In this study, the influence of sewage sludge ash (SSA) waste particle contents on the mechanical properties and interlaminar fracture toughness for mode I and mode II delamination of S-glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites was investigated. Composite laminate specimens for tensile, flexural double-cantilever beam (DCB), and end-notched fracture (ENF) tests were prepared and tested according to ASTM standards with 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt% SSA-filled S-glass/epoxy composites. Property improvement reasons were explained based on optical and scanning electron microscopy. The highest improvement in tensile and flexural strength was obtained with a 10 wt% content of SSA. The highest mode I and mode II interlaminar fracture toughness’s were obtained with 15 wt% content of SSA. The mode I and mode II interlaminar fracture toughness improved by 33% and 63.6%, respectively, compared to the composite without SSA.

Our environment has been significantly impacted by man-made pollutants, primarily due to industries making substantial use of synthetic chemicals, resulting in significant environmental consequences. In this research investigation, the co-precipitation approach was employed for the synthesis of cellulose-based ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃/cellulose) and copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO_x-NPs). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses were conducted to determine the properties of the newly synthesised nanoparticles. Furthermore, the synthesized nanoparticles were employed for eliminating chromium from aqueous media under various conditions, including temperature, contact time, adsorbent concentration, adsorbate concentration, and pH. Additionally, the synthesised materials were used to recover Cr(VI) ions from real samples, including tap water, seawater, and industrial water, and the adsorptive capacity of both materials was evaluated under optimal conditions. The synthesis of Fe₂O₃/cellulose and CuO_x-NPs proved to be effective, as indicated by the outcomes of the study. 

Heat removal has become an increasingly crucial issue for microelectronic chips due to increasingly high speed and high performance. One solution is to increase the thermal conductivity of the corresponding dielectrics. However, traditional approach to adding solid heat conductive nanoparticles to polymer dielectrics led to a significant weight increase. Here we propose a dielectric polymer filled with heat conductive hollow nanoparticles to mitigate the weight gain. Our mesoscale simulation of heat conduction through this dielectric polymer composite microstructure using the phase-field spectral iterative perturbation method demonstrates the simultaneous achievement of enhanced effective thermal conductivity and the low density. It is shown that additional heat conductivity enhancement can be achieved by wrapping the hollow nanoparticles with graphene layers. The underlying mesoscale mechanism of such a microstructure design and the quantitative effect of interfacial thermal resistance will be discussed. This work is expected to stimulate future efforts to develop light-weight thermal conductive polymer nanocomposites.

In this paper, electrically conductive composites comprised of silicone rubber and titanium diboride (TiB₂) were synthesized by conventional mixing methods. Fine particles of TiB₂ (in micron size) and 10 parts per hundred parts of rubber (phr) proportion of carbon black (XC-72) were used to make the composites with HTV silicone rubber. The composites were cured at appropriate temperature and pressure and the effect on the electrical properties was studied. The resistance of the silicone rubber is ~ 10¹⁵Ω which decreases to 1–2 kΩ in case of composites with negligible effect of heat ageing. The hardness increases by ~ 35% simultaneous to the decrease of ~ 47% in the tensile strength. Morphological characterization indicates the homogeneous dispersion of the fillers in the composite.

The porous carbon/Ni nanoparticle composite was prepared by a freeze-drying method using NaCl as the template. It was applied in the effect of the concentration, adsorption time, and temperature of adsorption on the adsorption behavior. The kinetic model and the adsorption isothermic fitting results show that the adsorption behavior fits with the pseudo-secondary dynamics and the Langmuir isothermal model, indicating that the adsorption process is monolayer adsorption. Thermodynamic results indicate that the adsorption process is spontaneous physicochemical adsorption. The fitting showed that the porous carbon/Ni nanoparticle composites reach 217.17 mg·g^-1, at 313 K indicates good adsorption for Congo red.

Attempts were made in the present study to design and develop skeletally modified ether linked tetraglycidyl epoxy resin (TGBAPSB), which is subsequently reinforced with different weight percentages of amine functionalized mullite fiber (F-MF). The F-MF was synthesized by reacting mullite fiber with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) as coupling agent and the F-MF structure was confirmed by FT-IR. TGBAPSB reinforced with F-MF formulation was cured with 4,4’-diamino diphenyl methane (DDM) to obtain nanocomposite. The surface morphology of TGBAPSB-F-MF epoxy nanocomposites was investigated by XRD, SEM and AFM studies. From the study, it follows that these nanocomposite materials offer enhancement in mechanical, thermal, thermo-mechanical, dielectric properties compared to neat (TGBAPSB) epoxy matrix. Hence we recommend these nanocomposites for a possible use in advanced engineering applications that require both toughness and stiffness.