Significant aggregation takes place when nanoparticles are blended into a random amorphous polymeric medium, contrary to in situ generation which results in uniform size distributions. In the present paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the size and distribution of aggregates that take place when the particles are blended into a random amorphous mobile elastomeric medium. We test the ...

Inorganic nanometer-sized particles (nanoparticles) are attracting attention as reinforcing fillers for use in polymer-nanoparticle composites (nanocomposites) because they improve key characteristics of these composites at a relatively low content (Hussain et al., 2006, Jordan et al., 2005). For example, clay nanoparticles (Usuki et al, 2005), metal oxide nanoparticles such as silica (Rosso et...

this paper deals with the interfacial effects of silica fume (sf) and styrene-butadiene polymer (sbr) on compressive strength of concrete. analyzing the compressive strength results of 32 concrete mixes performed over two water-binder ratios (0.35, 0.45), four percentages replacement of silica fume (0%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%) and four percentages of sbr (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%) were investigated. a mathemati...

The effects of a poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-poly(ethylene) (PEO) comb polymer dispersant on the rheological properties and inter-particle forces in aqueous silica suspensions have been studied under varying pH conditions. The comb polymer was found to adsorb more strongly under acidic than basic conditions, indicating that the PAA backbone of the copolymer preferentially adsorbs onto silica surfa...

The design, fabrication and characterization of an inorganic catalyst based direct glucose fuel cell using mesoporous silica coating as a functional membrane is reported. The desired use of mesoporous silica based direct glucose fuel cell is for a blood vessel implantable device. Blood vessel implantable direct glucose fuel cells have access to higher continuous glucose concentrations. However,...

We report the efficient poling of an electro-optic (EO) polymer in a hybrid TiO(2)/electro-optic polymer multilayer waveguide modulator on mesoporous sol-gel silica cladding. The mesoporous sol-gel silica has nanometer-sized pores and a low refractive index of 1.24, which improves mode confinement in the 400-nm-thick EO polymer film in the modulators and prevents optical absorption from the low...

Biomimetic formation of silica from polyamines such as poly(ethylene imine) (PEI), inspired by the proteins found in diatoms and sponges, has been actively investigated recently as a potential route to silica formation compared to the conventional sol–gel process. We report silica formation onto nanofibers of PEI blended with poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) obtained via electrospinning of their 5...

The influence of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) adsorption on the structure of the diffuse layer of silica (SiO(2)) in the temperature range 15-35 °C was examined. The microelectrophoresis method was used in the experiments to determine the zeta potential of the solid particles in the absence and presence of the polymer. The adsorption of PVA macromolecules causes the zeta potential decrease in all in...

Novel zidovudine derivatives, able to be covalently conjugated to silica surface, have been obtained and grafted to SBA-15 mesoporous silica. Cytotoxic activity of the hybrid organic-inorganic (zidovudine derivatives-silica) systems against HeLa and KB cell lines has been analyzed. Addition of folic acid had a positive influence on the cytotoxicity. Up to 69% of HeLa and 65% of KB tumor cells g...

Organic–inorganic interfaces exist in many natural or synthetic materials, such as mineral–protein interfaces found in bone and epoxy–silica interfaces found in concrete construction. Here, we report a model to predict the intrinsic strength between organic and inorganic materials, based on a molecular dynamics simulation approach combined with the metadynamics method, used to reconstruct the f...