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

This study aims to evaluate the biocompatibility of a novel filler material intended to improve the longevity of polymer systems used in prosthetics in respect of cytotoxicity and skin irritation. RTV50F silicone elastomer incorporated with various percentages of hexagonal boron nitride (H-BN) (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1 wt%) have been tested. Silicone without H-BN was utilized as the control for comparison. The in vitro cytotoxicity test includes specimens (n=18) with 10 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness applied directly to the normal human fibroblast cell line (NHF) and incubated for 72 hours, then 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the cell viability. The skin irritati

         Polymer blended electrolytes of various concentrations of undoped PAN/PMMA (80/20, 75/25, 70/30, 65/35 and 60/40 wt%) and doped with lithium salts (LiCl, Li₂SO₄H₂O, LiNO₃, Li₂CO₃) at 20% wt have been prepared by the solution casting method using dimethylformamide as a solvent. The electrical conductivity has been carried out using an LCR meter. The results showed that the highest ionic conductivity was 2.80x10^-7 (Ω.cm)^-1 and 1.05x10^-1 (Ω.cm)^-1 at 100 kHz frequency at room temperature for undoped (60% PAN + 40% PMMA) and (80% PAN + 20% PMMA) doped with 20%wt Li₂CO₃ composite blends, respect

Todays, World is faced an energy crisis because of a continuous increasing the consumption of fuels due to intension demand for all types of vehicles. This study is one of the efforts dealing with reduce the weight of vehicles by using a new material of sandwich steel, which consists of two skin steel sheets with core of a polymer material. Resistance spot welding (RSW) can be easily implemented on metals; however a cupper shunt tool was designed to perform the resistance welding of sandwich steel with DP800 cover sheets to resolve a non-conductivity problem of a polymer core. Numerical simulations with SORPAS^®3D were employed to test the weldability of this new material and supported by many practical experiments. In conclus

Background:

Nanostructural cupric oxide (CuO) films were prepared on Si and glass substrate by pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) using laser Nd:YAG, using different laser pulses energies from 200 to 600 mJ. The X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD) of the films showed a polycrystalline structure with a monoclinic symmetry and preferred orientation toward (111) plane with nano structure. The crystallite size was increasing with increasing of laser pulse energy. Optical properties was characterized by using UV–vis spectrometer in the wave lengthrange (200-1100) nm at room temperature. The results showed that the transmission spectrum decreases with the laser pulses energy increase. Sensitivity of NO2 gas at different operating temperatures, (50°C,

Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) were prepared with different diameters by sonoelectrodeposition technique using Electrodeposition process coupled with high-power ultrasound horn (Sonoelectrodeposition). The particle diameter of the CuNPs was adjusted by varying CuSO4 solution acidity (pH) and current density. The morphology and structure of the CuNPs were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It was found that the size of the produced copper nanoparticles ranged between 22 to 77 nm, where the diameter of CuNPs increases with reduction the solution acidity from 0.5 to 1.5 pH and increasing the current density of the deposition from 100 to 400 nm. Finally the produced CuNPs were pressed to fabricate disc

In this work, polypyrrole (PPy) composites were chemically prepared by a chemical oxidation method. Also, Tungsten Trioxide (WO₃) nanoparticles were prepared and added in certain proportions to PPy. The structure properties were studied for the polypyrole and tungesten trioxide separately before mixing them together. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed a hexagonal WO₃ and a triclinic PPy. It was observed that the nano-composite prepared by the addition of WO₃  with 10 and 20% volume ratios to PPy shows a triclinic phase with the presence of hexagons. The molecular structures of PPy, WO₃, and PPy–WO₃ nano composites were depicted by Fourier-transform infrare

Objective Advantageous properties of silicone elastomer made it one of the favorable materials in maxillofacial prosthesis construction, but these properties may change after months of usage or after pigments addition. This study aimed to define the optimum concentration for a mixture of two types of intrinsic pigments that added to VST-50 maxillofacial silicone material and study their effects on mechanical properties before and after artificial aging. Methods After the pilot study was conducted, 0.1% by weight of rayon flocking and 0. 2% by weight of burnt sienna intrinsic pigment concentration was selected because of improvement in tested mechanical properties of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. A total of one hundred and eighty samples we