 5 and 7) wt% of both ZrO₂ micro and nanoparticles separately. Compressive strength (CS), biaxial flexural strength (BFS), Vickers Microhardness (VH) and wear rate losses (WR) were investigated. The maximum compression strength was 122.31 MPa with 5 wt. % ZrO₂ micro particle, while 3wt% nanoparticles give highest Microhardness and biaxial flexural strength of 88.8 VHN and 35.79 MPa respectively. The minimum wear rate losses were 3.776µg/m with 7 wt. % ZrO₂ nanoparticle. GIC-contai

In this work, pure and Ag-doped nickel oxide (NiO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates with different dopant concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 wt.%) by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) technique at room temperature. These films were annealed at temperature of 450 °C. The structural and optical properties of the prepared thin films were studied. It was found that annealing process has lead to increase the transmittance of the deposited films. Also, the transmittance was found to increase with doping concentration of silver in the deposited NiO films. The optical energy gap was decreased from 3.5 to 3.2 eV as the doping concentration was increased to 0.4 %.

This paper presents experimentally a new configuration of shear connector for Steel-Concrete-Steel (SCS) sandwich beams that is derived from truss configuration. It consists of vertical and inclined shear connectors welded together and to cover steel plates infilled with concrete. Nine simply supported SCS beams were tested until the failure under a concentrated central load (three- point bending). The beams were similar in length (1100mm), width (100mm), and the top plate thickness (4mm). The test parameters were; beam thickness (150, 200, 250, and 300mm), the bottom plate thickness (4, and 6mm), the diameter of the shear connectors (10, 12, and 16mm), and the connector spacing (100, 200, and 250mm). The test results sh