Ceramic Bulletin

bulletine m e r g i n g c e r a m i c s & g l a s s t e c h n o l o g y

April 2013

A M E r i C A N C E r A M i C S O C i E T Y

New paradigm: Field-assisted sintering

Ceramic property data in the Internet age

Indian Ceramic Society and ACerS sign pact

Meeting previews: PACRIM, GOMD, UNITECR, Structural Clay Products Division

MAX phases: Bridging the gap between metals and ceramics

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x1American Ceramic Society Bulletin, Vol. 92, No. 3 | www.ceramics.org

contentsA p r i l 2 0 1 3 V o l . 9 2 N o . 3

cover storyMicrostructure of Ti2AlC, one of the MAX phases.(Credit: Radovic and Benitez, TAMU.)

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feature articlesMAX phases: Bridging the gap between metals and ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Miladin Radovic and Michel W. Barsoum This exciting class of carbides and nitrides have remarkable properties that bridge the gap between metals and ceramics and offer fundamentally new ways to tune structure and properties for emerging applications.

New paradigm prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Peter Wray Could sintering under an electric field be a new paradigm for ceramics processing? In this inter-view, Rishi Raj explains field-assisted sintering technology, how Hans Conrad discovered it, and how it might revolutionize manufacturing.

Current availability of ceramic property data and future opportunities . . . . 34Steve Freiman and John Rumble The authors present the case for establishing a single portal for accessing ceramic property data based on their year-long study of databases and work with data users. A compilation of ceramic property data resources is included.

meetingsPACRIM 10, including GOMD 2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Plenary speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Darshana and Arun Varshneya Frontiers of Glass Science Lecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Tentative schedule of events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Hotel information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Short courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Symposia schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

UNITECR 2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Keynote and plenary speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Schedule at a glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Technical program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Hotel information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Short courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Highlights from the 37th International Conference & Exposition on Advanced Ceramics and Composites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Failure-induced success at Electronic Materials and Applications meeting in Orlando . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

departmentsNews & Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 White House calls for increased access to federally funded research results Business news University of Bremen is hiring to launch its C4.5M MIMENIMA porous advanced ceramic effort New $2.5M landmark conservation science institute to be established for the arts Gordon Research Conferences 2013 schedule Billions in federal R&D recovery monies still on the table in the US?

ACerS and Indian Ceramic Society sign Memorandum of Understanding (Credit: ACerS)

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ceramics in the environmentInternal curing of concrete structures(Credit: Andy Hancock, Purdue University.)

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2 www.ceramics.org | American Ceramic Society Bulletin, Vol. 92, No. 3

ACerS Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Welcome to our newest Corporate Members! Hench to receive Michigan/NW Ohio Section Award Last chance to submit nominations for the new Du-Co awards Ceramic Education Council strengthens universityindustry bond ACerS and Indian Ceramic Society sign Memorandum of Understanding Ceramic Tech Today PCSA begins year six, expands to 31 delegates and adds Outreach Committee Names in the news In Memoriam

Research Briefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Multidisciplinary approaches to materials discovery needed for Materials Genome Initiative

Ceramics in Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Trucking solar energyU. Delaware team dissociates zinc oxide in solar reactor to make solar fuel

Advances in Nanomaterials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Nanoporous molybdenum nitride supercapacitor electrodes

Ceramics in the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Internal curing standards and recent work on extending life of concrete structures Flowerpot like ceramic filters purify water for drinking, cooking

resourcesNew Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Classified Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Display Advertising Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

contentsA p r i l 2 0 1 3 V o l . 9 2 N o . 3bulletin

AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY

Editorial and ProductionEileen De Guire, Editor ph: 614-794-5828 fx: 614-794-5815 [email protected] Wray, Contributing Editor Russell Jordan, Contributing EditorTess M. Speakman, Graphic Designer

Editorial Advisory BoardOlivia Graeve, Chair, Alfred UniversityAllen Apblett, Oklahoma State UniversityAndrew Gyekenyesi, Ohio Aerospace InstituteJoe Ryan, Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryRafael Salomo, University of So PauloFinn Giuliani, Imperial College LondonEileen De Guire, Staff Liaison, The American Ceramic Society

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American Ceramic Society Bulletin covers news and activities of the Society and its members, includes items of interest to the ceramics community and provides the most current information concerning all aspects of ceramic technology, including R&D, manufacturing, engineering and marketing.

American Ceramic Society Bulletin (ISSN No. 0002-7812). 2013. Printed in the United States of America. ACerS Bulletin is published monthly, except for February, July and November, as a dual-media magazine in print and electronic format (www.ceramicbulletin.org).

Editorial and Subscription Offices: 600 North Cleveland Avenue, Suite 210, Westerville, OH 43082-6920. Subscription included with American Ceramic Society membership. Nonmember print subscription rates, including online access: United States and Canada, 1 year $95; international, 1 year $150.* Rates include shipping charges. International Remail Service is standard outside of the United States and Canada. *International nonmembers also may elect to receive an electronic-only, e-mail delivery subscription for $75.

Single issues, JanuaryNovember: member $6.00 per issue; nonmember $7.50 per issue. December issue (ceramicSOURCE): member $20, nonmember $25. Postage/handling for single issues: United States and Canada, $3 per item; United States and Canada Expedited (UPS 2nd day air), $8 per item; International Standard, $6 per item.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to American Ceramic Society Bulletin, 600 North Cleveland Avenue, Suite 210, Westerville, OH 43082-6920.

Periodical postage paid at Westerville, Ohio, and additional mailing offices. Allow six weeks for address changes.

ACSBA7, Vol. 92, No. 3, pp 156. All feature articles are covered in Current Contents.

OfficersRichard Brow, PresidentDavid Green, President-electGeorge Wicks, Past PresidentTed Day TreasurerCharles Spahr, Executive Director

Board of Directors Keith Bowman, Director 20122015Elizabeth Dickey, Director 20122015William Fahrenholtz, Director 20092013Vijay Jain, Director 20112014William Lee, Director 20102013Ivar Reimanis, Director 20112014Lora Cooper Rothen, Director 20112014Robert Schwartz, Director 20102013Mrityunjay (Jay) Singh, Director 20122015David Johnson Jr., Parliamentarian

Address600 North Cleveland Avenue, Suite 210 Westerville, OH 43082-6920

Corrections to the March ACerS Bulletin

ACerS launches new Arts, Archaeology, and Conservation Science Division, p. 12. Marc Walton is employed by the Getty Conservation Institute, a standalone department operating under the Getty Trust.

Transparent polycrystalline cubic spinels protect and defend, p. 20. The densities of the laminates in Figure 5 are areal density values.

New opportunities for transparent ceramics, p. 32. The illumination in Figure 4 is 254-nanometer UV instead of 245-nanometer UV.

3American Ceramic Society Bulletin, Vol. 92, No. 3 | www.ceramics.org

White House calls for increased access to federally funded research results

In February, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo to the heads of executive departments and federal agencies instructing them to develop a plan to increase the publics access to the fruits of federally funded research, in particular, publications and digital data.

The request applies to all federal agencies that support more than $100 million in annual R&D.

Besides making taxpayer-funded research results available to the tax-payer, the OSTP hopes that govern-ment-funded scientific research will spur innovation. It claims that research results are grist for new insights and are assets for progress in areas such as

health, energy, the environ-ment, agricul-ture, and nation-al security.

OSTPs objective is to provide public access to unclas-sified research published in peer-reviewed journals and to digital-format scientific data.

The agencies have six months to draft a plan. They are encour-aged to work together to develop compatible plans and to solicit input from stakeholders,

including universities, libraries, princi-pal investigators, publishers, and societ-ies (such as ACerS).

OSTP clearly and explicitly says there will be no additional funding to implement the plans.

