Authors : K. Gour, G. Wankhade
Page Nos : 423-430
Description :
The world is on the brink of a new technological revolution beyond any human
experience. Over the past decade, nonmaterial have been the subject of enormous
interest. These materials, notable for their extremely small feature size, have the
potential for wide-ranging industrial, biomedical, and electronic applications A
nanocomposite is a multiphase solid material where one of the phases has one, two or
three dimensions of less than 100 nanometers (nm), or structures having nano-scale
repeat distances between the different phases that make up the material.[1] In the
broadest sense this definition can include porous media, colloids, gels and copolymers,
but is more usually taken to mean the solid combination of a bulk matrix and nanodimensional
phase(s) differing in properties due to dissimilarities in structure and
chemistry. The mechanical, electrical, thermal, optical, electrochemical, catalytic
properties of the nanocomposite will differ markedly from that of the component
materials. Size limits for these effects have been proposed,[2] <5 nm for catalytic activity,
<20 nm for making a hard magnetic material soft, <50 nm for refractive index changes,
and <100 nm for achieving superparamagnetism, mechanical strengthening or
restricting matrix dislocation movement
