School of Multidisciplinary Engineering

Center of Materials Engineering

Engineering Composite Material (MatE 6314)

Review of Journals on Composite Materials

Prepared by: Desalegn Shibesh

ID: GSR/9086/12

Submitted to: - Dawit Gemechu (Ph. D.)

May, 2020

Addis Ababa
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 Introduction

In this paper we review different journals on the composite material. Composite materials are material
which are formed from two or more materials macroscopically different in aspect (morphology), whose
combination produces a new material with new properties (mechanical, magnetic, electrical, thermal,
optical, etc.) that depend on the constituent properties. From different paper we are selecting four
journals with a title of ‘An investigation on the influence of nano silica morphology on the characteristics
of cement composites’, ‘High-performance ceramic/epoxy composite adhesives enabled by rational
ceramic bandgaps’ and ‘Self-support wood-derived carbon/polyaniline composite for high-performance
supercapacitor electrodes’.

High-performance ceramic/epoxy composite adhesives enabled by rational ceramic bandgaps

It was difficult to achieve the composite material have high performance in over-all its properties once
at time. Special in the field of fabricating aerospace applicable got great challenge to come up electrical,
mechanical and thermal properties in better way. To solve this challenge, use epoxy based composite
potting-adhesives filled with low-cost and high-performance inorganic particles in micro-size, through
facile physical blend and heat-induced curing process (J., 2019).

Due to their high Young’s modulus, strong bonding force toward massive substrates, high solvent
resistance and low production cost, a lot of epoxy resins in different trademarks have been employed as
matrix materials of hybrid potting adhesives, Mixing different epoxy as matrices has helpful to achieving
high mechanical strength and high fluidity in composite adhesives material, simultaneously (J., 2019)..

To decompose the Epoxy matrix, enough oxygen are needed. Decomposition of matrix lead to decline of
overall properties of entire cured composite. But the products from matrix decomposition would further
quicken decomposition of matrix. In the reality, there is low amount of oxygen. Therefore to overcoming
this shortage, accelerating-ageing strategy has been applied to explore endurance of systems, based on
improvement of strength, frequency or temperature of ageing process. Two kinds of epoxy resins with a
Combination of high and low-molecular-weight was utilized. To get High-performance properties acid-
anhydride would apply. The band gap of silica filler contributed to heat-oxygen-ageing and high
breakdown strength of cured composite adhesive (J., 2019).

Materials which are taken in this study was epoxy resin with high and low molecular weight, Amine
curing-accelerator, Alpha-silica particles, Alpha-alumina particles and Alpha-SiC particles. All these
material are ingredient to fabricated epoxy based hybrid potting adhesives in flowable state. Flowable
composite adhesive was slowly poured into a standard mold for shock strength test and a self-made cubic
mold for electric breakdown strength measurement respectively, followed by stable heating at 68 °C for
20 min to improve resin flow ability. The inner part of air should remove under reduced pressure for 6
times and gradual curing at 85 °C for 2 days using atmospheric pressure (J., 2019)..

Under Results and discussion section, dielectric properties of the three cured composites material results
were decreased ordered as SiC, alumina one and silica one, due to increase of band gaps of three
inorganic fillers. Under applied field, larger band gap with filler lead to the material have lower
conductivity. Epoxy had low electric conductivity, high insulation, and high breakdown property, weak
interface polarization between epoxy and filler. The Mechanical shock properties of three cured
composites measured different shock strength. The shock strength ordered as follow; silica loaded
sample, SiC loaded one and alumina loaded one. The order described to promote of Moh’s hardness of

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fillers in that order. Silica filled composite was found to have slight advantage Heat-conductance
performances of cured composites over others (J., 2019).

An investigation on the influence of nano silica morphology on the characteristics of cement

composites

Nano silica morphology have great influence on the characteristics of cement composites. Materials at
nanoscale have unique properties. It provide significant improvements especially in the construction
sector because of they have active pozzolans. Thus, improve the durability, higher packing densities,
enhance concrete toughness, residual post cracking strength, and fill the spaces of cement and
performance of fibrous composites (Mohammad & Hesam, 2020).

