This review article focuses on our recent studies on novel soft materials consisting of carbon nanotubes. Single-walled carbon nanotubes, when suspended in imidazolium ion-based ionic liquids and ground in an agate mortar, form physical gels (bucky gels), where heavily entangled bundles of carbon nanotubes are exfoliated to give highly dispersed, much finer bundles. By using bucky gels, the fir...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene sheets are the most promising fillers for polymer nanocomposites due to their superior mechanical, electrical, thermal optical and gas barrier properties, as well as high flame-retardant efficiency. The critical challenge, however, is how to uniformly disperse them into the polymer matrix to achieve a strong interface for good load transfer between the two. ...

Magnetorheological elastomers (MRE) are smart materials made by aligning magnetic microparticles inside a liquid polymer. Once the polymer is cured, this anisotropic structure is kept, giving to the composite new properties such as a large change of electrical resistivity with applied pressure. In order to understand the conduction mechanism in such composite, the influence of pressure on the e...

Metal diborides are a class of ceramic materials with crystal structures consisting hexagonal sheets boron atoms alternating planes metal held together mixed character ionic/covalent bonds. Many the ultrahigh-temperature ceramics such as HfB2, TaB2, and ZrB2, which have melting points above 3000 °C, high mechanical hardness strength at temperatures, chemical resistance, while MgB2 is supercondu...

Abstract The flammability properties of polymers and polymer composites are crucial in ensuring their safe use various applications. development flame-retardant technologies continues to be an active area research improve the fire safety these materials. Recently, ionic liquids have been studied composites. In this concise review, different types that combined with discovered. addition, prepara...

Au nanofiber/carbon nanotube (CNT) 1D/1D composites and Janus-type Au/CNT have been prepared by utilizing the liquid/liquid interface between water (W) a hydrophobic ionic liquid (IL) as redox reaction site. AuCl4– in W is reduced at IL/W where CNTs are adsorbed, reducing agent IL, leading to formation of composites. The which microurchins nanofibers deposited on side IL interface, respectively...

Ionomeric Polymer-Metal Composites (IPMC) are attractive type of electroactive polymer actuation materials because of their characteristics of large electrically induced bending, mechanical flexibility, low excitation voltage, low density, and ease of fabrication. The diffusion of ions between the electrodes causes the material to bend. The unique features of the IPMC materials and their need f...

Here we demonstrate that by regulating the mobility of classic -EO- based backbones, an innovative polymer electrolyte system can be architectured. This polymer electrolyte allows the construction of all solid lithium-based polymer cells having outstanding cycling behaviour in terms of rate capability and stability over a wide range of operating temperatures. Polymer electrolytes are obtained b...

MODELING AND FABRICATION OF IONIC POLYMER-METAL COMPOSITE (IPMC) SENSORS By Hong Lei Ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMCs) are an important class of electroactive polymers (EAPs) with built-in actuation and sensing capabilities. They have received tremendous interest for their potential in various sensor applications. In this dissertation, a physics-based dynamic model is proposed for cantilev...

The present study reports the preparation and evaluation of polymer composites of chitosan and montmorillonite. The prepared polymer composites were evaluated for various powder properties and characterized by FTIR-ATR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy- Attenuated Total Reflectance), XRD (X Ray Diffraction), and SEM (Scaning Electron Microscopy) techniques. Heckel and Kawakita equations i...