Bernd Smarsly | Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (original) (raw)

Papers by Bernd Smarsly

Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, Apr 22, 2020

Non-graphitic carbons (NGCs), such as glass-like carbons, pitch cokes, and activated carbon consi... more Non-graphitic carbons (NGCs), such as glass-like carbons, pitch cokes, and activated carbon consist of small graphene layer building stacks arranged in a turbostratic order. Both structure features, including the single graphene sheets as well as the stacks, possess structural disorder, which can be determined using wide-angle X-ray or neutron scattering (WAXS/WANS). Even if WANS data of NGCs have already been extensively reported and evaluated in different studies, there are still open questions with regard to their validation with WAXS, which is usually used for routine characterization. In particular, using WAXS for the damping of the atomic form factor and the limited measured range prevent the analysis of higher-ordered reflections, which are crucial for determining the stack/layer size (La, Lc) and disorder (σ1, σ3) based on the reflection widths. Therefore, in this study, powder WANS was performed on three types of carbon materials (glass-like carbon made out of a phenol-form...

We present a free software script operating in GNU Octave for the refinement of wide-angle X-ray ... more We present a free software script operating in GNU Octave for the refinement of wide-angle X-ray and neutron scattering (WAXS/WANS) data of non-graphitic carbons (NGCs). The refinement script (OctCarb) is based on the evaluation approach of Ruland and Smarsly (2002). As result, up to 14 physically meaningful parameters such as the layer extension La, the stack height Lc, as well as the degree of disorder of the graphenes and their stacking are obtained through a well-established fitting routine. In addition, background scattering based on specific physical phenomena and different correction parameters such as polarization and absorption can be considered. Since the complex mathematical calculations are implemented and performed in the background, with only a few settings to be made, the software was designed to be usable by inexperienced users. As another key feature, Octave and thus OctCarb run on all common operating systems (Windows, MacOS and Linux), and can even be used on high...

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 14, 2005

International Journal of Science Education, 2020

Journal of Chemical Education, 2019

Molecules, 2020

To gain a deeper understanding of the TiCl4 solvation effects in multi-component ionic liquids, w... more To gain a deeper understanding of the TiCl4 solvation effects in multi-component ionic liquids, we performed ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium [C4C1Im]+, tetrafluoroborate [BF4]−, chloride [Cl]− both with and without water and titanium tetrachloride TiCl4. Complex interactions between cations and anions are observed in all investigated systems. By further addition of water and TiCl4 this complex interaction network is extended. Observations of the radial distribution functions and number integrals show that water and TiCl4 not only compete with each other to interact mainly with [Cl]−, which strongly influences the cation-[BF4]− interaction, but also interact with each other, which leads to the fact that in certain systems the cation-anion interaction is enhanced. Further investigations of the Voronoi polyhedra analysis have demonstrated that water has a greater impact on the nanosegregated system than TiCl4 which is also due to the fact of the ...

ChemCatChem, 2020

Deactivation of CeO2‐based catalysts in the HCl oxidation reaction proceeds via selective bulk ch... more Deactivation of CeO2‐based catalysts in the HCl oxidation reaction proceeds via selective bulk chlorination of the active CeO2 component to form CeCl3×nH2O. We study the reactivation of two bulk‐chlorinated CeO2‐based Deacon catalysts by oxygen treatment at 430 °C, namely pure CeO2 and 20 mol % of CeO2 supported on preformed ZrO2 particles (20CeO2@ZrO2), with a dedicated experiment. In the flow reactor setup we determine in‐situ the degree of chlorination of the catalyst by quantifying down‐stream with in‐situ UV‐Vis spectroscopy the total amount of chlorine in the catalyst that is exchanged by reoxidation at 430 °C. The activity of deactivated 20CeO2@ZrO2 can be fully restored by oxygen exposure at 430 °C, while that of pure CeO2 declines steadily. Since the UV‐Vis analytics is fast and sensitive, we can follow the kinetics of reoxidation. To rationalize the observed kinetics, we develop a modified Johnson‐Mehl‐Avrami‐Kolmogorov (JMAK) model based on a nucleation‐and‐growth approach for the reoxidation of the catalyst starting from the chlorinated phase. The fast reoxidation kinetics of chlorinated 20CeO2@ZrO2 is traced to a fast nucleation rate.

Journal of Materials Science, 2020

Journal of Applied Crystallography, 2018

CarbX is an open-source program designed for the analysis of wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) d... more CarbX is an open-source program designed for the analysis of wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) data of non-graphitic carbons (NGCs). As knowledge of their microstructure is crucial for tuning desired properties, an `easy-to-use' analysis tool is essential for effective research in this field. Using CarbX one can retrieve up to 14 microstructural parameters from a single WAXS pattern without having to master the associated complicated mathematics. CarbX was developed to serve as a convenient graphical user interface, translating a complex evaluation algorithm introduced by Ruland & Smarsly [J. Appl. Cryst. (2002), 35, 624–633] into software which can be operated by non-experts. Besides the core functionality of displaying data and manually fitting WAXS curves by user-editable parameters, CarbX offers additional features such as visualization of the deviation between data and fit, the possibility to choose the wavelength used in the measurement, and automatic fitting (using Wolfr...

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2019

Chemistry of Materials, 2017

ACS Applied Nano Materials, 2019