A rapid, clean, and continuous hydrothermal route to the synthesis of ca. 14 nm indium oxide (In(2)O(3)) nanoparticles using a superheated water flow at 400 °C and 24.1 MPa as a crystallizing medium and reagent is described. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) of the particles revealed that they were highly crystalline despite their very short time under hydrothermal flow conditions. Gas sensing substrates were prepared from an In(2)O(3) suspension via drop-coating, and their gas sensing properties were tested for response to butane, ethanol, CO, ammonia, and NO(2) gases. The sensors showed excellent selectivity toward ethanol, giving a response of 18-20 ppm.

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The use of an acid violet 7 (AV7) smart ink to assess the activity of photocatalytic paint is demonstrated. A linear correlation is established between the change in oxidized dye concentration, as measured by diffuse reflectance, and the change in the green component of the RGB color values, obtained using a portable hand-held scanner, suggesting that such tests can be monitored easily using an inexpensive piece of hand-held office equipment, as opposed to an expensive lab-based instrument, such as a diffuse reflectance UV/vis spectrophotometer. The bleaching of the AV7 follows first order kinetics, at a rate that is linearly dependent upon the UVA irradiance (0.30-3.26 mW cm(-2)). A comparison of relative rate of bleaching of the AV7 ink with the relative rate of removal of NOx, as determined using the ISO test (ISO 22197-1:2007), established a linear relationship between the two sets of results and the relevance of this correlation is discussed briefly.

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