Dense nanostructured monoliths

Dense nanostructured monoliths are of interest for a range of applications where materials experience extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. In this case, hardness must be pursued and grain boundaries can enhance such properties, for instance, by the Hall-Petch effect. The management of thermal and electrical behaviors at the same time is also of prime importance in thermoelectricity, for which devices often rely on monolith-shaped materials. In this case, incorporation of grain boundaries may be a mean to fine-tune thermal conductivity independent of electrical conductivity. In both cases, the design of nanostructured monoliths may represent a significant advance in the respective fields. 

The recently coined integrative sol-gel chemistry [1-4] is indeed a multidisciplinary domain where soft matter, soft chemistry, mechanics, and smart 

8 Masters, K. (1991) Spray Drying Handbook, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 

14 Lind, A., von Hohenesche, CD., Smart, JH, Linden, M, and Unger, K.K. (2003) Microporous Mesoporous Mater., 66, 

24 Daoud-Mahammed, S., Ringard-Lefebvre, C., Razzouq, N., Rosilio, V., Gillet, B., Couvreur, P., Amiel, C., and Gref, R. (2007) /, Colloid Interface Scu, 307, 83. 

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Figure 331 A combination of the sol-gel process and spark plasma sintering that yields nanostructured dense monoliths. The thermal conductivity can be fine-tuned through the...

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