Muzammil Iqbal

Maastricht University | UM · Faculty of Science and Engineering

Octafluorocyclobutane and acrylic acid (C4F8-co-AA) plasma copolymer coatings are deposited using a pulsed wave (PW) radio frequency (RF) plasma on low density polyethylene (LDPE). The influence of duty cycle in pulsed process with the monomer feed rate on the surface chemistry and wettability of C4F8-co-AA plasma polymer coatings is studied. The c...

Inspired by nature, tunable wettability has attracted a lot of attention in both academia and industry. Various methods of polymer surface tailoring have been studied to control the changes in wetting behavior. Polymers with a precisely controlled wetting behavior in a specific environment are blessed with a wealth of opportunities and potential ap...

Octafluorocyclobutane and acrylic acid (C 4 F 8-co-AA) are plasma copolymerized onto low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and glass slides under various pulsation periods of radio frequency pulsed plasma. The surface wettability of plasma polymer coating is traditionally considered as a substrate-independent property. The combined effect of ultra-thin C...

Plasma-assisted nitrogen fixation is a promising sustainable and clean alternative to the classical Haber-Bosch process. However, the high energy consumption and low production rate of plasma-assisted nitrogen fixation limit its application. This study shows that the non-thermal (non-equilibrium) enhancement of the arc plasma significantly reduces...

Investigating the impact of plasma nitriding on Ti6Al4V surface, structural, and mechanical properties and their simultaneous evaluation via laser optoultrasonic dual detection (LOUD) approach

The quantification of impurities in fusion devices is important to improve understanding of all impurity-related issues and their solutions. In this study, the deposition of the impurity layer on the lower hybrid wave gas puffing pipe (LHW-GPP) used in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) was characterized. The calibration-free...

Increasing fossil-free global energy demands have motivated the scientific community to investigate new clean and sustainable techniques that can meet global energy demands. The production of green and sustainable fuel, such as ammonia, from base molecules like water and nitrogen using electricity from renewable sources shows great potential to sol...

The quantitative analysis and depth profiling of a co-deposition simulating the impurity of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) has been performed by using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). In the depth profile analysis of a co-deposition of Al/W/Mo, the materials were resolved across the interfaces of layers usin...

In this study, a sustainable air plasma-based nitrogen fixation into reactive nitrogen species in water (e.g., nitrate and nitrite) is presented, which mimics the lightning-based nitrogen fixation that occurs in nature. We report a hybrid plasma system that combines a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor (as an efficient ozone source) and an...

This article presents a novel synthesis of fluorinated hexagonal boron nitride (F-BN)/Titanium di-oxide (TiO2) hybrid nano-composite by sol gel method. The prepared nano-composite show remarkable photo-catalytic activity under visible light illumination. Our results reveal a strong electrostatic coupling between TiO2 nanoparticles, while the reduce...

This article presents a novel synthesis of fluorinated hexagonal boron nitride (F-BN)/Titanium di-oxide (TiO2) hybrid nano-composite by sol-gel method. The prepared nano-composite has shown remarkable photo-catalytic activity under visible light illumination. Our results revealed a strong electrostatic coupling between TiO2 nanoparticles, while the...

This manuscript presents a unique SERS substrate consisting of different number of silver nanorods (AgNRs) layers with fluorinated hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (F-BN) as a spacer. The presentation of fabricated SERS nanostructure was examined and found that the SERS effect has been amplified by increasing the number of AgNRs layers. Sensitivi...

The presence of random arrays of elongated nanostructures with dimensional non-uniformity on the cuticular surfaces of insects endows them with anti-wetting characteristics, as exemplified by nanopillar arrays on dragonfly wings and nanocone arrays on cicada wings. But the roles of the nanostructure shape and dimensional non-uniformity, as well as...

Inspired by the antireflection and antiwetting functionalities of dragonfly wings decorated with random nanopillars and a wax layer, a facile technique to endow the same functionalities has been devised. In this two‐step plasma nanotexturing technique, first oxygen plasma treatment is implemented to grow the random nanopillars on the polymethyl met...

The on-board reforming technique for de-NOx is attracting increasing interest because of the fast start-up and size of the device. However, due to the limited amount of energy available from the battery, a full understanding of the characteristics of the plasma reforming reaction is important to optimise this technology to achieve hydrogen producti...

The structural and electronic transport properties of Fluorine-doped boron nitride nanosheets (F-BNNSs) were investigated in a back-gate assisted field-effect transistor (FET) to exhibit the recognition of excellent p-type conduction because of Fluorine-doping. It was observed that the drain current was modulated by gating and increased significant...

In this study, multi-layered fluorinated hexagonal boron nitride nano-sheets (F-BN) coated goldnanoparticles (AuNPs/glass) SERS-active substrate is presented. Thermal and chemical stabilities with reusability tests of F-BN/AuNPs/glass SERS-active substrate were performed.The AuNPs on glass substrate (AuNPs/glass) was first prepared by combining ion...

The proliferation of natural gas production had led to increased utilization of methane as a raw material for chemicals. The most significant bottleneck in this process is the high activation energy of methane. This paper reports the direct conversion of methane to acetylene in a novel rotating arc driven by AC electrical power. By feeding a suffic...

This paper presents a facile, two-step mechano-chemical route to exfoliate and fluorinate hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs). The influence of fluorine (F) chemisorption on the optical and magnetic properties of BNNSs is investigated. It has been observed experimentally, by increasing fluorine concentration, band gap lowers from ∼5 to 4.17...

Various methods of polymer surface tailoring have been studied to control the changes in wetting behavior. Polymers having precisely controlled wetting behavior in a specific environment are blessed with a wealth of opportunities and potential applications exploitable in biomaterial engineering. The controlled wetting behavior can be obtained by co...

A novel two-dimensional (2D) carbon material composed of decagonal pores, hexagonal and quadrilateral carbon rings (DHQ-graphene) is predicted by first-principles calculations. The results show that this metastable phase material displays anisotropic mechanical properties, and its in-plane Young’s modulus is comparable with that of penta-graphene....

Octafluorocyclobutane and acrylic acid (C4F8-co-AA) plasma copolymer coatings are deposited using a pulsed wave (PW) radio frequency (RF) plasma on low density polyethylene (LDPE). The influence of duty cycle in pulsed process with the monomer feed rate on the surface chemistry and wettability of C4F8-co-AA plasma polymer coatings is studied. The c...

Octafluorocyclobutane and acrylic acid (C4F8-co-AA) plasma copolymer coatings are deposited using a pulsed wave (PW) radio frequency (RF) plasma on low density polyethylene (LDPE). The influence of duty cycle in pulsed process with the monomer feed rate on the surface chemistry and wettability of C4F8-co-AA plasma polymer coatings is studied. The c...

Monomer feed rate regulates the chemical structure of smart plasma copolymer coating and its surface wettability in various pH environment. The combined effect of surface chemical compositions and surface roughness causes tunable wettability from superhydrophobicity to superhydrophilicity of smart plasma copolymer coatings. Further on, the presence...

Novel and intelligent plasma copolymers based on hydrophilic/hydrophobic monomers with tunable wettability and pH-responsiveness are demonstrated. A series of plasma copolymer coatings with various carboxylic acid and fluorocarbon group ratio are prepared on the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) surfaces via capacitively coupled radio frequency plasm...

Polymer Nanowire Bundles Fabricated by Plasma Nanotexturing with Enhanced Antiwetting to Water

In a newly published study in Plasma Processes and Polymers researchers have shown the promising prospects for the plasma copolymerization technique of fabricating smart surfaces with tunable wettability and reversibly switchable pH-responsiveness. The polymer structures can be engineered to tune wetting states at extremes – from superhydrophobic s...

Herein copolymer films of acrylic acid (AA) and octafluorocyclobutane (C4F8) for different composition are prepared on low-density polyethylene (LDPE) by pulsed plasma polymerization. The chemical functionality, surface wettabil-ity, and water stability are studied in dependence on the duty cycle (DC) of pulse plasma. The pulse-on time keeps consta...