Recent Patents on Materials Science - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2011

This review covers patents that have been published recently on materials that can be incorporated into garments to provide protection from toxic chemicals. Toxic chemicals are defined as substances that can either kill or seriously incapacitate people due to the physiological effects that they have. The review specifically concentrates on semipermeable membranes i.e. those that will act as a barrier to toxic materials but are p Read More

Nanocomposite optical materials with high refractive index (RI) have been one of the most attractive issues due to their good optical property that can be used in many fields. The method for preparing high RI nanocomposites is to incorporate high RI inorganic nano-building blocks, for example, metal oxides and metal chalcogenide semiconductor nanoparticles into polymer matrices. The general design requirements and synthet Read More

Different resonances can be supported by thin-film coated optical waveguides depending on the electrical properties of the coating material. One case occurs when the real part of the thin-film permittivity is negative and higher in magnitude than both its own imaginary part and the permittivity of the material surrounding the thin-film. This case is known as surface plasmon resonance (SPR). Other case occurs when t Read More

For the last decades, numerous researches and patents are focused on developing novel refining processes of low-cost silicon. In this paper, patents that reveal different refining methods including chemical routes, metallurgical routes and other promising routes are reviewed respectively, and the detailed processes together with their pros and cons are demonstrated according to their basic principles. Based on different pr Read More

Shear thickening fluids (STFs) have been studied extensively, and an enormous number of patents have been generated due to their potential for commercial applications. STFs draw continued attention as they are considered possible candidate materials for liquid body armour and sporting protective clothing because of their unique properties. This paper presents a review of the “state of the art” STF technology. The ingredi Read More

Laser irradiation, pulse laser deposition and various epitaxial technologies are used for manufacturing novel micro(nano)electronic devices. IR-detectors are of special interest, in particular, their stable functionality under environmental effects seem to be important. None of the optoelectronic active elements operates out of its environment, i.e. we have to consider the unavoidable effect of atmospheric oxygen o Read More

Recent patents on newly developed composites show that the application of fibres can be used to enhance the structural integrity of polymers. In this work, the scratch behaviour of E-glass fibre-reinforced polyester composites is investigated. The composites are prepared for different fibre orientations, longitudinal, transverse and random. The scratch force is lower for polyester composites with longitudinal orientated fibres Read More

Hydroxyapatite (HA) is the main mineral component of bone tissue, representing ca. 69 vol% in bone and up to 98 vol% in dental enamel. Its chemical composition close to the mineral phase of bone is the origin of its excellent biocompatibility to tissue bone. Hydroxyapatite has been applied in orthopaedics as block implants, porous, granules and coating material, either dense or porous. However, the application is res Read More

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by materials, biomaterials, biological materials, magnetic materials, medical implant materials, nanomaterials, ceramics, plastics, polymers, semi-conductors, coatings, composites, paper, wood, textile, methods, design and techniques.