Biomimetic Synthesis of Ceramic Composites

Synthesis and characterization of biomimetic citrate-based biodegradable composites.

Natural bone apatite crystals, which mediate the development and regulate the load-bearing function of bone, have recently been associated with strongly bound citrate molecules. However, such understanding has not been translated into bone biomaterial design and osteoblast cell culture. In this work, we have developed a new class of biodegradable, mechanically strong, and biocompatible citrate-...

Combustion Synthesis of Ceramic Composites from Lunar Soil Simulant

Introduction: The extended human presence on the Moon will enable astronauts to develop new technologies and harness the Moon's abundant resources to allow manned exploration of more challenging environments [1]. Various approaches to establish permanent outposts on the Moon are being considered by major space agencies and construction companies from USA, Europe, Russia and China. Construction ...

A novel biomimetic approach to the design of high-performance ceramic-metal composites.

The prospect of extending natural biological design to develop new synthetic ceramic-metal composite materials is examined. Using ice-templating of ceramic suspensions and subsequent metal infiltration, we demonstrate that the concept of ordered hierarchical design can be applied to create fine-scale laminated ceramic-metal (bulk) composites that are inexpensive, lightweight and display excepti...

Microwave Heating of Ceramic Composites

The microwave heating of a ceramic composite is modelled and analysed. The composite consists of many small ceramic particles embedded in a ceramic cement. The composite is assumed to be well insulated, and each particle is assumed to be in imperfect thermal contact with the surrounding cement. Based on these two assumptions an asymptotic theory exploiting the small Biot number and small non-di...

Bacterial Cellulose-Based Biomimetic Composites