Degradation Behavior and Mechanical Integrity of a Mg-0.7Zn-0.6Ca (wt.%) Alloy: Effect of Grain Sizes and Crystallographic Texture

The microstructural characteristics of biodegradable Mg alloys determine their performance and appropriateness for orthopedic fixation applications. In this work, the effect of the annealing treatment of a Mg-0.7Zn-0.6Ca (ZX11) alloy on the mechanical integrity, corrosive behavior, and biocompatibility-osteoinduction was studied considering two annealing temperatures, 350 and 450 °C. The microstructure showed a recrystallized structure, with a lower number of precipitates, grain size, and stronger basal texture for the ZX11-350 condition than the ZX11-450. The characteristics mentioned above induce a higher long-term degradation rate for the ZX11-450 than the ZX11-350 on days 7th and 15th of immersion. In consequence, the mechanical integrity changes within this period. The increased degradation rate of the ZX11-450 condition reduces 40% the elongation at failure, in contrast with the 16% reduction for the ZX11-350 condition. After that period, the mechanical integrity remained unchanged. No cytotoxic effects were observed for both treatments and significant differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into the osteoblast phenotype was observed.

Synergistic photocatalytic effect of BiOBr-BiOI heterojunctions due to appropriate layer stacking

The increasing interest in acquiring efficient visible-light active photocatalytic materials has led to the formation of heterojunctions with different combinations of semiconductors. Despite the fact that increasingly more complex structures are proposed, there are still many unclear factors affecting their performance and limiting their prompt implementation. In this work, we used the spray pyrolysis technique to deposit individual visible light-active BiOBr and BiOI films and formed the heterojunctions BiOBr-BiOI and BiOI-BiOBr to determine the effect of the stacking order of semiconductors. These materials were widely characterized; their structural, optical, (photo)electrochemical, and photocatalytic properties were evaluated, revealing that the configuration BiOI-BiOBr boosted the photocatalytic indigo carmine dye removal under simulated sunlight irradiation, but the opposite layout quenched it. The high efficiency is attributed to a better use of the incident radiation and the effective migration of the photogenerated carriers. BiOBr - with a wider band gap and a less negative conduction band with respect to BiOI - provides its good attributes to the heterostructure, such as high stability and low recombination rates, when it is at the surface. We demonstrated that in thin-film heterostructures, the order in which the layers are stacked becomes decisive for the photocatalytic performance and that the energy band gap and the relative band positions of both semiconductors are the principal features that govern the photocatalytic mechanism. These findings provide a key to designing more efficient photocatalysts without several unsuccessful trials.

Improving photocatalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol over ZrO2–TiO2 by synergistic interaction between methanol and sulfite ions

Reaction rate for 4-nitrophenol photoreduction over ZrO₂–TiO₂ increases 19 times due to the synergistic interaction between methanol and sulfite ions.