Publications by authors named "Basam A E Ben-Arfa"

We report the first ever robocast (additive manufacturing/3D printing) sintered ceria scaffolds, and explore their use for the production of renewable fuels solar thermochemical fuel production (STFP, water and carbon dioxide splitting using concentrated solar energy). CeO catalyst scaffolds were fabricated as 50 mm diameter discs (struts and voids ∼500 μm), sintered at 1450 °C, with specific surface area of 1.58 m g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We show the influence of two functional ions (Cu and La ), incorporated into a quaternary (Si, Ca, Na, P) sol-gel derived bioactive glass system, on its particle size, cytotoxicity, and bioactivity. By doping the parent glass with the two ions in singular or combined forms, 15 doped glasses were prepared by a rapid sol-gel technique. The influence of the combined doping on the particle size and cell viability was successfully evaluated by the aid of signal-to-noise-ratio (S/N), using Taguchi analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This research details the successful fabrication of scaffolds by robocasting from high silica sol-gel glass doped with Cu or La. The parent HSSGG composition within the system SiO-CaO-NaO-PO [67% Si - 24% Ca - 5% Na - 4% P (mol%)] was doped with 5 wt% Cu or La (Cu5 and La5). The paper sheds light on the importance of copper and lanthanum in improving the mechanical properties of the 3-D printed scaffolds.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Novel quaternary (67Si-24Ca-10Na-8P) glass powders were successfully synthesised by sol-gel followed by two alternative drying schedules, conventional drying (CD) and an innovative fast drying (FD) process (200 times quicker). The glasses were thermally stabilised at 550 °C, and then characterised by different complementary techniques. The samples showed very similar silica network structures, with the FD one having slightly lower degree of polymerisation than the CD sample.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sol-gel glasses in quaternary silica-sodium-calcium-phosphorous systems have been synthesized using a rotary evaporator for rapid drying without ageing. This novel fast drying method drastically decreases the total drying and ageing time from several weeks to only 1 hour, thus overcoming a serious drawback in sol-gel preparation procedures for bioglasses. This work investigates the bioactivity behavior of two glasses synthesized by this fast method, with Ca:P ratios of 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We have developed an innovative, rapid sol-gel method of producing hydroxyapatite nanopowders that avoids the conventional lengthy ageing and drying processes (over a week), being 200 times quicker in comparison to conventional aqueous sol-gel preparation, and 50 times quicker than ethanol based sol-gel synthesis. Two different sets of experimental conditions, in terms of pH value (5.5 and 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF