• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.349-360
• /
• 2022

The rising prices of landfills and the lack of cement production are motivating researchers to be more interested in using wastes to produce concrete mixtures materials. The use of waste materials such as eggshell and matakoline waste not only reduces landfill costs and space, but also reduces the cost of cement production for the concrete mixture. However, recycling waste materials has become critical in order to effectively manage environmental sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the appropriate properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC) by incorporating waste materials such as crushed ceramics as coarse aggregate and nano egg shell (NES) and nanoclay (NC) as cement replacements. Fresh properties of SCC, such as segregation, flow time and diameter, V-funnel, H2/H1 ratio, and fresh unit weight of concrete mixtures, as well as hardened properties, such as 7, 14, and 28 days compressive strength and 28 and 90 days flexural strength, were measured for this purpose. The presence of NC in the SCC mixture enhanced the compressive strength of the concrete when 5% of NES was added or in the case without the addition of NES compared to the control mixture. The flexural strength enhanced with the incorporation of NC in the SCC increased the flexural strength of the concrete compared to the control mixture, but the incorporation of 5% of NES decreased the flexural strength compared to the mixtures with NC. These results prove the possibility of using crushed ceramics as the coarse aggregate, and NES and NC as substitutes for 5, 7, and 10% of the cement in SCC, because the properties of such SCC in hardened and fresh states are satisfactory.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.29-34
• /
• 2015

The objective of this study was to obtain data on the safety-in-use of nano calcium as a dietary supplement by assessing its acute and subacute oral toxicities in female and male Sprague-Dawley rats. A single oral dose of 5,000 mg/kg of nano calcium did not result in mortality or significant changes in the general behavior and gross appearance of the internal organs of rats. For subacute toxicity study, nano calcium was administered orally at a dose of 1,000 mg/kg daily for 14 days. There were no significant differences in organ weights between control and treated groups of both sexes. Hematological analysis and blood chemistry revealed no toxic effects of nano calcium. Pathologically, neither gross abnormalities nor histopathological changes were observed. These results show that nano calcium possesses very low toxicity as indicated in a rat model.

• Advances in nano research
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.127-140
• /
• 2024

Upon direct/indirect exposure to flame or heat, composite structures may burn or thermally buckle. This issue becomes more important in the natural fiber-based composite structures with higher flammability and lower mechanical properties. The main goal of the present study was to obtain an optimal eco-friendly composite system with low flammability and high thermal buckling resistance. The studied composite consisted of polypropylene (PP) and short abaca fiber (AF) with eggshell powder (ESP) and halloysite clay nanotubes (HNTs) additives. An optimal base composite, consisting of 30 wt.% AF and 70 wt.% PP, abbreviated as OAP, was initially introduced based on burning rate (BR) and the Young's modulus determined by horizontal burning test (HBT) and tensile test, respectively. The effects of adding ESP to the base composite were then investigated with the same experimental tests. The results indicated that though the BR significantly decreased with the increase of ESP content up to 6 wt.%, it had a very destructive influence on the stiffness of the composite. To compensate for the damaging effect of ESP, small amount of HNT was used. The performance of OAP composite with 6 wt.% ESP and 3 wt.% HNT (OAPEH) was explored by conducting HBT, cone calorimeter test (CCT) and tensile test. The experimental results indicated a 9~23 % reduction in almost all flammability parameters such as heat release rate (HRR), total heat released (THR), maximum average rate of heat emission (MARHE), total smoke released (TSR), total smoke production (TSP), and mass loss (ML) during combustion. Furthermore, the combination of 6 wt.% ESP and 3 wt.% HNT reduced the stiffness of OAP to an insignificant amount by maximum 3%. Moreover, the char residue analysis revealed the distinct differences in the formation of char between AF/PP and AF/PP/ESP/HNT composites. Afterward, dilatometry test was carried out to examine the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of OAP and OAPEH samples. The obtained results showed that the CTE of OAPEH composite was about 18% less than that of OAP. Finally, a theoretical model was used based on first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) to predict the critical bucking temperatures of the OAP and OAPEH composite plates. It was shown that in the absence of mechanical load, the critical buckling temperatures of OAPEH composite plates were higher than those of OAP composites, such that the difference between the buckling temperatures increased with the increase of thickness. On the contrary, the positive effect of CTE reduction on the buckling temperature decreased by raising the axial compressive mechanical load on the composite plates which can be assigned to the reduction of stiffness after the incorporation of ESP. The results of present study generally stated that a suitable combination of AF, PP, ESP, and HNT can result in a relatively optimal and environmentally friendly composite with proper flame and thermal buckling resistance with no significant decline in the stiffness.

• Advances in nano research
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.315-328
• /
• 2023

The main goal of the present study was to assess the effects of eggshell powder (ESP) and halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) on the mechanical properties of abaca fiber (AF)-reinforced natural composites. For this purpose, a limited number of indentation tests were first performed on the AF/polypropylene (PP) composites for different HNT and ESP loadings (0 wt.% ~ 6 wt.%), load amplitudes (150, 200, and 250 N), and two types of indenters (Vickers or conical). The Young's modulus, hardness and plasticity index of each specimen were calculated using the indentation test results and Oliver-Pharr method. The accuracy of the experimental results was confirmed by comparing the values of the Young's modulus obtained from the indentation test with the results of the conventional tensile test. Then, a feed-forward shallow artificial neural network (ANN) with high efficiency was trained based on the obtained experimental data. The trained ANN could properly predict the variations of the mentioned mechanical properties of AF/PP composites incorporated with different HNT and ESP loadings. Furthermore, the trained ANN demonstrated that HNTs increase the elastic modulus and hardness of the composite, while the incorporation of ESP reduces these properties. For instance, the Young's modulus of composites incorporated with 3 wt.% of ESP decreased by 30.7% compared with the pure composite, while increasing the weight fraction of ESP up to 6% decreased the Young's modulus by 34.8%. Moreover, the trained ANN indicated that HNTs have a more significant effect on reducing the plasticity index than ESP.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.454-458
• /
• 2014

In this study, we examined the ionization rate and permeability of nanocalcium prepared from oyster shells with various particle sizes. Four particle sizes of the calcium samples were prepared by centrifugation according to their density disparity in alcoholic solution: NC (normal calcium), C-1 (supernatant of 1,000 rpm), C-2 (supernatant of 2,000 rpm), and C-3 (supernatant of 3,000 rpm). Particle sizes of NC, C-1, C-2, and C-3 were $2,280.3{\pm}64.3nm$, $521.3{\pm}83.3nm$, $313.9{\pm}29.5nm$, and $280.0{\pm}3.4nm$, respectively. C-3 showed a slight increase in ionization rate compared with the other calcium samples, but their differences were not significant. Dialysis membrane-employed analysis showed that nanocalcium permeability increased as its particle size smaller; 32% of C-3 nanocalcium was transported to the outside of the membrane, whereas C-1 showed a 25% transport rate. We determined the permeability of the nanocalciums by using rat intestinal sacs, in order to provide different intestinal environments depending on pH level. Nanocalcium generally showed a higher permeability at pH 7, which represents an ileum environments compared to the duodenum and jejunum environments at pH 4.2 and pH 6.2, respectively. However, C-3 calcium showed the highest permeability, followed by C-2, C-1 and NS calciums. This result shows that the size of calcium positively affected its permeability in the intestinal sac. Taken together, nano-sized calcium derived from discarded oyster shell shows improved permeability in intestinal environments.