The memo stipulates the following requirements:

A strategy for leveraging exist-ing archives, where appropriate, and fostering publicprivate partnerships with scientific journals relevant to the agencys research;

A strategy for improving the pub-lics ability to locate and access digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research;

An approach for optimizing search, archival, and dissemination features that encourages innovation in accessi-bility and interoperability, while ensur-ing long-term stewardship of the results of federally funded research;

A plan for notifying awardees and other federally funded scientific researchers of their obligations (e.g., through guidance, conditions of awards, and/or regulatory changes);

An agency strategy for measuring

news & trends

Business newsAGCs large-sized, chemically strength-

ened Dragontrail enables efficient pro-duction of thinner touchscreens (www.agc.com)American Vanadium and Gildemeister join to deliver energy stor-age solutions (www.americanvanadium.com; www.gildemeister.com)Cabot launches first graphene-based addi-tive to improve energy density of Li-ion batteries (www.investor.cabot-corp.com)Unifrax announces acquisition deal (www.unifrax.com)Around the world of ceramics in eight minutes: CeramTec launches additional international web-sites (www.ceramtec.com)Freeman Technology to present new research on the impact of humidity on powders at Powtech 2013 (www.freemantech.co.uk)RAK reaches 50 million milestone (www.menafn.com)PPG glass requests for LEED documentation surpass 1,000 (www.ppg.com)CeramTec expands

Marktredwitz site; Ceramics Group to invest 80M in existing plant (www.ceramtec.com)ClearEdge completes purchase of UTC Power (www.clearedgepower.com)Thermal Technology ships 14 K1 sapphire crystal growers to Europe (www.thermaltechnology.com)HED works with GE, Rutgers engineers on new rotary furnaces for processing nanopowders (www.hed.com)Mettler Toledo intro-duces new Excellence dynamic mechani-cal analyzer (www.us.mt.com)AVXs new AEC-Q200-qualified Skycap capaci-tors: Ideal for high-voltage automotive applications (www.avx.com)Aggressive Grinding appoints Tom Shearer general manager (www.ags-fast.com)Plasma-sprayed ceramics enable use of compos-ites in high-temperature environments on Aston Martin One-77 (www.theautochannel.com n

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The White House hopes to increase innovation in industry and manu-facturing, in part, by making federally funded scientific research results easier to access. Here, President Barack Obama listens to Jeffrey Brower and Dwayne Moore explain the machining of the axle components made for Caterpillars large mining trucks during a tour of the Linamar Corp. auto-parts plant in Arden, N.C, Feb. 13, 2013.

www.ceramics.org | American Ceramic Society Bulletin, Vol. 92, No. 34

news & trends

and, as necessary, enforcing compliance with its plan;

Identification of resources within the existing agency budget to imple-ment the plan;

A timeline for implementation; and Identification of any special circum-

stances that prevent the agency from meeting any of the objectives set out in the memorandum, in whole or in part.

The government recognizes the value added by the scientific publishing indus-try, including the coordination of peer review ... for ensuring the high quality and integrity of many scholarly publica-tions. The government appears to be making an effort to keep the requirements reasonable. Indeed, some in the scholarly publishing blogoshphere describe the new policy as a fair and sustainable policy that offers much to the public good and a reasonable step forward.

The devil will be in the details of open access (OA). In addition to the explicit absence of a budget, chal-lenges to address in the coming months include the possibility of multiple OA systems, the reality of many federal agencies that are affected, and the exis-tence of many scientific disciplines.

Publishers will have a much easier time complying if the OA plans end up being a one size fits all. n

University of Bremen is hiring to launch its C4.5M MIMENIMA porous advanced ceramic effort

The University of Bremen (Germany) announced that it received C4.5 million for a project to tailor porous advanced ceramics for applica-tions in energy, environmental, chemi-

cal engineering, and space technology.The project is called MIMENIMA

an acronym for microporous, meso-porous, and macroporous nonmetallic materials.

According to a university news release, Eight interdisciplinary research groups are involved in this initiative, and we are very excited to go signifi-

New $2.5M landmark conservation science institute to be established for the artsThe Chicago Art Institute and

Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) received a $2.5 million, six-year grant from the Mellon Foundation to establish an institute dedicated to conservation science. The NUArt Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts (NU-ACCESS) is the first of its type in the United States. It is the direct fruit of work by Katherine Faber (Walter P. Murphy professor of materials science and engineering) and Francesca Casadio (Andrew W. Mellon senior conservation scientist at the Chicago Art Institute). Their art-and-science collaboration began in 2004 when they launched an ad-hoc museumNU partnership.

According to a NU press release, the new center will serve as a collab-orative hub, facilitating interdisciplin-ary research partnerships in art studies and conservation on a national scale.

NU-ACCESS will be located at NU and eventually will be staffed by a senior scientist and two postdoc-toral fellows. An example of the type

of work NU-ACCESS will engage in is contained in a recent paper by Casadio and coauthor Volker Rose, a physicist at the Argonne National Lab, published in Applied Physics A (doi:10.1007/s00339-012-7534-x). The paper, for the first time, docu-ments that Pablo Picasso eventually

used common house paint in many of his works, such as his The Red Chair painting on display in the Art Institute. Casadio and Rose used the hard X-ray nanoprobe at the Advanced Photon Source facility at Argonne National Laboratory. n

Art Institute of Chicago art conservation scientist, Francesca Casadio, describes to delegates at the 2012 ICC4 meeting a project that investigated enamel paints used in Pablo Picassos The Red Chair. Casadio and Katherine Faber are setting up a new conservation science research hub in Chicago.

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cantly beyond the state-of-the-art, says Kurosch Rezwan, the spokesperson of the MIMENIMA research train-ing group (RTG) and a professor of advanced ceramics at the university. Rezwan is a member of ACerS and is affiliated with the Societys Engineering Ceramics Division.

The scope of the project includes Materials development; Functional, porous ceramics for

biotechnological applications; Adjustment of polymer-derived

ceramics for the transport of cryogenic liquid;

Monolithic catalysts of porous rare-earth oxides (REOs);

Process analysis; Nuclear magnetic resonance

(NMR) methods for the characterization of mass transport in porous materials;

Structural characterization of mes-oporous layers using light scattering;

Basic research experiments for mass transport in porous materials;

Deep-bed filtration in real porous structurescombination of micro com-puted tomography and NMR;

Investigation of dielectrophoretic effects in porous structures;

Modeling and simulation; Mechanical properties of porous

ceramicscombination of in-situ X-ray tomography (XRT) and finite-element simulation to develop microstructurally based failure criteria;

Formulation of multiple fluidfluid dispersions by micromembranes (pre-mix encapsulation);

Special applications; Application of porous ceramics

for the handling of cryogenic media in space; and

Monolithic catalysts of graded porosity.

MIMENIMA will use NMR for spa-tial analysis of the liquid-phase distribu-tion and dynamic flow processes and XRT for quantitative analysis of the ceramic structure. RTG predicts that, second only to material conditioning, systematic combination of NMR and

XRT is a major integrated focus of the research project.

To meet the new research opportu-nities connected to the MIMENIMA effort, the RTG says it is looking for at least 11 excellent PhD candidates

[from] all over the world.MIMENIMA is one of 23 new RTGs

the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced last November. The DFG already funded 226 RTGs, includ-ing 48 international groups. n

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Gordon Research Conferences 2013 schedule

The Gordon Research Conferences 2013 catalog is available at www.grc.org. It includes descriptions of each conference as well as dates, locations, and organizers. The website has instruc-tions for applying for an invitation.

The next installment of the long-running Solid State Studies in Ceramics will be in 2014. The ACerS Basic Science Division traditionally supports the ceramics GRC.

Meanwhile, these 2013 conferences overlap with the ceramics communitys interests:

Clusters, Nanocrystals, and NanostructuresFrom Fundamental Chemical and Physical Processes to Application;

Electron Distribution and Chemical BondingPushing the

Limits of Experimental and Theoretical Charge and Spin Density Studies;

High-Temperature CorrosionSolution for Energy Issues and Future Role in High-Temperature Processes;

Nanomechanical InterfacesMultiphysics Theory and Experiments; and

Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory. n

news & trends

Billions in federal R&D recovery monies still on the table in the US?In January, the European

Commission announced the award of about C1 billion (~$1.35 billion) to support focused research on graphene. The effort will span about 200 institu-tions in more than 15 EU member states, with the mandate to deliver 10 years of world-beating science.

That is a sizeable investment. But, for perspective, consider that about $7 billion in science-related Recovery Act monies remain unspent on the books in Washington, D.C., according the Obama administrations Recovery.gov website (click the Where is the money going? tab, and select Recipient and Agency Data).The website provides weekly updates, agency-by-agency, on the spending of the American Recover and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds.

