The regeneration of critical-size bone defects requires the implantation of porous scaffolds exchanging suitable chemical, morphological and mechanical signals with cells so as to activate new bone formation and colonization of the whole scaffold. Pore size and morphology must be designed to achieve cell penetration and the establishment of a suitable vascular network to sustain the bone metabolism. The mechanical strength of the scaffolds should be sufficient for early physical stabilization ...

Dye Sensitized solar cells, also known as Grätzel cells, are devices used to directly convert solar light into electricity. In 1991 O'Regan and Grätzel realized the first prototype of solar cell with good efficiency using low-cost materials if compared to silicon solar cell. DSSC (Dye Sensitized Solar Cell) are made of multilayer materials with selected band gap that allow photon adsorption and electron injection in the conduction band of the anodic material to produce electric energy. Heart ...

Hydroxyapatite (HA: Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) is a widely used biomaterial for the repair and regeneration of bone defects; however HA is also recognized as a very interesting material for environmental purification due to its ability to easily absorb a number of inorganic compounds as well as different organic substances such as proteins and bacteria. In this respect, specific ion substitutions in the lattice of HA can enable specific functionality so to open the way to multi-functional and ...

The ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) draw the interest of the materials engineering to designe thermal protection structures and control surfaces for the sharp leading edge technology. Sharp leading edges for reentry vehicles or hypersonic space-crafts are two leading examples. Thhank to this new concept, improved flight performances together with enhanced safety for the crew, larger cross-range, wider launch windows, and safer landing for aborted flight plans can be achieved. Ceramic ...

A heat pipe is a heat transfer device that can exchange large quantities of heat with a very small difference in temperature between the hot and cold interfaces by means of evaporation and condensation of a working fluid. The evaporator is the heart of the device and it contains capillary-porous structures generally based on metals or organic polymers. A possibility to increase the capacity of thermal exchange is through the replacement of conventional materials with ceramic like materials such ...

Bioactive hydroxyapatite nano-phases endowed with intrinsic superparamagnetism, designed to act as new stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems or to enhance cell homing and colonization of bone and osteochondral scaffolds thus enhancing tissue regeneration. The recent development of new intrinsically superparamagnetic hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (Fe-HA) was achieved through controlled substitution of Ca2+ ions with Fe2+/3+ ions, with specific Fe/Ca and Fe2+/Fe3+ ratios. Due to the bioactivity, ...

L'attività è dedicata allo sviluppo di impianti porosi con struttura gerarchicamente organizzata in grado di mimare le caratteristiche morfologico-strutturali dell'osso e di esibire adeguate proprietà biomeccaniche. Recenti studi avanzati indirizzati allo sviluppo di strutture porose consistono nell'applicazione di processi di trasformazione morfo-sintetica di templanti naturali, con cui si possono ottenere impianti ossei a base calcio-fosfatica con proprietà rigenerative, che riproducono in ...

Smart cities are nowadays subject of many innovation projects, as well as on the political agenda of many (local) governments. Often, in the design of smart services, and discussions in this regard, the emphasis is mainly on the importance of data collection and of communications, particularly with respect to the Internet of things. Less attention is instead directed to the necessary interactions between the various parts (humans, things, programs, communications systems, etc..) and to the need ...

Collagen based complex polymeric matrixes are prepared to be used for soft tissue regeneration such as heart, tendons/ligaments, meniscus and endocrine organs (thymus, thyroid gland). Biologically inspired processes of pH induced self-assembling and self-organization are applied to various polymeric blends of natural and/or bio-erodible polymers (collagen, cellulose, alginate, chitosan, PLLA, PCL, PGA PEG) to obtain 2-D and 3-D construct with high affinity with soft tissues. Collagen based ...

