Clay-Containing Polymer Nanocomposites: From Fundamentals to Real Applications
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Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World Mark Miodownik Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014 272 pages, $15.95 ISBN 978-0544236042
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was a bit intimidated when I first realized the book that I was reviewing had also been reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Guardian, among others. As a PhD materials scientist, I already think that materials science is cool and that materials “matter.” What could I learn from a book on the science behind common materials that is geared toward the general public? But I dived in and … loved it. It is a great book. Miodownik is the head of the Materials Science Department of University College London. He loves materials and wants you to love them, too. He weaves together a delightful story of materials, told around events in his life and his fascination with common items—from chocolate to his mum’s teacups—with sheer imagination. The centerpiece of the book is a picture of him writing on his rooftop apartment, and he tells you about all the materials within
his touch (paper, graphite) and within his gaze (steel, a concrete and glass tower). The pondering of the objects in the picture are expanded with anecdotes—he was stabbed as a teenager with a razor blade, and then became so fascinated with steel that he went on to study metallurgy at Oxford. He crashed through his car window and so tells about standard glass and safety glass. He tore a ligament and so gives a tour of bioengineered materials. Miodownik is almost desperate to get you to stop, look, and think about the materials around you. He makes this materials lesson easy with his fluid writing style and enthusiasm. You cannot help but be charmed by the materials as he describes them, as one might tell the life story of an old friend. SiO2 aerogel is anthropomorphized as the author “worries that it wasn’t being treated right,” and he ponders why people generally have no affection for glass. Steel is “indomitable,” and paper is “trustful.”
Clay-Containing Polymer Nanocomposites: From Fundamentals to Real Applications Suprakas Sinha Ray Elsevier, 2013 416 pages ISBN 978-0-444-59437-2
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lay-containing polymers are a new class of composite material that are gaining more importance in technological applications. These composites belong to the class of two-dimensional nanocomposites. The worldwide market for these materials today is estimated to be in the range of one billion US dollars;
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within the next five years this figure is expected to at least double. The book, divided into 13 chapters, discusses every aspect important in understanding the structure and applications of these materials. Most chapters start with the theoretical background, but the book is written in a way that makes
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The book is also playful, with the style of the book changing from chapter to chapter. For plastics, he writes a play about the discovery of plastic by John Wesley Hyatt involving a western pool hall, dentistry, and
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