The $7-billion figure assumes that most of the ARRA science fund-ing is contained in the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. The website shows that DOE has not paid out about $6.29

billion (17.5 percent of its total ARRA alloca-tion). Likewise, NSF has not paid out more than $600 million (20.5 percent of its alloca-tion). The amount might be greater if other agencies, such as DOD are included.

One apparent reason for the inertia is that, for example, 86 DOE-approved projects have not even begun, and 368 are less than 50 percent com-pleted. The NSF has 23 projects not started and 190 that have not passed their halfway mark.

Some reasonable delays were expect-ed in getting proposals vetted and in getting projects ramped up. However, the point of the ARRA was to pump money into the affected sectors quickly. Even the DOE understood from the beginning that the idea was to provide

a rapid stimulus to science and engi-neering.

Following the EU model, can we not find and fund with several billion dollars one or two strategic grand chal-lenges to deliver 10 years of world-beating science in the US? Imagine what $2 billion in focused funding for the Materials Genome Initiative could do! n

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DOEs Recovery Act project status as of Feb. 13, 2013. More than $6 billion is still unspent.

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The 2013 Gordon Research Conference schedule is now available. Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., will host the ceramics Gordon Research Conferencebut not until 2014.


Hench to receive Michigan/NW Ohio Section award

Larry Hench will receive the 2013 Toledo Glass & Ceramic Award of the Michigan/NW Ohio Section of The American Ceramic Society.

The award is pre-sented to Hench in recognition of his outstanding service and leadership in promoting glass as a remarkable mate-rial. Hench is an eminent scholar in the field of glass science. He is known internationally for his seminal work on glass-ceramics and education. Bioglass, the result of his work, is the first arti-ficial material to bond to living tissue and is the foundation for second-gener-ation biomaterials and bioactive glasses and ceramics. These materials are used

worldwide to repair bones and teeth, and they are the active ingredient in a new best-selling toothpaste.

Hench graduated from The Ohio State University. His summer work at Owens-Illinois in Toledo, Ohio, started his career in glass and provided the basis of his later glass-ceramics research. He conducted research and taught at the University of Florida for 32 years. Hench retired as emeri-tus professor to accept the chair of Ceramic Materials at the Imperial College London, University of London. There he cofounded and codirected for 10 years the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Centre. Hench retired from Imperial College as emeri-tus professor of Ceramic Materials.

Hench currently holds positions at Florida Gulf Coast University, University of Central Florida, and Florida Institute of Technology. He is

acers spotlightWelcome to our newest Corporate Members!

ACerS recognizes organizations that have joined the Society as Corporate Members. For more information on becoming a Corporate Member, con-tact Tricia Freshour at [email protected], or visit ACerS special Corporate Member web page, www.ceramics.org/corporate.

Materials Systems Inc.Littleton, Mass.

www.matsysinc.com

TAM CeramicsNiagara Falls, N.Y.

www.tamceramics.com

Premier Ceramic IndustriesNew Delhi, India

www.premiercera.com

Mysore Stoneware Pipes andPotteries Ltd

Bangalore, Indiawww.mysorestonewarepipesand-

potteriesltd1.getit.in

USA Texas General Ceramics LLCDallas, Texas

www.advanceceramics.com

Hench

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acers spotlight

the author or coauthor of many techni-cal articles and books and the childrens book series Boing Boing the Bionic Cat.

Hench is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, has received the ACerS W.D. Kingery Award, and is a Fellow and Distinguished Life Member of ACerS. He was the Glass and Optical Materials Divisions Stookey Lecture of Discovery Award recipient in 2008.

The award presentation is Thursday, April 18, 2013, at the Toledo Club. A social hour with cash bar begins at 6:00 p.m., and dinner begins at 7:00 p.m. Hench will provide remarks on The Story of Bioglass: From O-I to OR!

Contact: Janet Bailey at [email protected]; telephone: 248-348-6585; or Fred Stover at [email protected]. n

EMA expands student poster and talk awardsBy Geoff Brennecka

By all accounts, the 2013 Electronic Materials and Applications meeting was the largest and best yet. This hap-pened in part because of the exceptional contributions of the

students who attended the meeting. This years poster session grew to 27 posters of which 12 were from students participat-ing in the best poster competition. Almost 40 talks were delivered by (most-ly graduate) students during the three-day meeting. The undergraduate-focused lunchtime symposium organized by the

ACerS Presidents Council of Student Advisors was a resounding success with all three speakers delivering well-pol-ished talks about their impressive under-graduate research.

For many years, the ACerS Electronics Division has awarded the best student presentations with certifi-cates and $250 checks to help the win-ners celebrate (or buy books). This year, the Division officers voted to expand the awards from one best poster and one best talk to the top three of each cat-egory ($250/$150/$100). With so many entries, the Divisions awards committee would have been unable to accomplish their task of assigning winners without the assistance of 20 additional review-ersmany thanks to all of you for your assistance! Posters and talks were judged based on technical content, visual impact and clarity, and responses to questions from the audience.

The poster winners and their titles were announced during the EMA ban-quet:

First placeJonathan Mackey, University of Akron, Analytic Thermoelectric Device Optimization;

Second placeAli Henriques, University of Florida, Structural Changes in Lead Zirconate Titanate due to High Neutron Radiation Exposure; and

Third placeMichelle Nolan, University of Florida, Phase Equilibria, Crystallographic Structure, and Piezoelectric Properties of Tetragonal Pb(11.5x)SmxZr(1y)TiyO3.

The poster judging was close, but it was nowhere as close as the race for the best talks. Determination of the final rankings of the speakers required multiple rounds of conversations among the judges and the awards committee. Requests for additional details and head-to-head com-parisons slowly whittled down the field of entrants. The awards committee would have been proud to present awards to all of the top seven talks.

The talk winners and their titles also were announced during the EMA banquet:

First placeChris Shelton, North

Brennecka

Last chance to submit nominations for the new Du-Co awardsAlthough January 15th was the deadline for most Society award nominations

that will be presented at MS&T 2013, please note the following awards have later deadlines.

April 1st

Du-Co Ceramics Scholarship AwardThis $3,000 scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate student pursing a

degree in ceramic/materials science or engineering.Du-Co Ceramics Young Professional AwardThis $1,500 honorarium is awarded to a young professional member of ACerS

who demonstrates exceptional leadership and service to ACerS.April 15th

CEC Outstanding Educator AwardThis award recognizes outstanding work and creativity in teaching, in direct-

ing student research, or in the general educational process of ceramic educators.June 30th

GOMD Alfred R. Cooper Scholars AwardThis award recognizes undergraduate students who have demonstrated excel-

lence in research, engineering, and/or study in glass science or technology.July 31st Electronics: Edward C. Henry AwardThis award is given to an outstanding paper in the Journal of the American

Ceramic Society or the ACerS Bulletin during the previous calendar year on a subject related to electronic ceramics.

Electronics: Lewis C. Hoffman ScholarshipThis $2,000 scholarship is to encourage academic excellence among

undergraduate students. The 2013 essay topic is Coupled Properties for Multifunctional Electroceramics.

Additional information and nomination forms for these awards can be found at ceramics.org/awards. Contact: Marcia Stout at [email protected]. n


Carolina State University, Control of ZnO Thin Film Polarity through Interface Chemistry;

Second placeTedi-Marie Usher, University of Florida, Domain Wall Motion and Electric-Field-Induced Strains in NBTxBT Solid Solutions from in-situ Neutron Diffraction; and

Third placeJon Bock, The Pennsylvania State University, The Influence, Role, and Property Variations in Ferroelectricity at the Edge of the MetalInsulator Transition and Its Influence on Thermoelectric Properties.

Congratulations to student winners and participants. Thanks to reviewers and the Electronics Division Awards Committee members Geoff Brennecka, Hongmei Luo, and Brady Gibbons.

