A novel design of combustion catalysts is proposed, in which clay/TiO₂/MnAl-mixed oxide composites are formed by intermixing exfoliated organo-montmorillonite with oxide precursors (hydrotalcite-like in the case of Mn-Al oxide) obtained by an inverse microemulsion method. In order to assess the catalysts' thermal stability, two calcination temperatures were employed: 450 and 600 °C. The composi...

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are being promoted as the materials of 21st century because of their superior corrosion resistance, excellent thermo-mechanical properties, and high strength-to-weight ratio. For over 25 years, the Constructed Facilities Center at West Virginia University (CFC-WVU) has been conducting research on fundamentals of engineering and material sciences, innova...

Composite materials by definition are a combination of two or more materials. Although the idea of combining two or more components to produce materials with controlled properties has been known and used from time immemorial, modern composites were developed only several decades ago and have found by now intensive application in different fields of engineering (Vasiliev&Morozov, 2001). These ma...

OBJECTIVES Flowable dental composites are used as restorative materials due to their excellent esthetics and rheology. However, they suffer from inferior mechanical properties compared to conventional composites. The aim of this study was to reinforce a flowable dental composite with TiO2 nanotubes (n-TiO2) and to assess the effect of n-TiO2 surface modifications on the mechanical properties of...

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are now gaining their usage in aerospace, automotive and biomedical industries because of their inherent properties like high strength to weight ratio, low wear rate etc. To machine these types of materials conventional machining methods are unsuitable because of high tool wear and tooling cost. Electro discharge Machining (EDM) is one of the important nontraditio...

Dense (>98 th%) and homogeneous ceramic/metal composites were obtained by spark plasma sintering (SPS) using ZrO2 and lamellar metallic powders of tantalum or niobium (20 vol.%) as starting materials. The present study has demonstrated the unique and unpredicted simultaneous enhancement in toughness and strength with very high flaw tolerance of zirconia/Ta composites. In addition to their excel...

A comparison of performance of three different types of graphene biosensors for the detection of prostate specific antigen was reported. Three different graphene structures were synthesized by mechanical exfoliation, microfluidic and self assembly respectively, representing graphene composites from pure to hybrid. Various parameters of different types of graphene biosensors were compared, such ...

Polyaniline (PANI) additives have been shown to have a significant effect on titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles as lithium ion battery anode materials. TiO2/PANI composites were prepared using a solid coating method with different ratios of PANI and then characterized using XRD and SEM. These composites have shown increased reversible capacity compared with pure TiO2. At the current rate of ...

Thermoelectricity is a very important phenomenon, especially its significance in heat-electricity conversion. If thermoelectric devices can be effectively applied to the recovery of the renewable energies, such as waste heat and solar energy, the energy shortage, and global warming issues may be greatly relieved. This review focusses recent developments on the thermoelectric performance of a lo...

Magnetoelectric coupling is of interest for a variety of applications, but is weak in natural materials. Strain-coupled fibrous composites of piezoelectric and piezomagnetic materials are an attractive way of obtaining enhanced effective magnetoelectricity. This paper studies the effective magnetoelectric behaviors of two-phase multiferroic composites with periodic array of inhomogeneities. For...