Materials Sciences

Micronized silica for paint industry produced via fine grinding jet mill

In order to produce paint of the highest possible quality, the raw materials must be tightly controlled. This includes the mineral fillers that make up to 50% of the paint. Filler materials like calcium carbonate, talc, kaolin and silica largely govern paint properties like UV resistance, weatherability, abrasion resistance and sheen. Modern exterior latex paints typically use silica as a filler material, ho

Homogeneity in sintering of fine Ni-20Cr powder by PECS process

Pulsed Electric Current Sintering (PECS), also known as spark plasma sintering (SPS) or plasma activation sintering (PAS) is technique used for densifying power compacts or materials such as metals and ceramics and combination thereof. The attractive features of the process are that it allows compaction and sintering in a single stage and the process itself is quite rapid.

PECS also shows promise in being ab

Mechanical behaviour of hybrid SiO2-PMMA coatings measured by nanoindentation

Increasing the surface hardness of many materials opens them up for use in a wide variety of new applications. These new hybrid materials could be used in areas like anticorrosion coatings for metals, scratch and abrasion resistant coatings for plastics, antistatic films plus colour decorative coatings for glasses and plastics.

The sol-gel method of materials preparation is a suitable techniqu

Effect of base type on properties of NiO synthesised by Sol-Gel method

Nickel oxide is a very important chemical in modern industrial processes. It is commonly used as a catalyst within the petrochemical industry in areas like the synthesis of olefin gas and the reforming reaction of methane. The performance of the catalyst is closely related to particle properties of synthesised nickel oxide. Particle sizes, shapes and porosities are largely determined by various synthesis te

Bridging the gap between nanoscience and nanotechnology

A team of chemists from France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US are working together to bridge the gap between nanoscience and nanotechnology. They have now devised a method that could allow them to organize tiny molecular machines on a surface and so build devices that pack in thousands of times as many switching units, for instance, than is possible with a conventional silicon chip.

Chemist Fraser Stoddart, no

A DTU research team report in the May 11 2006 issue of the scientific journal Nature on strained silicon as a new electro-optic material.

DTU reseachers report that a significant linear electro-optic effect can be induced in silicon by breaking the crystal symmetry. The symmetry is broken by depositing a straining layer on top of a silicon waveguide that induces a non-linear coefficient. This makes it possible to change the phase of light by applying an electric field across the