Look forward to even better posters and talks during EMA 2014! n

Ceramic Education Council strengthens universityindustry bond By Kristen Brosnan

Last month, Geoff Brennecka and Kevin Fox introduced the new and improved Education Integration Committee (EIC) that provides synergy among the Ceramic Education Council

(CEC), National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE), Student Activities Committee (SAC), Keramos, Young Professionals Network (YPN), and the Presidents Council of Student Advisors (PCSA). This month I would like to introduce the new efforts of the CEC in enhancing studentindustry and indus-trycurriculum ties.

During recent years, the CEC organized the undergraduate speaking contest, undergraduate poster contest, and graduate poster contest at MS&T and the ACerS Annual Meeting. These contests will continue, but now will be organized by the SAC.

Brosnan

Student poster award winners with Electronics Division and Society leaders. From left: Charlie Spahr, ACerS executive director; Quanxi Jia, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Michelle Nolan, University of Florida; Bryan Huey, University of Connecticut; Ali Henriques, University of Florida; Timothy Haugan, Wright Patterson Air Force Base; Jonathan Mackey, University of Akron; Geoffrey Brennecka, Sandia National Laboratory. Jia, Huey, and Haugan organized the meeting.

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The CEC is in the process of rede-fining its role in the ceramics commu-nity. The committee is going back to its roots in aligning education with the needs of industry. Now, the major responsibility of the CEC is to actively assist universities in aligning curricula with the evolving needs of the global ceramic industry and to help coordinate outreach activities of the PCSA and YPN.

The redefined CEC has a few new initiatives this year to address some critical needs. These are just a start, and we request that the ceramics com-munity provide us with feedback on our new direction.

The CEC plans a speed-networking event at MS&T 2013 for students and ceramic/materials industry professionals.

The CEC plans to set up a lunch with industry day at MS&T 2013 in Montreal. This will be a mechanism for students to informally ask questions of a professional in the ceramic/materials industry over lunch.

The CEC is in the process of developing a global ceramic faculty database with help from the PCSA. The committee has identified 284 faculty representing 14 countries. The CEC is working to expand this data-base, especially to capture international faculty information.

The CEC has created a new discussion group for the CEC on myacers.ceramics.org. The group is open to all to discuss ceramic curricula and to share ideas for fostering studentindustry relationships. The committee

invites input on other ways to connect the global ceramics community.

I encourage ceramic industry pro-fessionals to volunteer for the speed networking event and/or lunch with industry day. These one-hour time commitments are an excellent opportu-nity to meet the many talented students that attend our professional meetings. This is a great way to give back by helping students build their professional network and guiding them in their careers in ceramics.

Contact: Kristen Brosnan at [email protected]. n

ACerS and Indian Ceramic Society sign Memorandum of Understanding

In January, ACerS members and staff traveled to India to attend the 76th Annual Session of the Indian Ceramic Society in Ahmedabad, which was well organized by the InCerS Gujarat chapter. The ACerS contingent included ACerS immediate past president George Wicks and his wife Donna, ACerS Board mem-ber Mrityunjay Jay Singh, president-elect Kathleen Richardson, former ACerS Board member Arun Varshneya, Engineering Ceramics Division senior counselor Tatsuki Ohji, members Paolo Colombo and Martin Richardson, and ACerS director of marketing and mem-bership services, Megan Bricker.

Just prior to the InCerS meet-ing, Singh, Wicks, Ohji, and Bricker attended the Global Ceramics Leadership Roundtable Conference in the Greater

Noida (Delhi) area, organized by the Western Uttar Pradesh Chapter of InCerS under the leadership of L.K. Sharma, scientist-in-charge of Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute. This meeting reviewed the status of ceramic-related industries in India. Singh chaired the session, Wicks and Ohji gave global updates, and Bricker spoke of the alliance between the two societies.

Sharma and Singh also arranged visits to ceramic companies in Khurja, one of the oldest hubs of ceramics in India. The guests saw how ceramics and glass in these companies are manufactured and brought to market. They visited Narang Ceramic Industries, owned by Haji Azaz Ahmad (Haji Gudda); Silico & Chemico Porcelain Works, owned by Jaswant Singh Minhas; and Premier Group of Industries, owned by Ramesh Kumar.

The group next flew to Ahmedabad, where they and other ACerS mem-bers attended two conferences. First was the International Conference on Emergence of New Era in Glass and Ceramics. Singh gave the keynote lecture, Materials for a Sustainable Society. Other invited speakers included Colombo (Design of Highly Porous Ceramics from Preceramic Polymers), Martin Richardson (Transparent CeramicsA Game Changer for Lasers), and Wicks (Tiny Bubbles Unique Porous Wall Hollow Glass Microspheres and Uses in Energy, Environmental Remediation, Homeland Defense, and Medicine).

Next, a two-day combined meet-ing entitled, National Conference on Green Manufacturing Technologies in Glass and Ceramics, was held that included The 76th Annual Session of InCerS, the 64th Annual Session of All India Pottery Manufacturers Association, and 38th Annual Session of Indian Institute of Ceramics. Varshneya presented the plenary lecture, Glass for Pharmaceutical Packaging, at the InCerS Annual Meeting. Ohji and Richardson delivered award lectures (see details, p. 13).

While at the conference, InCerS outgoing president A.L. Shashi Mohan,

Education Integration Committee

Subcommittees Representatives

CEC reps

NICE reps

SAC reps

EIC Chair

Staff Liaison

Keramos (Pres.)

PCSA (Chair)

YPN (Senior Cochair)

At-Large (Optional)


Wicks, and Kathleen Richardson offi-cially signed a historic ACerSInCerS Memorandum of Understanding. The pact benefits both groups by offering each other discounted memberships, lecture exchanges, a presence on each others websites, and more interactions in each others publications.

In celebration, the conference par-ticipants attended an Indian-style reception that featured traditional entertainment and food. The next day, the ACerS group visited Sabarmati Ashram (the action campus) of Mahatma Gandhi.

Bricker praises the hospitality shown throughout the trip by all of the local hosts, which she notes was largely coor-dinated by Singh. Our experience in India was above and beyond what one could even imagine, Bricker says. The country, with its rich culture, amazing food, and friendly, kind people will be long remembered. I know that the trip and the signing of the MoU have made lasting impressions on all the ACerS members, both those who attended and those back in their home countries. n

CeramiC TeCh Today

Porous ceramic water filters (pictured) Internal curing of concrete Solar fuel from ZnO Aerogel valentines Outlook for tablet glass market

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A.L. Shashi Mohan, president (now past president) of The Indian Ceramic Society signed the MoU and shows signatures proudly to Arun Varshneya and Arup Kumar Chattopadhyay, (current InCerS president.).

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PCSA begins year six, expands to 31 delegates and adds Outreach CommitteeNow we are six, and as clever as clever, from the A.A. Milne 1927 poem, Now We Are Six.

By Derek R. Miller, The Ohio State University

An expanded delega-tion of 31 students representing 23 uni-versities congregated in Daytona Beach, Fla., the weekend of Jan. 2527, 2013, to form the ACerSs 2013 Presidents Council of Student Advisors (PCSA). This annual busi-ness meeting saw a smooth transition between officers and established a clear direction for the organization as it enters its sixth year. Derek Miller, a graduate student at The Ohio State University, was elected 2013 PCSA chair, taking over after a prolific year under the direction of former chair, Troy Ansell of Oregon State University. The 2013 PCSA expanded to five committees by adding a stand-ing Outreach Committee. The new committee chairs are Aaron Lichtner, Valerie Wiesner, Dalton Divine, Allen Erickson, and Lesa Brown, leading the Programming, Recruitment, Finance, Communications, and Outreach Committees, respectively.

Beginning this fall, the annual PCSA business meeting will be held during MS&T to increase the ACerS PCSA visibility with the materials science and engineering student body. Thus, the 2013 PCSA has a shortened year in which to accomplish its expanding

goals. Delegates are optimistic, however, because our number has increased and the 2012 delegates set us up for success.

Over the past 12 months, the 2012 PCSA put several plans into motion that we hope to complete in 2013. An ACerS PCSA ceramic education survey was created and distributed; materials demonstration kits progressed enough to enable completion in 2013; excellent fundraising efforts and generous dona-tions allowed the PCSA to increase its delegate numbers by 50 percent; and the PCSA organized a student tour of the Vesuvius Research Center (Pittsburgh, Pa.) during MS&T12 and a student-focused symposium for EMA 2013.

