Sol-gel preparation of low oxygen content, high surface area silicon nitride and imidonitride materials

Silicon Nitride Surface Enabled Propane Dehydrogenation Catalyzed by Supported Organozirconium

Mesoporous silicon nitride (Si3N4) is a nontraditional support for the chemisorption of organometallic complexes with the potential for enhancing catalytic activity through features such as the increased Lewis basicity of nitrogen for heterolytic bond activation, increased ligand donor strength, and metal-ligand orbital overlap. Here, tetrabenzyl zirconium (ZrBn4) was chemisorbed on Si3N4, and the resulting supported organometallic species was characterized by Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (DRIFTS), Dynamic Nuclear Polarization-enhanced Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (DNP-SSNMR), and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS). Based on the hypothesis that the nitride might enable facile heterolytic C-H bond activation along the Zr-N bond, this material was found to be a highly active (1.53 molpropene molZr-1 h-1 at 450 °C) and selective (99% to propylene) catalyst for propane dehydrogenation. In contrast, the homologous silica supported complex exhibited negligible activity under these conditions.

A novel electrochemical lung cancer biomarker cytokeratin 19 fragment antigen 21-1 immunosensor based on Si3N4/MoS2 incorporated MWCNTs and core-shell type magnetic nanoparticles

Lung cancer is one of deadliest and most life threatening cancer types. Cytokeratin 19 fragment antigen 21-1 (CYFRA 21-1) is a significant biomarker for the diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Due to these reasons, a novel electrochemical immunosensor based on a silicon nitride (Si3N4)-molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) composite on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Si3N4/MoS2-MWCNTs) as an electrochemical sensor platform and core-shell type magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles@gold nanoparticles (MMSNs@AuNPs) as a signal amplifier was presented for CYFRA21-1 detection in this study. Capture antibody (Ab1) immobilization on a Si3N4/MoS2-MWCNT modified glassy carbon electrode (Si3N4/MoS2-MWCNTs/GCE) was firstly successfully performed by stable electrostatic/ionic interactions between the -NH2 groups of the capture antibody and the polar groups of Si3N4/MoS2. Then, specific antibody-antigen interactions between the electrochemical sensor platform and the signal amplifier formed a novel voltammetric CYFRA21-1 immunosensor. The prepared composite materials and electrochemical sensor surfaces were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). A linearity range of 0.01-1.0 pg mL-1 and a low detection limit (LOD) of 2.00 fg mL-1 were also obtained for analytical applications. Thus, the proposed immunosensor based on Si3N4/MoS2-MWCNTs and MMSNs@AuNPs has great potential for medical diagnosis of lung cancer.

29Si NMR Chemical Shifts in Crystalline and Amorphous Silicon Nitrides

We investigate ²⁹Si nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts, δ_iso, of silicon nitride. Our goal is to relate the local structure to the NMR signal and, thus, provide the means to extract more information from the experimental ²⁹Si NMR spectra in this family of compounds. We apply structural modeling and the gauge-included projector augmented wave (GIPAW) method within density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our models comprise known and hypothetical crystalline Si₃N₄, as well as amorphous Si₃N₄ structures. We find good agreement with available experimental ²⁹Si NMR data for tetrahedral Si^[4] and octahedral Si^[6] in crystalline Si₃N₄, predict the chemical shift of a trigonal-bipyramidal Si^[5] to be about −120 ppm, and quantify the impact of Si-N bond lengths on ²⁹Si δ_iso. We show through computations that experimental ²⁹Si NMR data indicates that silicon dicarbodiimide, Si(NCN)₂ exhibits bent Si-N-C units with angles of about 143° in its structure. A detailed investigation of amorphous silicon nitride shows that an observed peak asymmetry relates to the proximity of a fifth N neighbor in non-bonding distance between 2.5 and 2.8 Å to Si. We reveal the impact of both Si-N(H)-Si bond angle and Si-N bond length on ²⁹Si δ_iso in hydrogenated silicon nitride structure, silicon diimide Si(NH)₂.

Synthesis and methane cracking activity of a silicon nitride supported vanadium nitride nanoparticle composite

Vanadium nitride–silicon nitride nanocomposites from triflate-catalysed co-ammonolysis are active for CO_x-free H₂ production from methane.