Henry Agbe

Université Laval | ULAVAL · Department of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering

Ag3PO4 photocatalyst has attracted interest of the scientific community in recent times due to its reported high efficiency for water oxidation and dye degradation. However, Ag3PO4 photo-corrodes if electron accepter such as AgNO3 is not used as scavenger. Synthesis of efficient Ag3PO4 followed by a simple protocol for regeneration of the photocata...

The potential use of mineralogical carbonation is greatly acknowledged not only in reducing CO2 emissions through carbon capture and storage (CCS) but also in producing industrially viable products. The direct carbonation of stable silicate minerals by supercritical CO2 is unrealistic due to the low conversion efficiencies. The natural abundance of...

Nanostructured mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO 2) particles with high specific surface area and average crystallite domain sizes within 2 nm and 30 nm have been prepared via the sol-gel and hydrothermal procedures. The characteristics of produced nanoparticles have been tested using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), BrunauereEmmetteTeller (BET) surface are...

The high worldwide demand for amorphous precipitated silica (APS) materials, millions of tons worth billions of dollars, makes it worthwhile to further expand the techniques for synthesizing new, cheap, and environmentally friendly resources. In this research, amorphous precipitated silica was synthesized from alkaline dissolution of olivine using...

Microbial contamination of medical devices and infection prone areas in hygiene critical environments is one of the main causes of healthcare-associated infections. Healthcare-associated infection is the fourth leading cause of death after cancer, heart disease and stroke. Besides antibiotic, one potential strategy for breaking the chain of transmi...

The design and fabrication of high-touch surfaces with antibacterial properties can reduce microbial burden and subsequent nosocomial infections in a hygiene critical environment. In the present study, biogenic silver nanoparticles (biogenic Ag-NPs) have been synthesized and deposited in situ on an anodized aluminum oxide surface using an ultrasoun...

Healthcare-associated infections are serious public health problem. Besides antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral therapies, one potential strategy for breaking the chain of infection transmission is via the installation of antibacterial surfaces. Aluminum is an attractive material for fabricating frequently touched surfaces such as doorknobs, p...

Multidrug-resistant bacteria are known to survive on high-touch surfaces for days, weeks, and months, contributing to the rise in nosocomial infections. Inducing antibacterial property in such surfaces can presumably reduce the overall microbial burden and subsequent nosocomial infections in hygiene critical environments. In the present study, a on...

Surface coatings with wetting properties have attracted great interest in both fundamental research and industrial applications due to their potential use as coatings on windows, solar panels, wall paintings, anti-fogging and anti-corrosive coatings and anti-biofouling surfaces. However, despites decades of research efforts demonstrating controllab...

A two-step electrochemical deposition process has been deployed to fabricate Ag3PO4 antibacterial coating on anodized aluminum surface. Structural, morphological and chemical compositional analyses characterized by XRD, SEM and FTIR, confirm the formation of crystalline Ag3PO4 nanoparticles. The Ag3PO4 coated anodized aluminum resulted in 100% Esch...

When organic dye-containing wastewater from textile industries are sometimes released into the environment, the liquids tend to pollute the environment whilst their solid residue accrues on land after the evaporation of the water. Most of these synthetic compounds are known to be poisonous and carcinogenic to living organisms. For this study, a rel...

Surfaces in a hygiene critical environment can become potential reservoirs for transmission of pathogenic infections. Engineering surfaces with the tunable anti-biofouling and antibacterial properties could reduce infections particularly in hospitals and public transport hubs. In the present work, a facile two-step process has been deployed to fabr...

According to the SDG 6, everyone on earth should have access to safe and affordable drinking water. In sharing water-treatment technologies that leads to accomplishing this goal, it is imperative to devise ways of removing microbial contaminants such as E. coli from drinking water especially in resource-limited settings that lack centralized water...

Biofilm formation on both animate and inanimate surfaces serves as an ideal bacterial reservoir for the spread of nosocomial infections. Designing surfaces with both superhydrophobic and antibacterial properties can help reduce initial bacterial attachment and subsequent biofilm formation. In the present study, a two-step approach is deployed to fa...

Advances in science and technology in recent decades have increased our ability in manipulating and controlling atoms and molecules at the nanoscale with precise and atomic resolution through nanoscience and nanotechnologies. This has enabled increased applications of nanotechnologies in many industries including: medicine, pharmaceuticals, electro...

The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during the photolysis of sunscreens and sun blockers poses consumer safety concerns while necessitating proper identification and quantitation of ROS species. Here, a colorimetric sensing approach has been developed based on a molecular probe (2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfophenyl)-2-H-tetrazolium-...

To secure reliable alternative energy sources, the up-conversion of solar energy into storable chemical energy holds promise. This review is organized to highlight recent advances in the fields of solar energy utilization and conversion methods with the aid of various heterogeneous catalysts. Special emphasis has been placed on TiO2 photoanode cata...

Antimicrobial activity of silver metal has been known since history. However, the discovery of penicillin in the 1940s brought in modern antibiotics. The inherent ability of bacteria to mutate, coupled with indiscriminate use of antibiotics has resulted in development of new antibiotic resistant strains with broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance. Th...

Correction for ‘Synthesis and characterization of amorphous precipitated silica from alkaline dissolution of olivine’ by Nadeem Raza et al. , RSC Adv. , 2018, 8 , 32651–32658.

The property of a material changes when it size is reduced to the nanoscale. The nanoscale ranges between 1 and 100 nm. One nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter and about 100000 thinner than a human hair. At the nanoscale, materials display properties that are different from those at the macro scale, due to quantum mechanical phenomena and the incre...