Dear readers,
This year comes to its end and it is my great pleasure to introduce the last issue of EMMR journal for 2023. This issue addresses in particular various strategies to enrich materials towards the improvement of their properties. In a fast and permanent growing world, researchers are looking more and more for materials with multiple properties dedicated to various demanding applications like energy storage, medical implants, construction buildings insulation… The goal is to address in a more efficient way issues related to environment protection, efficient transportation, energy saving buildings or comfortable surgery. However, selecting the one or the other material for a specific application is not enough to face the challenges as a combination of properties is often required. The strategy of enriching materials can help obtaining the desired properties and one scope of our journal is to publish knowledge in that field. Most of the papers presented in this issue fulfill this goal in particular.
In the field of energy production, Mousavi B et al.1 deals with the lifetime optimization of turbine and combustion parts. It investigates the performances of an innovative thermal barrier coating TBC deposited on an In-738 superalloy. The coating combines a NiCrAlY bond coat applied with a spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique rather than a conventional air plasma spraying process and a ceria-stabilized zirconia (CSZ) topcoat. The improved bonds induced by the SPS process limit spallation and increase the corrosion resistance of the layer.
Güzel T2 focuses on electrical storage issues and presents an approach to enrich graphene oxide (GO) flakes with oxygen in order to increase the solubility of these molecules and make them more suitable for applications like capacitors or batteries construction. For that purpose, an electrochemical process using a diluted nitric acid as electrolyte combined with an electrode pretreatment is used. The pretreatment helps increasing the degree of oxidation significantly.
Strategies to improve the properties of materials for the construction industry are presented in 3 papers. The approach presented in Thirumalairaju A and Juneja A3 shows potential for applications like soil strengthening or restoration of stone and concrete structures. The study shows how to increase the precipitation efficiency of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) with an environment friendly method by using the urease enzyme. Experiments show in particular that increasing the urease activity accelerates precipitation in a significant way.
Pande AY and Padade AH4 deals with strategies used to produce lightweight backfilling material for the construction industry. This study addresses the use of fly ash, an industrial waste, as a key ingredient in producing an effective lightweight filler material known as fly ash geomaterial (FAGM), which combines fly ash, cement and EPS beads. Results bring out in particular that the density of EPS in a cement is a key player towards increased strength.
At last, the performances of AAC (Autoclaved aerated concrete) under sulfate attack are investigated in Wang H et al.5 AAC material is characterized by excellent insulation properties, which help improving building energy efficiency. Its compressive strength can be increased by the addition of SO3. However sulfate attack may degrade the material over time. The work presented concludes that due to the large porosity of the structure, surface treatment is necessary to optimize the lifetime of the material.
The enrichment of materials for the medical field is considered in Karthic M et al.6 which focuses on PLA scaffolds, which have been largely used in tissue engineering over the last decade for various applications. However, pure PLA scaffolds lack cell proliferation, cell adhesion, differentiation and osteo-promotive capacities. The study shows how blending PLA with graphene particles can boost the overall mechanical strength, impact resistance and improve cell growth.
While studying the enrichment of materials is not always easy to consider experimentally, and in order to limit the amount of potential expensive experiences to conduct, modeling can be an option. In that context, Lei X and Zatsepin AF7 and Singer H and Özçelik TÖ8 both use cost effective modeling approaches in order to predict the behavior of materials before production. One model tries to help fixing the optimal design parameters to improve the lifetime of cobalt-chromium used in orthopedic implants. The approach uses a risk-based fuzzy decision making framework. The other model studies the energy adsorption properties of indium (II) selenide (InSe) 2D ultrathin substrates for semiconductor applications purpose. In particular the influence of the flexibility and distortions provided by stretching or ripple formation on the efficiency of the substrates are investigated.
Based on the description of the papers I presented above, I hope you’ll enjoy the content of this issue, and you’ll find the scientific and technical information that you need to make your research go forward.
