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Graphene, a 2D honeycomb lattice of sp² hybridized carbons, has attracted the attention of the scientific community not only for its interesting theoretical properties but also for its myriad of possible applications. The discovery of graphene led to the Nobel Prize in physics for 2010 to be awarded to Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. Since its discovery, many methods have been developed for the synthesis of this material. Two of those methods stand out for the growth of high quality and large area graphene sheets, namely, epitaxial growth from silicon carbide (SiC) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). As it stands today, both methods make use of high concentrations of hydrogen (10-20%) in N₂ or Ar, high temperatures, and a vacuum system. Epitaxial growth from SiC in addition requires very expensive single crystal SiC wafers. In the case of CVD, organic molecules are used as the carbon source to grow graphene on a metal substrate. Although graphene has been grown on many metal substrates, the experiments highlighted here make use of copper as the metal substrate of choice since it offers the advantage of availability, low price, and, most importantly, because this substrate is self-limiting in other words, it mostly grows single layer graphene. Because the CVD method provides with a choice as for the carbon source to use, the following question arises: can a molecule, either commercially available or synthesized, be used as a carbon source that would allow for the synthesis of graphene under low temperatures, low concentrations of hydrogen and at atmospheric pressure? This dissertation focuses on the synthesis of graphene at lower temperatures by using carbon sources with characteristics that might make this possible. It also focuses on the use of forming gas (3% H₂ and 97% N₂ or Ar) in order to make the overall process a lot safer and cost effective. This dissertation contains two chapters on the synthesis of organic molecules of interest, and observations about their reactivity are included. CVD experiments were performed at atmospheric pressure, and under vacuum. In both instances forming gas was used as the annealing and carrier gas. Results from CVD at atmospheric pressure (CVDAP), using organic solvents as carbon sources, show that at 1000℃, low quality graphene was obtained. On the other hand, CVD experiments using a vacuum in the range of 25 mTorr to 1 Torr successfully produced good quality graphene. For graphene growth under vacuum conditions, commercially available and synthesized compounds were used. Attempts at growing graphene at 600℃ from the same carbon sources only formed amorphous carbon. These results point to the fact that good quality graphene can basically be grown from any carbonaceous material as long as the growth temperature is 1000℃ and the system is under vacuum. In addition to the synthesis of graphene at low temperatures, there is a great amount of interest on the synthesis of graphene nanoribbons (GNR’s) and, as with graphene, several approaches to their synthesis have been developed. One such method is the synthesis of GNRs encapsulated in carbon nanotubes. Experiments were conducted in which aluminosilicate nanotubes were used. These nanotubes provided for an easier interpretation of the Raman spectrum since the signals from the nanotubes do not interfere with those of the GNR’s as in the case when carbon nanotubes are used. The use of aluminosilicate nanotubes also allowed for the successful synthesis of GNR’s at temperatures as low as 200℃ when perylene was used as the carbon source.

