3D Printing of Hierarchically Porous Lattice Structures Based on Åkermanite Glass Microspheres and Reactive Silicone Binder

The present study illustrates the manufacturing method of hierarchically porous 3D scaffolds based on åkermanite as a promising bioceramic for stereolithography. The macroporosity was designed by implementing 3D models corresponding to different lattice structures (cubic, diamond, Kelvin, and Kagome). To obtain micro-scale porosity, flame synthesized glass microbeads with 10 wt% of silicone resins were utilized to fabricate green scaffolds, later converted into targeted bioceramic phase by firing at 1100 °C in air. No chemical reaction between the glass microspheres, crystallizing into åkermanite, and silica deriving from silicone oxidation was observed upon heat treatment. Silica acted as a binder between the adjacent microspheres, enhancing the creation of microporosity, as documented by XRD, and SEM coupled with EDX analysis. The formation of ‘spongy’ struts was confirmed by infiltration with Rhodamine B solution. The compressive strength of the sintered porous scaffolds was up to 0.7 MPa with the porosity of 68–84%.

Structure and magnetic properties of Bi-doped calcium aluminosilicate glass microspheres

Bi-doped CaO–Al2O3–SiO2 glass microspheres with Ca2Al2SiO7 (gehlenite) composition were prepared by combination of solid-state reaction and flame synthesis. The concentration of Bi was 0.0, 0.5, 1 and 3 mol %. The chemical composition of prepared glass microspheres was determined by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The structural and magnetic properties of prepared glass microspheres and their polycrystalline analogues were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy and SQUID magnetometry. The closer inspection of glass microspheres surface by SEM confirmed smooth surface and revealed no features indicating presence of crystalline phases. All Bi-doped microspheres are X-ray amorphous, however in case of undoped microspheres XRD detected traces of crystalline gehlenite. XRD analysis of samples crystallized at 1273 K for 10 h revealed the presence of gehlenite as the main crystalline phase. The presence of gehlenite in crystallized samples were also confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. All samples (glass microspheres and their crystalline analogues) showed diamagnetic or weak ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature, whereas paramagnetic or weak ferromagnetic behavior was observed at 2 K.

Improved Heat Transfer in Guar Gel Composites Reinforced with Randomly Distributed Glass Microspheres

Improved heat transfer in composites consisting of guar gel matrix and randomly distributed glass microspheres is extensively studied to predict the effective thermal conductivity of composites using the finite element method. In the study, the proper and probabilistic three-dimensional random distribution of microspheres in the continuous matrix is automatically generated by a simple and efficient random sequential adsorption algorithm which is developed by considering the correlation of three factors including particle size, number of particles, and particle volume fraction controlling the geometric configuration of random packing. Then the dependences of the effective thermal conductivity of composite materials on some important factors are investigated numerically, including the particle volume fraction, the particle spatial distribution, the number of particles, the nonuniformity of particle size, the particle dispersion morphology and the thermal conductivity contrast between particle and matrix. The related numerical results are compared with theoretical predictions and available experimental results to assess the validity of the numerical model. These results can provide good guidance for the design of advanced microsphere reinforced composite materials.

Pressure assisted sintering of Al2O3–Y2O3 glass microspheres: sintering conditions, grain size, and mechanical properties of sintered ceramics

Glass microspheres with yttria-alumina eutectic composition (76.8 mol % Al2O3 and 23.2 mol % Y2O3) were prepared by sol-gel Pechini method and flame synthesis with or without subsequent milling. Prepared amorphous powders were studied by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), particle size analysis (PSA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Hot pressing (HP), rapid hot pressing (RHP) and spark plasma sintering (SPS) were used to sinter amorphous precursor powders at 1600 °C without holding time (0 min). The preparation process including milling step resulted in amorphous powders with narrower particle size distribution and smaller particle size. All applied pressure assisted sintering techniques resulted in dense bulk samples with fine grained microstructure consisting of irregular α-Al2O3 and Y3Al5O12 (YAG) grains. Milling was beneficial in terms of final microstructure refinement and mechanical properties of sintered materials. A material with the Vickers hardness of HV = (17.1 ± 0.3) GPa and indentation fracture resistance of (4.2 ± 0.2) MPa.m1/2 was prepared from the powder milled for 12 h.