Hybrid porous nano-composites to be used as filtering devices and moisture exchange systems are developed with complex geometry contributing to the water and nano-particles trapping (including the unrestrainable particle with dimensions in the range of 30-100 nm) without excessive pressure drop. The hybrid composites are developed through a biomineralization process induced starting from a suspension of blended natural polymers (e.g. gelatine, chitosan, alginate) in the presence of Ca2+ and ...

Joining techniques permit to build complex and potentially multimaterial structures that cannot be obtained directly with the densification process. Bonding is necessary to fully exploit the potential of several hi-tech ceramics.

3D hybrid biomimetic and bio-resorbable scaffolds for the complete regeneration of multi-functional regions like osteochondral and periodontal sites are developed by a well-established bio-inspired synthesis mimicking the biologic neo-ossification process, thus providing the new devices with very high regenerative ability. The scaffolds are based on Type I collagen fibers that assemble, organize and mineralize with biomimetic, ion-substituted hydroxyapatite nano-nuclei upon pH variation at ...

The GiraffPlus project (http://www.giraffplus.eu/) is funded by the European Community within the Framework Programme Seven (FP7) and involves several european countries, research centres, companies and national health services. The scope of the project is promoting the indipendent living of the elderly who often live alone through a long-term monitoring of their activities inside their houses and the prevention of health problems or emergency situations that may arise. Moreover tools for ...

The development of hydraulic mortars by using as binder slaked lime, historic material, and natural hydraulic lime, that, at the present time, is the most lime typology used in the restoration and building fields. Metakaolin is obtained by calcinating at 650°C a commercial kaolin and it is used as pozzolanic admixture. Our study is focalised on the realisation of: 1) injection mortars for consolidation or re-adhesion systems previously disconnected or detached; 2)structural mortars that ...

In the restoration works, the use of products compatible with the materials composing the heritage artworks is important. The majority of materials of Cultural heritage (ceramics, mosaics, mortars, stones) is made of natural inorganic raw materials, so it is crucial in the conservative intervention to use inorganic non-metallic compounds, that in some cases are the same components of the cultural heritage. For this reasons, we are setting up products gotten by modification of inorganic raw ...

SOEC are produced at ISTEC starting from powders obtained by conventional solid state synthesis or chemical routes (precipitation, sol-gel, etc.). The powders are synthesized with characteristics suitable for the subsequent shaping processes. The cell fabrication consists in depositing the cell elements onto a supporting-element produced by tape casting. All the possible substrates for SOEC were produced with this technique: anodes: La0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Co0.2O3 (LSCF), La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 (LSM); ...

Mechanical oscillators operate in the degenerate parametric regime when their spring constant is modulated at twice the oscillator resonance frequency. In such regime, like in a child's swing, the response of the oscillator to an external excitation acting close to resonance is enhanced, and can easily reach a threshold marking the birth of self-oscillations (parametric resonance). More precisely, the response is amplified if the motion is in phase with the parametric modulation (quadrature), ...

Oxide based materials are often used for relevant technological applications in fields as catalysis, corrosion protection, micro- and nano-electronics, sensoristics, spintronics, drug delivery, etc. [1]. This justifies the great effort for a complete characterisation of such materials [1,2]. Ultrathin oxide films are of utmost importance, since they may show peculiar electronic and chemical properties different from those of the corresponding bulk materials and which are well known to depend on ...

"Multifunctional Materials" is a topic of increasing impact in the field of the material science and technology. The multiferroism is a property of matter defined as the coexistence of two or more primary ferroic orders, the most important are ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity; when they coexist the multiferroic defined as MagnetoElectric. This property is of great interest for a number of applications, such as sensors, advanced electronics and spintronics. Unfortunately, most of these ...

Supersonic molecular beams deposition is a powerful method to study the growth processes of organic molecular semiconductors. The possibility to tune the kinetic energy of the impinging molecules such as their momentum open different pathway not accessible with other vacuum deposition techniques. An example is given by the study made on pentacene growth (Chemical Communication [50 (2014) 7694]) where we demonstrated the role played in the growth processes by the perpendicular and parallel ...