Paramagnetic defects in free standing polycrystalline diamond films made by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) have been studied using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) and infrared absorption. EPR experiments at a range of frequencies (1-35 GHz) confirm the ¹H hyperfine parameters for the recently identified H1 defect (Zhou et al., Phys. Rev. B, 54:7881 (1996)). In the samples studied here, H1 is always accompanied by another defect at g=2.0028(1). Saturation recovery measurements are consistent with two defects centred on g=2.0028. The spin-lattice relaxation rate of H1 is a factor of 10-100 times more rapid than the single substitutional nitrogen centre (N⁰_S), which is known to be incorporated into the bulk diamond. ¹H matrix ENDOR measurements indicate that the H1 centre is in an environment with hydrogen atoms 2-10 A distant from the centre. The near neighbour hydrogen identified by the EPR was not detected in the ENDOR experiments. The concentration of H1 correlates with the total integrated C-H stretch absorption in the samples studied here. All the evidence is consistent with H1 being located at hydrogen decorated grain boundaries (or in intergranular material) rather than in the bulk diamond. The affect of annealing the films in vacuo up to 1900 K has been studied. On annealing at 1700 K it was found that some of the hydrogen on internal grain boundaries became mobile but was not lost from the sample, and the intensity of the EPR absorption at g=2.0028 decreased. Annealing at 1900 K severely degraded the optical properties of the samples, and a new defect with g=2.0035(2) was created. Infrared measurements show that hydrogen is lost from most CVD diamond samples when annealed to 1900 K for four hours. An EPR imaging (EPRI) probe was designed and built. This comprised a 3-loop, 2-gap loop-gap resonator and a pair of anti-Helmholtz coils providing a magnetic field gradient ∂B_z/∂z. Using this probe the distribution of N⁰_S was measured in the growth direction of four CVD diamonds to a resolution of 20 μm. The distribution of N⁰_S is shown to be different to the distribution of defects with g=2.0028. Two-dimensional images of the spin density of N⁰_S in single crystal type Ib diamonds made by the high temperature and pressure (HTP) method have been generated, demonstrating a resolution of 100 μm. A two-dimensional image of the spin density of g=2.0028 defects in a CVD sample is compared to a photograph of the same sample, showing the correlation between the distribution of the defects with the distribution of non-diamond material in the sample. The distribution of the [N-N]⁺ defect in a natural diamond has been examined using ∂B_z/∂B_ϰ field gradient coils.

This thesis develops and evaluates a method to simulate energy consumption and water production for a novel sorption dehumidication pro-cess. The system consists of a chamber comprising a hygroscopic materialand a heating device. The process consists of an adsorption phase anda regeneration phase. For both the regeneration phase and the adsorp-tion phase the model considers the heat distribution by thermal diusionand convection and the water transport by diusion and convection. Forthe regeneration phase the radiation is also considered since the radia-tive power increases with temperature to the power of four. Further, amodel for the condensation process is implemented and a model for thecondensation is suggested. To model the properties of the hygroscopicmaterials, the adsorption curves for SiO2 and AlO2 are investigated. Themodel were evaluated by comparing the simulated values with experimen-tal measurements.The results from the the simulation of the regeneration phase showsa good agreement with experimental data for the power and the energyconsumption even though the simulated values are a bit underestimated,about 10%. The water production is simulated to be about 25% higherthan the measured values. This discrepancy could be explained by aleakage of water vapour that was found in the experimental set up, whichis not considered in the model. This could also explain the underestimatedenergy consumption since the condensation energy in the system is toogreat. To improve the accuracy for the model the water leakage wouldneed to be implemented. The overestimation of water seemed to be thesame for the measurements from the same apparatus.For the adsorption phase a developed model, from an article for ad-sorption in silica, was implemented and tuned for the specic system. Thesimulations are in good agreement with the measurements but could betested further for more certainty.

The major aim of this thesis has been to contribute to the understanding of the CH$ sb2$/OH/NH$ sb2$ group interactions by means of studies of alcohol-amine mixtures in the gas and liquid phases. / To study these interactions in the gas phase a Burnett type equipment was designed, built and operated at low pressure, obtaining experimental pressure-temperature (P-T) data for various systems including alcohol-amylamine mixtures. The P-T data were reduced by a method developed in this work to give values of second virial coefficients. Measurements on known systems were in excellent agreement with values reported in the literature. A group contribution method for predicting pure compounds and interaction second virial coefficients is presented. This method is equal, or superior to methods already available. / To study the CH$ sb2$/OH/NH$ sb2$ group interactions in the liquid phase, vapor-liquid-equilibrium (VLE) experiments with alcohol-amylamine mixtures were carried out in a Van Ness type apparatus. The raw data were reduced by a novel model free method using the second virial coefficients obtained previously for these mixtures. A group contribution method for predicting vapor-liquid-equilibria of multicomponent multigroup mixtures is proposed. Excellent predictions are obtained with this method. / Finally, computer experiments of Lennard-Jones fluid mixtures were carried out to help in the understanding of the local composition concept. This concept is of fundamental importance not only in the models used in this work but also in numerous other solution models.

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