In 2013, the new Outreach Committee will release two Materials Science Demonstration Kits (one tar-geted to middle-school students, the other to high-school students) that will be distributed nationwide for the purpose of getting materials science into as many classrooms as possible. Comprehensive student and teacher instructions, follow-up questions, back-ground information, real-world applica-tions, and video demonstrations will be included in each kit that will be made available online as well. Ordering infor-mation for these kits will be available at MS&T 2013.

The Recruitment Committee aims to expand the number of universities represented by increasing visibility in less-well-established materials programs as well as reaching overseas for interna-tional representation.

The Programming Committee will set up competitions, networking lunches, and mixers at several conferences over the year as well as instituting the first-ever PCSA Ceramics-in-Writing contest.

The Communications Committee will finalize data on its education survey and will present the results at MS&T 2013 to help educators under-stand how to better prepare students for their careers. The committee also plans to compile a comprehensive online resource that includes all schol-arships, internships, fellowships, REUs, and career opportunities relevant to a materials/ceramic science student, all in one place. Finally, Communications will once again organize and provide content for the June/July student issue of the ACerS Bulletin.

The Finance Committee is working through a shortened fundraising period and has ambitious goals. Please visit our website for information on supporting our conference programming, outreach efforts, and delegate travel expenses.

The PCSA thanks its past and cur-rent financial contributors for mak-ing its efforts possible. We also thank the former chairs Troy Ansell, Mona Emrich, Michelle Gervasio, Kelsey Meyer, and Samara Levine for all of their effort in growing the student ceramics community and accelerat-ing the momentum of the PCSA. Our ACerS advisors and staff liaisons, Geoff Brennecka, Richard Brow, Charlie Spahr, and Tricia Freshour, also have been instrumental in our success. Without them, PCSAs accomplish-ments would not have been possible.

If you are a student looking to become a leader in the ceramics com-munity or just want to help in any way with the PCSAs goals, please visit http://ceramics.org/pcsa for more infor-mation. PCSA delegate applications are being accepted now until June 7, 2013, so apply today! n

Presidents Council of Student Advisors (PCSA) 2013 officers and delegtates.

Miller


Names in the newsBonnell elected to National Academy of Engineering

Dawn Bonnell, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for development of atomic-resolution surface probes, and for institutional

leadership in nanoscience. She is Trustees Chair Professor and profes-sor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bonnell, an ACerS Fellow, joined The American Ceramic Society in 1986. She served as the chair of the Basic Science Division, vice president of the Meetings and Exhibits Committee, and on the Strategic Planning Committee. She earned her PhD from the University of Michigan and was a Fulbright Scholar to the Max-Planck-Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. Following her Fulbright year, she worked at the IBM Thomas Watson Research Center. She has authored or coauthored over 250 papers, and her work has been rec-ognized by The American Ceramic Society with the Ross Coffin Purdy Award and the Sosman Award. Other recognitions include the Presidential Young Investigators Award, the Staudinger/Durrer Medal from ETH Zurich, the Heilmeier Faculty Research Award, and several distin-guished lectureships. Bonnell serves on many editorial boards, is a past presi-dent of the American Vacuum Society (AVS), and served on the governing board of the American Institute of Physics. Besides ACerS, she is a fel-low of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the AVS. She is the founding director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center, which is a cross disciplinary organization that involves faculty from the School

of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, Wharton, and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

The research in the Bonnell group focuses on atomic processes at surfaces and interfaces. The group is known for the first imaging of atoms on oxide surfaces, a result that generated a new field impacting catalysis, nanofabrica-tion and materials growth technology. They develop new probes of atomic and nanoscale electromagnetic proper-ties. More recently her group devel-oped a new paradigm for fabricating nanostructured devices, Ferroelectric Nanolithography, and discovered a plasmon based mechanism for harvest-ing light energy. n

Richardson, Ohji receive InCerS awards

The Indian Ceramic Society conferred awards on two distin-guished ACerS membersKathleen Richardson and Tatsuki Ohjiat the organizations 76th Annual Session held in January in Ahmedebad (see report, p. 10).

InCerS presented its I.D. Varshnei Award to Richardson, a professor of optics and materials science and engi-neering at the University of Central Floridas CREOL/College of Optics and Photonics. The Varshnei Award, awarded biannually, recognizes inter-

national contributions to glass science in honor of I.D. Varshnei, Indias father of glass science and a past president of InCerS.

Richardson directs the Glass Processing and Characterization Laboratory at UCF and researches the synthesis and characterization of novel glass and glass-ceramics for optical appli-cations. She has a long history of leader-ship within ACerS, including serving as chair of its Glass and Optical Materials Division and as a member of its Board of Directors. She is an ACerS Fellow and past-president of the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers.

Ohji, also an ACerS leader, was honored by the InCerS during the same meeting with its M.G. Bhagat Award. Ohji, recogonized for his significant contribution in the field of ceramics and allied industries, earned his BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Nagoya Institute of Technology and PhD in inorganic materials engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has authored or coauthored more than 330 peer-reviewed papers and 12 book chapters, edited 30 books and confer-ence volumes, chaired or cochaired more than 20 international confer-ences and symposia, and holds more than 40 patents.

Ohji is a Fellow of ACerS, an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics, and past-chair of ACerS

A.L. Shashi Mohan, InCerS president, presents Indian Ceramic Society awards to ACerS members at the InCerS Annual Meeting in January. Left: Kathleen Richardson receives the I.D. Varshnei Award. Right, Tatsuki Ohji receives the M.G. Bhagat Award.

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Engineering Ceramics Division. His research interests include mechanical property characterization of ceramics, ceramic composites and porous materials, microstructural design of ceramic materi-als for better performance, and green manufacturing of ceramic components. n

ECerS presents ajgalk with 2013 Stuijts Award

The European Ceramic Society announces that it will present its Stuijts Award for 2013 to Pavol ajgalk, a member of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

ajgalk is a Fellow of ACerS.

The Stuijts Award is given in memory of A. Leog Stuijts, who contributed to the development of the science and technology of magnetoceramic and electroceramic materials. Each year, ECerS gives the award to a ceramist belonging to a member country of the organization for outstanding contribu-tions to ceramic science, technology, and educational activities or produc-tion. ajgalk will receive the award at ECerSs 13th Annual Conference in Limoges, France, June 2327, 2013.

The award recognizes ajgalk for his work with silicon nitride and silicon carbide microcomposites and nano-composites. Much of his work involves doping the Si3N4 and SiC composites with various rare-earth oxides. He has authored more than 130 techni-cal papers in reviewed journals and proceedings and has contributed to national and international books. He holds several patents.

Since 1989, ajgalk has organized the International Advanced Research Workshops on Engineering Ceramics in the Smolenice Castle, Slovakia. He has delivered more than 50 invited lectures at international symposia.

ajgalk has received many national and international awards, including Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship; Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics; Member of the Learning Society of the SAS; Plaquete of Dioniz Ilkovic for Merits in the PhysicalChemical Sciences; Scientist of the Year 2006 in the Slovak Republic; and Award of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. n

ajgalk

In Memoriam Ralph V. Brigham Kenneth H. Jack George Taylor Charles Norman Wilson

Some detailed obituaries also can be found on the ACerS website.www.ceramics.org/in-memoriam

12th International Conference on Ceramic Processing Science (ICCPS-12)

August 4-7, 2013 | Portland, Oregon

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ICCPS-12 includes plenary and concurrent technical sessions with invited and contributed presentations. A poster session is also planned.

Technical Program: Particle shape control and assembly Colloid dispersion and surface modi cation Rheology of concentrated suspensions Micro uidic techniques Patterning, templates and self assembly Wet and dry shaping methods, including additive manufacturing Solution and precursor thin lm processes Reaction-based processes Biomimetic and bioinspired techniques

Computational tools applied to processing Novel characterization and imaging tools Densi cation (nanoscale, multimaterial, complex shapes, novel approaches) Mesoscale, microscale and hierarchical manufacturing and design of microstructure Processes and processing designed to advance speci c energy, electronic, optical and structural applications

acers spotlight


research briefs

The Materials Genome Initiative has gotten plenty of attention since the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced its creation in June 2011. Its stated goal is simple: ... to discover, develop, manu-facture, and deploy advanced materials at least twice as fast as possible today, at a fraction of the cost.

