1. Introduction Mesoporous materials with ordered arrays of uniform nanochannels of a controllable size have wide-ranging applications, one of which is membrane separation. In order to be used as a membrane for size-exclusive separation of molecules, it is necessary to synthesize a defect-free structure with continuous nanoporosity. Mesoporous silica and porous anodic alumina have been extensiv...

Textural evolution (porosity reduction, pore and crystallite growth) in titania-alumina composite membranes has been studied using thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy and N, physisorption techniques. The presence of alumina in the membranes improved the thermal stability of the porous texture by retarding the anatase-to-rutile phase transformation a...

In this study, we examined the fine structure of the compound eyes of a household fly and precisely replicated its entire structure using a low-temperature atomic layer deposition technique. The surface of the fly eye is found to be covered by highly packed protuberances, which potentially increases visual efficiency through increased photon capture for a given stimulus. The alumina replica was...

An ordered porous antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) film was successfully prepared using a simple coating process with colloidal templates. The facile production was effective when a combination of 16-nm ATO (as a model of an inorganic nanoparticle) and polystyrene (PS) spheres (as a model of the template) weresimply coated to produce a composite ATO/PS film. Heat treatment was then used to remove...

An efficient method based in template wetting is applied for fabrication of ordered Poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO) nanopillars with b-phase morphology. In this process, nanoporous alumina obtained by anodization process is used as template. PFO nanostructures are prepared under ambient conditions via infiltration of the polymeric solution into the pores of the alumina with an average pore diam...

A new kind of polymer-based sensor is described in which the experimental parameters controlling selectivity and sensitivity are decoupled. The sensor is based on a surface acoustic wave (SAW) gravimetric transducer modified with a high-surface-area, nanoporous alumina coating. A very thin ( approximately 40 nm) poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) coating resides atop the porous alumina structure. In...

Anodic oxide fabricated by anodizing has been widely used for nanostructural engineering, but the nanomorphology is limited to only two oxides: anodic barrier and porous oxides. Therefore, the discovery of an additional anodic oxide with a unique nanofeature would expand the applicability of anodizing. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of a third-generation anodic oxide, specifically, anodic ...

Permporometry as well as nitrogen adsorption-desorption techniques have been applied to study the pore size distribution in y-alumina membranes with a pore radius ranging from about 2 nm to 10 nm. The permporometry technique measures the active pores only, while nitrogen adsorption-desorption measures the active as well as the passive pores. The pore size distribution in the porous ceramic memb...

The mechanical properties of porous ceramics are greatly influenced by their microstructure. Therefore, mechanical behavior of highly porous ceramics is different from that of dense ceramics. In this work, we evaluate different mechanical testing methods such as static compression, Brazilian disc test and 3-point bending on their suitability for comparison of highly porous ceramic materials. It...

Anodic porous alumina is a known material based on an old industry, yet with emerging applications in nanoscience and nanotechnology. This is promising, but the nanostructured alumina should be fabricated from inexpensive raw material. We fabricated porous alumina from commercial aluminum food plate in 0.4 M aqueous phosphoric acid, aiming to design an effective manufacturing protocol for the m...