The porous SiC-cordierite ceramics were prepared from SiC, calcined kaolin, talc, aluminum hydroxide, and graphite as pore-forming. The influence of pore-forming agent contents and sintering temperatures on the porosity and flexural strength of porous SiC-cordierite ceramics were investigated. The grain phases and the fracture surface micrograph were analyzed with XRD and SEM, respectively. The results show that the sample sintered at 1350°C for 3h with 15% graphite as the pore-forming agent exhibits the most excellent properties: flexural strength of 63.74MPa was achieved at a porosity of 31.80%.

In the present work, we demonstrated a facile process to prepare an open-ended high aspect-ratio TiO2 nanotube films through separating the anodic TNT array from the Ti substrate by a small reverse bias and opening the tube bottom by a chemical etching. The possible mechanisms of film detachment and pore opening processes have been briefly discussed. Such a process allows controlling the open-ended morphology by the straightforward chemical etching, which shows great potential in many applications, such as flow-through photocatalytic reactions, biofiltration, and diffusion controlling, and so on. An example using the open-ended TNT films is finally given as a flow-through photocatalytic reactor. The photocatalytic film has been shown to have multiple functions such as physical separation of contaminants, filtration, and decomposition of organic pollutants during diffusion.

MnO2 nanostructure was synthesized via a redox reaction of potassium permanganate in hydrochloric acid solution below 100°C at open environment. The effects of pH value in solution and reaction temperature on the crystal structure and morphology of MnO2 were investigated. It was revealed that layer folded δ-MnO2 microspheres were obtained at low reaction temperature and low HCl concentration, whereas α-MnO2 single-crystal nanorods were fabricated with increasing reaction temperature and HCl concentration. The possible formation mechanism of δ-MnO2 microspheres and α-MnO2 nanorods is suggested.

The complex dielectric behaviors of ferroelectric barium titanate (BT) ceramics were investigated. The dielectric properties were studied as a function of temperature and frequency using broadband dielectric spectrometer. The results show that the maximum value of dielectric constant occurs at 500nm BT ceramics, which is approximately 7,500; the dielectric loss is lower than 0.03 with the temperature varying from 225 K to 450 K. Dielectric constant and dielectric loss experience three dielectric peaks corresponding to rhombohedral to orthorhombic, tetragonal and cubic transitions. With the frequency ranges from 1 MHz to 1 GHz, the dielectric relaxation is apparently present. The relaxation process obeys Cole-Cole relaxation model at high temperature and conforms to Debye relaxation model when the temperature far lower than Curie temperature. The relaxation time is the order magnitude of ~10-9s obtained by Havriliak-Negami function fitting, which is very consistent with theoretical calculation.

Titania nanotube arrays were fabricated in deionize water and glycerol mixed electrolyte containing a certain amount of NH4F. Three different polishing methods were used for pretreatment of Ti substrates: polished by hand with abrasive paper, by polishing machine, or by chemical polishing fluid (HF:HNO3=1:4, in volumetric ratio). The morphology of three different samples were imaged by scanning electron microscopy, and their photoelectrical properties were studied as well. Experimental results showed that Titania nanotube arrays grown on the Ti substrate and polished by polishing fluid has highly-ordered and well-defined nanotube structure. The effects of anodization potential and duration on synthesis of highly-ordered TiO2nanotubes were also studied in this paper. Both the layer thickness and nanotube diameter linearly increase with the increasing potential. The layer thickness also increases with prolongation of anodization time. By optimizing the preparation conditions, we can successfully control the geometrical structure of TiO2nanotube arrays with diameters in the range between 50 and 200 nm and the layer thickness between 800 and 2000 nm.