To biologists, a genome is a con-strained set. For example, the Human Genome Project (HGP) sequenced and mapped the 23,000 genes in the human genome, which involves about 3.3 bil-lion base pairs.

The idea behind MGI, in contrast, is to start with matters basic building blocksthe fine structureand discover new combinations of elements to con-struct materials with certain end proper-ties and functionalities. The MGI is all about expanding the possibilities beyond that which is already mapped. With 116 elements comprising the periodic table of the elements, the possible combina-tions make 3.3 billion look paltry.

The point of entry to the MGI is discovery of new materials, and science researchers must take the lead in find-ing approaches to discovering the few hundred or thousand materials that are worth developing out of the many bil-lion possibilities.

In February a group of research-ers who work on ceramic materi-als gathered for a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop, The Materials Genome Initiative in Ceramics, Geosciences, and Solid-State Chemistry to address this issue.

About 20 researchers, mostly from academia, participated. All of them work with ceramic materials, whether as mate-rials scientists or as researchers from the geoscience, earth science, and solid-state chemistry and physics communities.

Alexandra Navrotsky, professor at the University of California, Davis, set the stage by observing that there are striking commonalities between earth science and materials science. Both

need structural, thermodynam-ic, and physical property data. Both rely on phase diagrams and need kinetic and mecha-nistic information for modeling of impossible-to-observe phe-nomena, like the geoscience of Jupiter, for example.

Focusing on the materials discovery aspect, Krishna Rajan from Iowa State University, said, MGI is about doing new science to solve pressing issues. This implies that new science should be driving solutions to new and urgent problems, not to incrementally improv-ing existing technology. Incremental improvements may not be compelling in the business world, anyhow. For example, why would a company that specializes in refurbishing thermal barrier coatings be interested in a coating that lasts twice as long? To them, that looks like half as much product to sell.

The materials science and geoscience communities have some common frustra-tions, for example, with the difficulty of modeling across multiple scales, especially length scales. This is true whether model-ing the transition from the nanoscale to the mesoscale, or from meters to kilome-ters. Time scales matter, too. Modeling of processes that occur in picoseconds is challenging, but so is modeling of pro-cesses that occur in light years.

Given the challenges, what can modeling offer? Ram Seshadri from the University of California, Santa Barbara (and co-organizer of the workshop with Carnegie Mellons Gregory Rohrer), says, Looking at large data sets tells you where you will be wasting your time. And the role of computation, according to Michelle Johannes of the Naval Research Laboratory, is to give experimentalists a rough directional map, an explanation of trends, and sug-gestions for optimization of properties. In return, the materials mathematicians need property data and characterization

information (such as crystal structures) from the experimentalists.

Participants seemed to agree that access to data (that they liked) was a challenge with no easy (or inexpensive) solutions. They also seemed to agree that multidisciplinary dialog is extremely valu-able, and this is an area where technical societies, such as ACerS or the American Geophysical Union, can help. They can perhaps organize multidisciplinary sym-posia, special issues of journals, or work-shoplike meetings. (Last October, ACerS, took a step in this direction by setting up a structure for Technical Interest Groups. See the related article in the March 2013 ACerS Bulletin, p. 6.)

Much discussion focused on the need for single-crystal property data, because it provides values for intrinsic properties. However, with a few excep-tions, most engineered materials are not single crystals. Does that mean junky data is without value? Hardly. As one participant noted, much of the func-tionality of engineered materials used today results from their junkiness, whether from impure compositions or process effects or elsewhere.

The group will publish its report on the workshop in the ACerS Bulletin. It will summarize the issues, challenges, opportunitiesand payoffsof mul-tidisciplinary approaches to materials discovery. n

Multidisciplinary approaches to materials discovery needed for Materials Genome Initiative

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A NSF-sponsored workshop addressed multidis-ciplinary approaches to the Materials Genome Initiative. From left: Gregory Rohrer, Abby Kavner, Young-Shin Jun, and Amy Walker.


Trucking solar energyU. Delaware team dissociates zinc oxide in solar reactor to make solar fuel

Industrial-scale solar installations need a lot of space and as much sun-shine as possible, such as in deserts. Unfortunately, though, most people find deserts unpleasant places to live.

One huge advantage of carbon-based energy sources is their transportability. Railroads and semi-trucks crisscross the nation in perpetual motion, moving oil, natural gas, and coal from where they are plentiful (or processed) to where they are needed. One problem facing the hydro-gen-based economy is that shipping the extremely light hydrogen is not practical.

What if it were possible to truck solar energy from the desert to some-where less sunny but more populated? One resource that tends to be plentiful in areas where people settle and devel-op industry is water, which is a great place to store hydrogen. Splitting it out of the molecule is the challenge.

Getting these two energy resources togethersunshine and wateris the idea behind new research at the University of Delaware, where mechan-ical engineering professor Ajay Prasad and his group are making solar fuel.

Prasad and his graduate student, Erik Koepf, use basic thermodynamic prin-ciples to dissociate zinc oxide and pre-cipitate zinc-metal granules. Later, zinc metal is reacted with water, where it happily oxidizes and liberates hydrogen, which is captured and used as fuel.

Prasad says in a phone interview that he sees the technology as a way to make zinc centrally, and then generate hydro-gen locally. He noted that a single tubu-lar semi-truck can only carry about 100 kg of hydrogen, but can transport several tons of zinc particles.

It takes a lot of energy to dissociate zinc oxide, though, and Prasads and Koepfs work focuses on designing a solar reactor that can concentrate enough sunlight and reach high enough temper-atures to drive the dissociation reaction.

Koepf successfully tested a solar reac-

tor design last April. Prasad says, We are at the proof-of-concept stage. In the first round of testing last April, we couldnt get high enough temperatures. The reason is that the [reflector] mir-ror was too small, and we were losing available energy. The reflector mirror directs the light from the solar concen-trators into the reaction chambers.

During the April 2012 test, reactor temperatures reached about 1,200C. Temperatures of about 1,400 to 1,700C (1,700 to 2,000 K) are desired for the dissociation reaction.

Since then, Koepf has been reworking the reactor design, especially the mirror component to focus 5,000 to 10,000 suns of concentrated energy into the reactor. Koepf tested the tweaked solar reactor at the Solar Technology Laboratory at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland in February 2013.

The team built the reactor with ceramic components. It is a funnel-shaped design made of 15 fitted, trapezoid-shaped alumina plates. At the top of each trapezoid is a hopper of zinc oxide powder, which is sprinkled into the funnel with a metering spline. The powders descend through the reactor under the force of gravity.

According to a paper by Koepf, et al., published last fall in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, the first layer of powder sinters on top of the alumina plates, and subsequent layers of powders dissociate as they descend. The sintered zinc oxide layer does not react with the alumina and is easily scraped off.

As the diagram shows, there are three distinct temperature zones, each of which corresponds to a different heat-transfer mechanism. Zone I is the preheat region with temperatures of 1,3001,650 K. In Zone II, tempera-tures reach 1,6501,800 K under diffuse radiation. The dissociation reaction begins here. Finally, Zone III experienc-es direct radiation and temperatures in the 1,8001,900 K range. Dissociation finishes here. At the bottom of the funnel, unreacted zinc oxide drops out. A flowing argon atmosphere helps cre-ate a tornado-like environment in the

chamber and sweeps the zinc vapor into an alumina collection tube. There, the vapor is quenched very quickly to con-dense it before reoxidation can occur. Overall, the powders spend about one-half second in the reactor.

The hydrolysis reaction that oxidizes zinc and gives off hydrogen occurs at about 600C. Even though the process is not energy cheap, it is passive and offers a mechanism for redistributing energy resources. Prasad imagines, for example, an industrial-scale operation with a desert-based field of a thousand solar concentrator mirrors focused on a solar reactor mounted on a tower, and tons of dissociated zinc are trucked to sun-poor, water-rich areas. By setting up favorable thermodynamics, hydrogen then can be generated anywhere.