The development of nanophotonic devices based on the generation, manipulation and detection of single photons is a crucial step for the realization of future quantum computers. Quantum computing logic will be no more based on classical bits, but on quantum bits (QuBits). Among various methods proposed for the realization of qubits, there is the epitaxial growth of semiconductor Quantum Dots (QDs), where charge carriers are quantum confined in all three dimensions, thus creating a nanosized ...

A new algorithm to help detecting rainfall from the bottom up SM2RAIN is an innovative system for the estimation of the rainfall, based on measurements of the soil water content. SM2RAIN considers the soil as a natural rain gauge, and by measuring temporal variations of the soil water content, it estimates the rainfall falling on the soil, adopting a "bottom up" approach. Technically, SM2RAIN relies on the inversion of the soil water balance equation that computes the repartition of rainfall ...

Photovoltaic devices, which directly convert abundant light into solar electricity, are important for the implementation of renewable energy supply systems. Today, silicon-based modules are dominating the photovoltaic market, but various emerging technologies based on thin-film inorganic semiconductors, dye-sensitized materials and organic materials are rapidly progressing. Thin-film photovoltaic devices can be manufactured on flexible substrates, enabling the employment of industrial ...

The new X-by-Wire systems under study for commercial and heavy-duty vehicles, as well as for Agricultural Tractors, are increasingly independent autonomous systems, capable to control the vehicle functionality, actuating the operator's commands, or managing in a complete autonomy a machine function. These applications need an higher Performance Level from the functional safety point of view, due to the risk of malfunction. IMAMOTER institute has developed and patented a new concept hydraulic ...

The study of the reduction size effects on the material properties of nanostructured systems is fundamental for understanding physical phenomena otherwise not observed in bulk materials. In particular, below a critical size, nanostructured materials can present phases that are metastable in macroscopic crystals or can even crystallize as new polimorphs, with properties different from the usual ones. Pertanto, la scoperta, la caratterizzazione e l'ingegnerizzazione di tali fasi possono aprire ...

The experience gained in the field of colloidal science has been fruitfully transferred to the control of nano particles (NPs) confinement and surface chemistry, opening new challenges towards the control of potentially adverse health impact of nanomaterials. EXPECTED IMPACTS _ Some of the very high impacts expected by the present research are: o The development of practical and cost effective strategies for reduction of worker exposure to NMs during all stages of NMs production, use and ...

Coupling nanoparticle sol-gel process technology with textile finishing or spinning techniques let to obtain HIGHLY VERSATILE MULTIFUNCTIONAL MEDIA, easily exploitable in environmental green technology, application. The high scalability and sustainability of the process is guaranteed by the consolidated technologies involved in nanotech / sol-gel / colloidal and textile processes. ANTIBACTERIAL PROPERTIES _The widely accepted mechanism of antibacterial action is for both TiO2 and Ag ...

Polycrystalline YAG (Y3Al5O12) doped with rare earth elements (REE) is a strategic functional material as laser source for high power Diode Pumped Solid State Lasers(DPSSL). Compared to the more commonly used single crystals, transparent YAG ceramic can widen the laser applications: It can be highly doped It is faster to produce It can be shaped in complex architectures.

Cubic isotropic MgAl2O4 spinel can be regarded as an almost ideal transparent ceramic material. It is an attractive material in the aerospace sector for several applications under severe conditions such as hard front layer in transparent protection and rugged optical windows operating in harsh environment. CNR ISTEC optimized the production process of spinel components with an in-line transmittance up to 82 % close to the theoretical value

In the last years, one of the IRPPS research activities focuses on the gender allocation of time among Italian population. In the study, the Italian Time Use Survey has been utilised. The survey collects information on the characteristics of households and individuals (family type, number of children, age, education, employment status, working hours, and so on) through direct interviews. Then, each respondent filled out a 24-h diary, in which they recorded their activities, indicating the time ...