Water within pores of cementitious materials plays a crucial role in the damage processes of cement pastes, particularly in the binding material comprising calcium-silicate-hydrates (C-S-H). Here, we employed Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the properties of water confined at ambient temperature within and between C-S-H nanoparticles or "grains" as a function of the relat...

This study provides insights on the formation of crystalline phases from Fe-rich slag-based porous inorganic polymers (porous IPs), cured under hydrothermal conditions. The IPs were synthesised using synthetic slags with different chemistries (from FeO-SiO 2 -CaO to -Al O 3 systems) as solid precursors, and a sodium silicate-based alkaline activator. Chemical expansion was used create structure...

An overview of microspheres manufactured for use in biomedical applications based on recent literature is presented in this review. Different types of glasses (i.e. silicate, borate, and phosphates), ceramics and polymer-based microspheres (both natural and synthetic) in the form of porous , non-porous and hollow structures that are either already in use or are currently being investigated with...

This paper presents the results of a study on the effect of temperature on geopolymers manufactured using pozzolanic materials (fly ash). In this paper, we report on our investigation of the performance of porous geopolymers made with fly ash after exposure to temperatures from 600 °C up to 1000 °C. The research methodology consisted of pozzolanic materials (fly ash) synthesized with a mixture ...

Magnesium alloys have great potential for developing orthopedic implants due to their biodegradability and mechanical properties, but the rapid corrosion rate of the currently-available alloys limits their clinical applications. To increase the corrosion resistance of the substrate, a protective ceramic coating is constructed by a micro-arc oxidation (MAO) process on ZK60 magnesium alloy. The p...

We present a computational model to obtain the scattering properties of a distribution of non-spherical particles at visible wavelengths and its application to cometary dust and to laboratory scattering measurements of cometary dust analogue. We have calculated the size-shape-averaged scattering matrix elements for both regular and irregular compact shapes and the size-averaged scattering matri...

Mesoporous materials offer several unique properties when incorporated in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) including low density, thermal insulation and the ability to carry out rapid etching. This paper describes the development of two mesoporous thin film materials for MEMS structures, an organically modified silicate and crystalline TiO2. The morphologies of the mesoporous thin films ar...

Mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) is the most frequently used repair material in endodontics, but the long setting time and reduced mechanical strength in acidic environments are major shortcomings. In this study, a novel sol-gel-derived calcium silicate cement (sCSC) was developed using an initial Ca/Si molar ratio of 3, with the most effective mixing orders of reactants and optimal HNO3 cataly...

We have analyzed the 9.7 and " 18 " µm interstellar silicate absorption features along the line of sight toward four heavily extincted galactic WC-type Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. We construct two interstellar extinction curves from 1.25 to 25 µm using near-IR extinction measurements from the literature along with the sili-cate profiles of WR 98a (representing the local ISM) and GCS 3 (representing ...