The paper is, A novel beam-down, gravity-fed, solar thermochemical receiver/reactor for direct solid particle decomposition: Design, modeling, and experimentation, by Erik Koepf, Suresh G. Advani, Aldo Steinfeld, and Ajay K. Prasad; International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2012.08.086. n

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Schematic diagram of one tile of solar reactor. Fifteen tiles arranged in a funnel shape comprise a solar reactor capable of reaching temperatures approaching 2,000 K, enough to dissociate zinc oxide.


advances in nanomaterials

Supercapacitorsalso called elec-trochemical double-layer capacitors or ultracapacitorsare an interesting class of devices. Their energy density is much higher than conventional dielectric capacitors, and they can deliver much more power density than batteries. Typical storage capacity for dielectric capacitors is on the order of microfarads per gram of active material, whereas, for supercapacitors, it is on the order of tens of farads, maybe more.

Charge is stored in an electrical double layer where ions hug the surface of the electrode, which sets up a sec-ondor doublelayer of the opposite charge in the electrolyte. More surface means more charge storage capacity. Nanoporous materials have enormous specific surface areas and occupy little space, which opens the possibility of thin-film supercapacitors.

The search is on for new materials to replace electrodes made of activated charcoal and other forms of porous carbon. These new materials must be able to store more charge, be thinner, or have other properties carbon lacks. (Research into improving carbon for supercapacitor electrodes remains a very active field, however.)

A Rapid Communication by Lee et al. in the January issue of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society reports on a candidate supercapacitor electrode material, molybdenum nitride (Mo3N2). According to the paper, molybdenum nitrides are interstitial compounds with superior chemical stability, attractive physical properties, and good electrical conductivity. However, they are dense compared with carbon. In the reported work, the team of researchers from Soongsil University (Seoul, Korea) and the University of Washington wanted to find a better way to synthesize single-crystal, mesoporous Mo3N2 nanowires. The team says, The crucial advantages for mesoporous structures are electro-chemically active surface areas and

controlled pore sizes in the nanometer range.

Other researchers have made Mo3N2 by nitridation, for example, by nitrid-ing a template compound, such as a zeolite. The current group, instead, turned to a topotactic reaction to see whether higher specific surface area and better chargedischarge capabilities could be achieved.

Such topotactic reactions are uncom-mon for ceramic synthesis, but the concept is quite simple. A topotactic reaction is A reversible or irreversible reaction that involves the introduction of a guest species into a host structure and that results in significant structural modifications to the host, for example, the breakage of bonds, according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. An example is the insertion of lithium into Li(Mn2)O4 spi-nel with one-crystal symmetry to make a layered structure with a different sym-metry. These reactions also are called insertion reactions.

The topotactic reaction is surpris-ingly simple to execute. Lee et al. started with MoO3 single-crystal nanowires, loaded them into a quartz boat, and heated them to 700C for three hours in flowing ammonia. They kept the ammonia flowing during the cool-down stage to prevent surface reoxidation.

Using standard electron micros-copy, X-ray dif-fractometry, and electrochemical characterization tools, they showed

that the oxide did convert to Mo3N2 sin-gle-crystal nanowires with a well-defined mesoporous nanostructure (average pore size was about 4.6 nm) and a very high specific surface area (about 45 m2/g). They conclude that the mesoporous structure most likely results from the rearrangement of the oxide structure into metal nitride, giving rise to the for-mation of pores in the framework of the molybdenum nitride. These two struc-tural features result in higher specific charge capacity than is seen in Mo3N2 synthesized by conventional nitridation.

The team also reports that topo-tactically synthesized Mo3N2 has bet-ter chargedischarge properties than nitrided material. They suggest this is because the electrolyte easily penetrates the uniform mesopore structure.

See Single-Crystalline Mesoporous Molybdenum Nitride Nanowires with Improved Electrochemical Properties, Kyung-Hoon Lee, Young-Woo Lee, A-Ra Ko, Guozhong Cao, and Kyung-Won Park, J. Am. Ceram. Soc., doi: 10.1111/jace.12096. n

Nanoporous molybdenum nitride supercapacitor electrodes

TEM image of MoO3 single-crystal nanowires (a, b). TEM image of mesoporous single-crystal Mo3N2 (d, e).

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Internal curing standards and recent work on extending life of concrete structures

One goal of researchers working on high-performance cements and con-cretes is to improve the performance of structures, such as roadways and bridge decks. The recent development of internal curing (IC) techniques has led to the creation of a new standard speci-fication by ASTM International.

A fundamental challenge facing cement and concrete chemists is to pre-vent deterioration caused by ions from salts and other sources, which can lead to corrosion of steel reinforcements and crack formation. A basic consideration is that cement systems must cure or hydrate sufficiently to become useful. Early-age crackinga nemesiscan lead to accelerated deterioration of con-crete and, ultimately, to catastrophic failure of bridge components.

Several factors come into play. First, curing is not instantaneous and requires access to water. Curing to a serviceable extent (e.g., to 75 percent of full cur-ing) typically is measured in days and weeks, but it can continue for years if conditions are right.

Second, the composition of the concrete matters. Use of high-performance concrete or substitut-ing cementitious constituents with alternatives, such as fly ash, can lead to curing problems. High-performance materials have the positive property of limiting the ingress of briny fluids and destructive ions. However, accord-ing to John Ries, technical director of the Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute (Chicago, Ill.), these proper-ties also limit the ability of externally applied curing water to reach the inte-rior of the concrete.

On the other hand, cement alterna-tives can lead to extended curing times. In a recent NIST Tech Beat story, NIST engineer Dale Bentz explains, In these high-volume fly ash mixtures, internal curing is important, because, while the fly ash will react with the cement,

it takes a lot longer. After 28 days, maybe 30 percent or less of the fly ash has reacted, so you really need to keep the concrete saturated for an extended period of time.

In both cases, the solution is to encourage internal curing and, says Reis, provide a source of additional water to maintain saturation of the cementitious paste and avoid its self-desiccation.

Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) IC approach creates a longer-term internal water source instead of relying on water in the mix or exter-nally applied water. A Purdue news release reports that the IC approach is based on creating water pockets formed from small porous stonesor fine aggregateto replace some of the sand in the mixture. Purdues Jason Weiss says, A key step in the process is to prewet the lightweight aggregate with water before mixing the concrete.

Weiss, professor of civil engineering and director of the Pankow Materials Laboratory, and a long-time collabora-

tor on the annual meetings of ACerSs Cements Division, reports that coming up with a suitable IC system did not happen overnight. Nearly five years of research have been performed to fully understand how to proportion these mixtures and the level of performance that can be expected, Weiss says.

A prototype IC study is underway. In 2010, INDOT (with support from NIST, Lafarge North America, and the Expanded Shale Clay and Slate Institute) built two adjacent bridgesone based on IC specifications and one based on traditional specifications. Preliminary results are encouraging. In the Purdue release, Weiss reports, The control bridge has developed three cracks, but no cracks have developed in the internally cured bridge. Tests also show the internally cured concrete is approximately 30 percent more resis-tant to salt ingress.

Recently, NIST and Purdue success-fully gained the approval of ASTMs Standard Specification for Lightweight Aggregate for Internal Curing of Concrete (ASTM C1761-12). n

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From left, Purdue University graduate students Paul Imbrock, Kambiz Raoufi, and John Schlitter pour concrete for a test specimen in research to improve Indiana bridges. The state is using a new type of internally cured concrete researched at Purdue that promises to reduce maintenance costs and allow bridge decks to last longer


Flowerpot like ceramic filters purify water for drinking, cooking

The World Health Organization and UNICEF monitor access to potable water through the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. The Programmes 2012 prog-ress report includes the very good news that in the 10-year period from 1990 to 2000, more than two billion people gained access to safe drinking water. Now, 6.1 billion people (89 percent of the worlds population) have access to water for drinking and cooking. The accompanying bad news is that 780 mil-lion people still need access to improved, pathogen-free drinking water.

Because of a dearth of infrastructure in these remaining regions, simple solutions are especially attractive. And, it appears that the humble clay pot might be the answer to providing potable water and some local industry, as well.

An interdisciplinary team at the University of Virginia developed a water purification system based on porous ceramic clay disks (MadiDropsMadi

is the Tshivenda South African word for water) impregnated with nanopar-ticles of either silver or copper.

