Ceramics from mining by-products and alumina production wastes

The possibility of obtaining chemically stable ceramics in plastic molding from pastes based on comprehensive use of mining by-products (plagioporphyry, quartz-biotite shale), alumina production wastes (red mud), and polymineral clay was demonstrated. The mechanism of enhancing paste sintering on addition of finely disperse grog-flux and increasing the alkali resistance of the material (to 95%) in molding of the crystalline hematite-anorthite-quartz system was examined. __________ Translated from Steklo i Keramika, No. 2, pp. 17–20, February, 2007.     

Exact formulas for wave impedance and propagation constants ofhomogeneous, lossy dielectric and/or magnetic materials

Calculations of propagation constants for lossy materials are performed under the approximations of low loss (or high conductivity). To improve the understanding and better predict the analysis of such materials, exact formulation for wave impedance and propagation constants of homogeneous, lossy, dielectric/magnetic materials are proposed. Formulation is based on dielectric and/or magnetic loss tangent of the material     

Electron diffraction study of enzyme-hydrolyzed cotton samples

An electron diffraction study on continuously and repeatedly enzyme-hydrolyzed cotton samples was carried out. The electron diffraction pattern on repeatedly enzyme-treated sample reveals a cellulose I pattern with the absence of the 101 plane. This confirms that enzymatic hydrolysis of cotton fibers proceeds preferentially along the 101 plane, being a clevage plane.     

Fire and explosion hazards in the spray drying of milk

Recent reports in the literature indicate that incidents involving fires and explosions in the spray drying of milk products are increasing in number. Whilst milk powder is not highly explosible, the conditions for a dust explosion, apart from the ignition source are almost always present in certain areas of a spray dryer during its normal operation. Self-ignition of deposits is known to be possible at the high temperatures in a spray dryer. At best, this can cause product degradation and discolouration whilst at worst it can provide the source of ignition for an explosion. This paper is an attempt to draw together recent work on fire and explosion prevention and protection formilk powders.     

Yeast exo-β-glucanases can be used as efficient and readily detectable reporter genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Yeast exo-1,3-β-glucanases are secretable proteins whose function is basically trophic and may also be involved in cell wall glucan hydrolytic processes. Since fluorescein di(β-D -glucopyranoside) is a fluorogenic substrate detectable and quantifiable by flow cytometry, it was used for testing the ability of the EXG1 gene product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its homologous gene in Candida albicans to function as reporter genes. These open reading frames were coupled to different promoters in multicopy plasmids, and exoglucanase activity quantified at flow cytometry. Exoglucanases were found to be useful tools for the study of promoter regions in S. cerevisiae. This technique has the advantage over other reporter gene systems—such as β-galactosidase fusions—that it does not require permeabilization of yeast cells and therefore it allows the recovery of viable cells—by sorting—after flow cytometry analysis.     

New compact wideband bandpass filter using three parallel-coupledlines

A new miniature bandpass filter, comprising three-conductor short-circuited spurline resonators of approximately a quarter-wavelength long, with a very wide bandwidth approaching multioctaves is reported for the first time. The chain matrix of the filter resonator is derived. The new filter has been developed using microstrip line with less than 1 dB insertion loss over a passband from 2 to 8 GHz. Reasonably good agreement between the measured and calculated results is observed     

The thermoelastic behaviour of semicrystalline and of glassy poly(ether-ether-ketone)

A thermoelastic evaluation, based on simultaneous measurements of the mechanical work and of the concomitant heat of deformation by a stretching micro calorimeter, was performed on semicrystalline and glassy PEEK. The objective of this study was to utilize the sensitive technique to detect differences that would account for observed effects of micro structure on mechanical performance. A clear difference was detected beyond a 0.6% strain, where the behaviour of glassy PEEK began to exhibit inelastic features such as yielding and plastic deformation. This difference between the glassy and the semicrystalline polymers was considered the reason for the superior mechanical fatigue and fracture properties produced by the latter micro structure.     

Post-deposition treatment effects on hydroxyapatite vacuum plasma spray coatings

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effects of post-deposition heat treatments on high and low crystallinity hydroxyapatite coatings on Ti6Al4V alloy. HA layers were produced by the vacuum plasma spray (VPS) technique, and the desired degrees of crystallinity were obtained by changing the deposition parameters. An analysis of the mechanical properties of the coatings and their adhesion to the substrate has been done by shear strength test. X-ray diffraction analysis was used to detect the structure and the chemical components in which HA dissociates during the deposition process and heat treatments. The data obtained indicates that heat treatments can increase the crystallinity of HA, but they also introduce a mechanical degradation of the coatings. After heat treatments, it was also observed that a large amount of tetracalcium phosphate was formed.