Carbon fiber composites have become popular in aerospace structures and applications due to their light weight, high strength, and high performance. Recently, scientists have begun investigating hybrid composites that include fibers and particulate fillers, since they allow for advanced tailoring of mechanical properties, such as improved fatigue life. This project investigated a hybrid carbon ...

We report an experimental study on confined systems formed by butyloxybenzylidene octylaniline liquid crystal (4O.8) + γ-alumina nanoparticles. The effects of the confinement in the thermal and dielectric properties of the liquid crystal under different densities of nanoparticles is analyzed by means of high resolution Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (MDSC) and broadband dielectric ...

Silver nanoparticles supported on alumina were prepared and tested in the catalytic reduction of various imines to primary and secondary amines and were shown to be exceptionally active and chemoselective. Furthermore, the catalytic activity of the prepared nanocatalyst was also tested in the synthesis of secondary amines from primary amines in a tandem reaction protocol (oxidation-imination-re...

Rheological behavior of aqueous suspensions containing nanometer-sized powders is of relevance to many branches of industry. Unusually high viscosities observed for suspensions of nanoparticles compared to those of micron size powders cannot be explained by current viscosity models. Formation of so-called hydration layer on alumina nanoparticles in water was hypothesized, but never observed exp...

An alumina surface coating is demonstrated to improve electrochemical performance of MoO(3) nanoparticles as high capacity/high-volume expansion anodes for Li-ion batteries. Thin, conformal surface coatings were grown using atomic layer deposition (ALD) that relies on self-limiting surface reactions. ALD coatings were tested on both individual nanoparticles and prefabricated electrodes containi...

A tomographic heating holder for transmission electron microscopy that can be used to study supported catalysts at temperatures of up to ~1,500°C is described. The specimen is placed in direct thermal contact with a tungsten filament that is oriented perpendicular to the axis of the holder without using a support film, allowing tomographic image acquisition at high specimen tilt angles with min...

in present study we studied using green routes for microwave assisted synthesis of alumina nanoparticles from aluminum nitrate. it was revealed that when plant extracts are used, no specific stabilizer is needed. structural characterization of nanoparticles was studied using x-ray diffraction that showed semi-crystalline structure for two of plant extracts, other xrd patterns had no significant...

The multifunctional novolac epoxy/Al 2 O 3 nanocomposites were fabricated by high-speed mechanical mixing of epoxy resin with varying concentration nano Al (0–5 wt%) particle size 13 nm for 30 min, followed curing triethylenetetramine (TETA) at 110°C 1 h and post-curing 80°C 5 h. nanocomposite samples characterized properties (viz., tensile strength, elongation-at-break, impact toughness, hardn...