Background: Deterioration of maxillofacial silicone properties due to microbial colonization is a common problem and leads to the replacement of the prosthesis. Incorporation of the antimicrobial agent into the silicone could be a solution. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of silver-zinc zeolite addition on some mechanical properties of a maxillofacial silicone (VST-50). Materials and methods: Total 120 specimens were fabricated and divided into 3 groups: 40 specimens for tear strength test, 40 specimens for tensile and percentage of elongation tests and 40 specimens for Shore A hardness and surface roughness. Each group was divided into 4 subgroups according to the amount of zeolite added (0% “control”, 0.5%, 1% and

No-fine concrete (NFC) is cellular concrete and it’s light weight concrete produced with the exclusion of sand from the concrete. This study includes the mechanical properties of lightweight reinforced by steel fiber, containing different proportions of steel fiber. This study was done using number of tests. These tests were density, compressive strength, flexural strength and absorption. These tests of the molds at different curing time. The results of tests that implication of fiber to No. fine concrete did not affect significantly on the compressive strength, While the flexural strength were gets better. Results explained that, the flexural strength of (1%) fiber No- fine concrete molds are four times that of the reference mold

PMMA/TiO2 homogeneous thin films were deposited by using plasma jet system under normal atmospheric pressure and room temperature. PMMA/TiO2 nanocomposite thin film synthesized by plasma polymerization. Titanium oxide was mixed with Methyl Methacrylate Monomer (MMA) with specific weight ratios (1, 3 and 5 grams of TiO2 per 100 ml of MMA). Optical properties of PMMA/TiO2 nanocomposite thin films were characterized by UV-Visible absorption spectra using a double beam UV-Vis-NIR Spectrophotometer. The thin films surface morphological analysis is carried out by employing SEM. The structure analysis are achieved by X-ray diffraction. UV-Visible absorption spectra shows that the increasing the concentration of titanium oxide added to the polym

Colloidal crystals (opals) made of close-packed polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) were fabricated and grown by Template-Directed methods to obtain porous materials with well-ordered periodicity and interconnected pore systems to manufacture photonic crystals. Opals were made from aqueous suspensions of monodisperse PMMA spheres with diameters between 280 and 415 nm. SEM confirmed the PMMA spheres crystallized uniformly in a face-centered cubic (FCC) array. Optical properties of synthesized pores PMMA were characterized by UV–Visible spectroscopy. It shows that the colloidal crystals possess pseudo photonic band gaps in the visible region. A combination of Bragg’s law of diffraction and Snell’s law of refraction were used to calculate t

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is considered as one of the best materials already used as a window layer in solar cells due to its antireflective capability. The ZnO/MgF2 bilayer thin film is more efficient as antireflective coating. In this work, ZnO and ZnO/MgF2 thin films were deposited on glass substrate using pulsed laser deposition and thermal evaporation deposition methods. The optical measurements indicated that ZnO thin layer has an energy gap of (3.02 eV) while ZnO/MgF2 bilayer gives rise to an increase in the energy gap. ZnO/MgF2 bilayer shows a high energy gap (3.77 eV) with low reflectance (1.1-10 %) and refractive index (1.9) leading to high transmittance, this bilayer could be a good candidate optical material to improve the performance

Background. “Polyetheretherketone (PEEK)” is a biocompatible, high-strength polymer that is well-suited for use in dental applications due to its unique properties. However, achieving good adhesion between PEEK and hydrophilic materials such as dental adhesives or cement can be challenging. Also, this hydrophobicity may affect the use of PEEK as an implant material. Surface treatment or conditioning is often necessary to improve surface properties. The piranha solution is the treatment of choice to be explored for this purpose. Methods. PEEK disks of 10 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness were used in this study. Those samples were divided into five groups (each group has five samples). The first is the control group, in which no

The present work studies the mechanical properties of SiO2 μPs, and NPs in St/PVA blends. The samples were prepared by casting method as PVA, St/PVA blends at different concentrations (30, 40, 50, and 60 %). DSC and TGA tests were carried out to the samples evolved. The result showed a single glass transition temperature (Tg) for all St /PVA blends that was attributed to the good miscibility of the blends involved. It was found that (Tg) decrease with starch ratio increase. It was seen that (PVA) of (Tg=105 oC); The glass transition temperature which was decrease with starch ratio that was attributed to glass transition relaxation process due to micro-Brownian motion of the main chain back bond. The endothermic peak at 200 oC was attrib

This contribution investigates structural, electronic, and optical properties of cubic barium titanate (BaTiO3) perovskites using first-principles calculations of density functional theory (DFT). Generalized gradient approximations (GGA) alongside with PW91 functional have been implemented for the exchange–correlation potential. The obtained results display that BaTiO3 exhibits a band gap of 3.21 eV which agrees well with the previously experimental and theoretical literature. Interestingly, our results explore that when replacing Pd atom with Ba and Ti atoms at 0.125 content a clear decrease in the electronic band gap of 1.052 and 1.090 eV located within the visible range of electromagnetic wavelengths (EMW). Optical parameters such as a