SEMINAR
The State Key Lab of
High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure
Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
中国科学院上海硅酸盐研究所  高性能陶瓷和超微结构国家重点实验室

Development of Nano Structured Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics and Composites

Speaker

Prof. Yi-Bing Cheng

Department of Materials Engineering

Monash University, Clayton 3800 Australia

时间：2012年04月01日（星期日）上午 10: 00

地点：2号楼607会议室（国家重点实验室）

欢迎广大科研人员和研究生参与讨论！

Abstract:

 

Ultra-high temperature ceramics, such as TiC, HfC, ZrC etc, are high performance materials that have high temperature stability, high hardness and wear resistance, low thermal expansion, and high thermal and electrical conductivity. Synthesis of carbides are usually carried outthrough carbothermal reactions of oxide and carbon powders between 1300 and 1500°C. Depending on the purity and particle size of the starting materials, the carbide products formed through thisroute may be difficult to achieve high quality and uniform nanostructure. We have developed a templated sol-gel process, in which different alkoxides are used as precursors of oxides, furfuryl alcohol (C5H6O2)nas a carbon source and P123 (EO20PO70EO20) as a surfactantto produceamorphous M-O-C gels (M=Ti, Hf, Zr). These amorphous precursors are mesoporous and homogenous in nano-scale mixing between oxide and carbon compositions. These features facilitated carbothermal reduction and resulted in nano-sized carbide phases during subsequent heat-treatments up to 1450°C. Amorphous M-O-C gels can be formed into different shapes, such as bulk samples, spheres and coatings, via the sol-gel process and then converted into nano-structured ultrahigh temperature carbides through the subsequent carbothermal reaction.

A Short Bibliography

Yi-Bing Cheng is a Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering, Monash University, Australia and an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He completed his undergraduate and Master studies at Wuhan University of Technology, China and received a PhD degree from University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K. in 1989. He joined Monash University in 1991 after working for three years as a Research Associate in Newcastle, U.K. He specialises in ceramic materials and composites, especially in non-oxide ceramics. His research interests cover the areas of ceramic processing, microstructure development, phase characterisation, and materials for energy related applications. He has been involved in the research of dye sensitised solar cells (DSC) since 2001, which has now become his major research activity due to the recent surging interests in new energy technologies. In the DSC area, his research is mainly focused in the development of nanoporous working and counter electrodes, as well as solar cell device fabrication. In later 2009, he was appointed as a  Professor at the Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics in Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Professor Cheng has published over 320 research papers and 17 patents.