The Materials that used in this study was from ASTM C150 requirements .Portland cement type I-425,
Silica sand with maximum nominal size of 2 mm and a polycarboxylic ether-based super plasticizer was
utilized to achieve the desired workability of cement mortars. There were two types of nano silica
utilized. These are nano silica sol and nano silica gel (Mohammad & Hesam, 2020).

Synthesis of these nano-silica were produced by polymerization of silicic acid. To facilitate the process in
an aqueous medium. In the Nano silica gel process, sodium silicate was initially diluted by water. To
prepare the cement mortars, 0.42 of water to cementious ratio was taken. The replacement levels of
cement were 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%. For comparison purposes a plain mixture also need. Which means mortar
without any pozzolanic material (Mohammad & Hesam, 2020).

When we see the test, results and discussion part we get the following information. Increasing the cement
replacement content of nano silica and silica fume led to reduced flow ability of cement pastes and
setting times. It also has high degree of cement hydration up to 3 days. At 7days almost similar to cement
hydration degree but decreased at 28 and 90 days. Therefore increasing the nano silica level, higher
strengths have been obtained but increasing the age, the accelerating influence of nano silica on
improving the compressive strength was diminished (Mohammad & Hesam, 2020).

The nano silica have an advantage to improve the microstructure, reduced the chloride permeability and
the rates of capillary water absorption of cement composites. It has also disadvantage due to it increase
the shrinkage value (Mohammad & Hesam, 2020).

Self-support wood-derived carbon/polyaniline composite for high-performance supercapacitor

electrodes

Wood-derived carbon are important material to produce supercapacitors or batteries because of they are
self-supporter electrode material. It can improve the electrochemical characteristics by an in-situ
polymerization method. This type of method can deposited polyaniline (PANI) on wood carbon (Wc).
Polyaniline (PANI) is a commonly commercial conducting polymer for high level performance of energy
storage devices due to its high-electrical conductivity, low cost, high-specific capacity, good
biocompatibility and simple synthesis method ( Jiangltao, et al., 2019).

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 Supercapacitor has special properties due to its high-power density, excellent charge– discharge rates,
long life cycle and high-energy density. The electric performance of supercapacitors depends largely on
quality of electrode materials. Commonly electrode materials are porous carbon, such as carbon fibres,
activated carbon, carbon nano-tubes, or carbon aerogel. The reason use these electrode materials because
of its relatively high surface area, high-electrical conductivity, stability in an electrolyte and low cost
(Jiangltao, et al., 2019).

Experimental Preparation of WC: Firstly, cut the blocks wood into ∼2.5 mm thickness with a cross
section of 0.5 cm×0.7 cm. then dried it at 60◦C to remove moisture, these wood slices were placed into a
reactor and thermally treated at 200◦C for 3 h in vacuum, followed by carbonization at 800◦C for 1 h
under argon protection, finally An in-situ synthesis PANI on the WC surface was fabricated (Jiangltao, et
al., 2019).

The synthesis PANI was a mixture of 2.32 ml aniline with 25 ml 2 M hydrochloric acid was stirred in an
ice bath for 10 min. Then about 0.03 g WC was added into the previously obtained solution under
vacuum (-98 kPa) conditions for 30 min. then WC was treated by immersed process in ammonium
persulphate hydrochloric acid solution in vacuum. There was 1:1 of the aniline and ammonium
persulphate combination. The immersion process was repeated for three times. Finally, the two WC or
PANI was washed with 1% HCl, and ethanol successively and then dried at 60◦C (Jiangltao, et al., 2019).

The different properties of WC composites were also characterized by the XRD, FTIR and Raman
spectroscopy techniques. The fabricated device showed high capacity retention to display the maximum
specific capacitance. It also performed an outstanding electrical conductivity and retention of ∼82%. This
investigation suggested that PANI accommodated into the WC without any large morphological change
during charge–discharge cycling of WC-based composites (Jiangltao, et al., 2019).

References
Jiangltao, S. et al., 2019. Self-support wood-derived carbon/polyaniline composite for high-performance
supercapacitor electrodes. Buillding Materials Science.

J., . B. H., 2019. High-performance ceramic/epoxy composite adhesives enabled by rational ceramic bandgaps,
Chongqing: Springer Nature .

Mohammad, . K. & Hesam, . M., 2020. An investigation on the influence of nano silica morphology on the
characteristics of cement composites. Journal of Building Engineering.