Sandra M. A. Cruz

• PhD in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology
• Researcher at Instituto Pedro Nunes

This review examines copper corrosion mechanisms and their key influencing factors, including micro-structure effects, surface treatments, manufacturing conditions, temperature, water chemistry parameters, fluid velocity, and microbial effects in water-based systems, with a particular focus on heat exchangers. This addresses a critical gap in the e...

This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in tribology concerning pure/doped diamond-like carbon coatings (DLCs) and ionic liquid (ILs) interaction. DLC coatings are often used in industrial machinery and processes where sliding occurs between surfaces, leading to wear and degradation of their surfaces. DLC coatings are optim...

The lubrication of gadolinium-doped diamond-like carbon (Gd-DLC) and europium-doped diamond-like carbon (Eu-DLC) coatings with trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate ([P66614][DEHP]) ionic liquid (IL) as 1 wt% additive in polyalphaolefin (PAO) 8 was studied. The results of the friction tests under boundary lubrication conditions...

Personal protective equipment (PPE) has been adapted as biological threats have emerged, such as increasingly drug-resistant bacteria and the emergence of new viruses such as Covid-19. PPE must be increasingly resilient to prevent the proliferation of pathogens, but using sustainable raw materials and environmentally friendly technologies. The aim...

In the last years, diamond like carbon (DLC) coatings doped with both carbide forming and non-carbide forming metallic elements have attracted great interest as novel self-lubricating coatings. Due to the inherent properties of DLC, the doping process can provide adsorption sites for lubricant additives depending on the chemical and electrochemical...

The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the need for antimicrobial surfaces, especially those used in a healthcare environment. Textiles are the most difficult surfaces to modify since their typical use is in direct human body contact and, consequently, some aspects need to be improved, such as wear time and filtration efficiency, antibacteri...

Due to their outstanding properties, carbon-based structures have received much attention from the scientific community. Their applications are diverse and include use in coatings on self-lubricating systems for anti-wear situations, thin films deposited on prosthetic elements, catalysis structures, or water remediation devices. From these applicat...

Poly (lactic acid) (PLA), due to its biodegradability, biocompatibility, and renewability, is one of the most promising biobased polymers for replacing some of the petrol-based materials. Low flexibility of PLA is overcome, by blending it with olefin-based polymers, such as polypropylene (PP). However, the use of compatibilizing agents is required...

An interaction between tungsten-doped diamond-like-carbon (WDLC) coatings and ionic-liquid (IL) additives under boundary-lubrication conditions is investigated. Three phosphate-based IL additives were employed: two had dimethylphosphate anion however, third one hydrolytic trifluorophosphate anion. In tribological tests, low friction (0.024) was ach...

Formalin or hydrate of formaldehyde, a common disinfectant used in aquaculture, is not able to absorb sunlight, therefore its photodegradation must be catalyzed. To take advantage of sunlight for its photodegradation, TiO2-reduced graphene oxide (TiO2-rGO) nanocomposites with different GO contents (0.25-3.0wt%) were synthesized and characterized by...

Cancer is now considered as a public health problem worldwide with increasing incidence and mortality. Along with innovations on the early detection, numerous efforts have also been made to improve the therapy. Cancer is a generic term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body. This disease is heterogeneous and complex, hin...

The aggregation of cyclodextrins (CD) in aqueous solution is an old, yet still vastly unexplored topic that has been studied at least since the 1980s. At that time, few authors took into consideration the possibility of formation of aggregates for the interpretation of thermodynamic and thermophysical properties of CDs in aqueous solution. The aggr...

We have employed an evolutionary algorithm (EA) to study the low-energy landscape of clusters modeled with a potential which is composed by an attractive Morse function and a repulsive Yukawa component. Since the range of the Morse potential is controlled by a single parameter ( ), this has been varyed between 3 and 14 to study its influence on the...

We propose improvements to our evolutionary algorithm (EA) [J. M. C. Marques and F. B. Pereira, J. Mol. Liq. 210, 51 (2015)] in order to avoid dissociative solutions in the global optimization of clusters with competing attractive and repulsive interactions. The improved EA outperforms the original version of the method for charged colloidal cluste...

The target of this investigation is the systematic characterization of the low-energy structures of charged colloidal clusters that may be important to understand the self-assembling process of biomolecules. The aggregation of charged colloidal particles is governed by the attractive short-ranged Morse potential and the Yukawa repulsive tail to des...

This paper reviews recent advances in graphene-based biosensors development in order to obtain smaller and more portable devices with better performance for earlier cancer detection. In fact, the potential of Graphene for sensitive detection and chemical/biological free-label applications results from its exceptional physicochemical properties such...

Electrospun nanofibres are highly attractive products taking advantage of their remarkable specific surface area, high porosity and good transport properties that are ideal requirements for efficient molecule detection. In this work, fibres of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) were first prepared by electrospinning. These fibres were then coated with silver...

Graphene and more specifically, nanographene oxide (GO) has been proposed as a highly efficient antitumoral therapy agent. Nevertheless, its cell uptake kinetics, its influence in different types of cells and the possibility of controlling cellular internalization timing, is still a field that remains unexplored. Herein, different cell types have b...

A new photoluminescent bimetallic-3-hydroxypicolinate/graphene oxide composite was prepared by incorporation of the complex Na5[EuW2O6(picOH)8] (1; HpicOH being 3-hydroxypicolinic acid) on graphene oxide (GO). Photoluminescence studies (emission and excitation spectra and 5D0 emission decay curves) were performed on 1 and the composite 1/GO suggest...

Graphene oxide (GO) and functionalized carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs) (each in the concentration range of 0.01-1.00 wt/wt%) were investigated as the reinforcing agent in a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/hydroxyapatite (HA) bone cement. Mixed results were obtained for the changes in the mechanical properties determined (storage modulus, bending strengt...

Identifying molecules at very low concentrations is critical for many analytical applications such as forensics, medical diagnostics, drug discovery, and chemical development. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique has been implemented widely by a broad scientific research community for chemical and biological sensing and measurements...

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels have been used for numerous biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, as a consequence of their non-toxic, non-carcinogenic and bioadhesive properties. In this communication the effect of different factors, such as type of electrolyte, ionic strength, temperature (ranging from 20 to 40°C) and cationic surfactan...

Aggregation properties of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in the presence of cerium(III) chloride, at various temperatures (298.15-323.15 K) have been measured by the electrical conductance technique. The experimental data on aqueous solutions as a function of SDS concentration show the presence of two inflexion points indicating the presence of two d...