The filters are made by mixing and pressing indigenous clay with sawdust, which creates a porous structure on firing. A nanoparticle slurry of silver or copper (both have anti-pathogenic qualities) painted over the surface seeps into the pores. Tests show that the filters eliminate 99.9 percent of patho-gens as water passes over the silver or copper. (However, they are less effec-tive at removing sediments that cause discoloration or taste.)

The filters can be made in either pucklike tablets or in flowerpot like shapes. The flowerpot shapes rest in a five-gallon plastic bucket equipped with a spigot. The flow rate is one to three liters per hour, which is fast enough for drinking and cooking purposes. The tablet shapes simply lie in the bottom of the bucket.

The UVA team established a non-profit organization, called PureMadi, to set up factories and promote the tech-nology.

PureMadis first factory in Limpopo

province, South Africa, already has produced several hundred flowerpot filters. According to a UVA press release, the plant, staffed mostly by women, eventually will produce 500 to 1,000 filters per month. Plans are to build another 10 to 12 plants in the next decade, which could provide potable water for up to 500,000 people per year. n

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Flowerpot like filters loaded into kiln for firing.

Materials Science & Technology2013 Conference & Exhibition

october 27-31, 2013 Palais des congrs de Montral | Montral, Qubec, Canada

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MAX phases: Bridging the gap between metals and ceramicsBy Miladin Radovic and Michel W. Barsoum

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T he term MAX phases was coined in the late 1990s and applies to a family of 60+ ternary carbides and nitrides that share a layered structure as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. They are so called because of their chemical formula: Mn+1AXn where n = 1, 2, or 3, where M is an early transition metal, A is an A-group element (specifi-cally, the subset of elements 1316), and X is carbon and/or nitrogen, Figure 2.1 Nowotny and coworkers2, 3 discovered most of these phases in powder form roughly 40 years ago. However, Barsoum and El-Raghys4 report in 1996 on the synthesis of phase-pure bulk Ti3SiC2 samples and their unusual combina-tion of properties catalyzed renewed interest in them. Since then, research on the MAX phases has exploded. According to ISI, to date around 1,200 papers have been published on one MAX phase alone, Ti3SiC2, with roughly half of those published in the past six years.

The MAX phases are a new and exciting class of carbides

and nitrides that bridge the gap between properties typical

of metals and ceramics, while offering fundamentally new

directions in tuning the structure and properties of ceramics

for emerging applications.

Figure 1. Scanning electron microscopy of the fractured surface in Ti2AlC after dynamic testing of at a strain rate of 2400 s

1 showing typical laminated nature and deformation of individu-al grains by kinking.


The growing interest results from the unusual, often unique, properties of the MAX phases. Like their correspond-ing binary carbides and nitrides (MX), the MAX phases are elastically stiff, good thermal and electrical conduc-tors, resistant to chemical attack, and have relatively low thermal expansion coefficients.1 Mechanically, however, they cannot be more different. They are relatively soft and most are readily machinable, thermal shock resistant and damage tolerant. Moreover, some are fatigue, creep, and oxidation resis-tant. At room temperature, they can be compressed to stresses as high as 1 GPa and fully recover on removal of the load, while dissipating approximately 25 percent of the mechanical energy.6 At higher temperatures, they undergo a brittle-to-plastic transition (BPT), above which they are quite plastic even in tension.5

This article gives an overview of the salient properties of the MAX phases and of the status of our current under-standing. Some of their potential appli-cations also are highlighted. For a thor-ough review of the large body of work on MAX phases, the reader is referred to a recently published book1 and a number of excellent review articles.715

Crystal structure and atomic bonding in the MAX phases

The MAX phases are layered hex-agonal crystal structures (space group P63/mmc) with two formula units per unit cell, as illustrated in Figure 2, for structures with n equal 1 to 3. The unit cells consist of M6X-octahedra with the X-atoms filling the octahedral sites between the M-atoms, which are identical to those found in the rock salt structure of the MX binaries. The octahedra alternate with layers of pure A-elements located at the centers of trigonal prisms that are slightly larger, and thus more accommodating of the larger A-atoms. When n = 1, the A-layers are separated by two M-layers (Figure 2(a)). When n = 2, they are separated by three layers (M3AX2 in Figure 2(b)). When n = 3, they are separated by four layers (M3AX2 in Figure 2(c)). MAX phases with more

complex stacking sequences, such as M5AX4, M6AX5, and M7AX6 also have been reported.8,16

In addition to the pure MAX phases that contain one of each of the M, A, and X elements highlighted in Figure 2(d), the number of possible solid solutions is quite large. Solid solu-tions have been processed and charac-terized with substitution on1

M sites, e.g., (Nb,Zr)2AlC, (Ti,V)2AlC, (Ti,Nb)2AlC, (Ti,Cr)2AlC, (Ti,Hf)2InC, and (Ti,V)2SC;

A-sites, e.g., Ti3(Si,Ge)C2, and Ti3(Sn,Al)C2; and

X-sites,17 e.g., Ti2Al(C,N) and Ti3Al(C,N)2.

Interestingly, some of solid solu-tions exist even when one of the end members does not. The number of MAX phases and their solid solutions continues to expand. The discovery of new phases has advanced significantly through the combination of experi-mental and theoretical density func-tional theory (DFT) approaches.1,1820 For example, ab-initio studies recently extended the family of the MAX phases to compounds with magnetic proper-ties that contain later transition-metal substitutions on the M sites, such as (Cr,Mn)2AlC.

21 A large body of work devoted to

DFT calculations of the electronic structures and chemical bonding in the

Figure 2. Unit cells of the Mn+1AXn phases for (a) n = 1 or M2AX, (b) n = 2 or

M3AX2, and (c) n = 3 or M4AX3 phases, and (d) M, A, and X elements that form the MAX phases.

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MAX phases22-28 shows that Similar to the MX phases, MAX

phase bonding is a combination of metallic, covalent, and ionic bonds;

The M and X atoms form strong directional covalent bonds in the M-X layers that are comparable to those in the MX binaries;22, 27, 28

MdMd metallic bonding domi-nates the electronic density of states at the Fermi level, N(EF); and

In most MAX phases, the MA bonds are relatively weaker than the MX bonds.

Given the similarities between some aspects of the atomic bonding in the MX and MAX phases it is not surpris-ing they share many common attributes and properties, such as metal-like elec-trical conductivities, high stiffness val-ues, thermal stability, and low thermal expansion coefficients.

Physical properties Most of the MAX phases are excel-

lent electrical conductors, with electri-cal resistivities that mostly fall in the narrow range of 0.20.7 m at room temperature.1,10 Like other metallic conductors, their resistivities increase with increasing temperatures (Figure 3(a). Ti3SiC2 and Ti3AlC2 conduct better than titanium metal. Even more interesting and intriguing, many of the MAX phases appear to be compensated conductors, wherein the concentra-tions of electrons and holes are roughly equal, but their mobilities are about

equal, too.10 Several MAX phases, most notably

Ti3SiC2, have very low thermoelectric or Seebeck coefficients.10,29 Solids with essentially zero thermopower can, in principle, serve as reference materials in thermoelectric measurements, for example, as leads to measure the abso-lute thermopower of other solids.

The optical properties of the MAX phases are dominated by delocalized electrons.30 Magnetically, most of them are Pauli paramagnets, wherein the susceptibility is, again, determined by the delocalized electrons and, thus, is neither very high, nor temperature dependent.31

Thermally, the MAX phases share much in common with their MX counterparts, that is, they are good thermal conductors because they are good electrical conductors. At room temperatures their thermal conductivi-ties (Figure 3(b)) fall in the 1260 W/(mK) range.1,10 The coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) of the MAX phases fall in the 510 K1 range and are relatively low as expected for refrac-tory solids.15 The exceptions are some chromium-containing phases with CTEs in the 1214 K1 range.

At high temperatures, the MAX phases do not melt congruently but decompose peritectically to A-rich liquids and Mn+1Xn carbides or nitrides. Thermal decomposition occurs by the loss of the A element and the forma-tion of higher n-containing MAX phases and/or MX. Some MAX phase, such as Ti3SiC2, are quite refractory with decomposi

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