Related papers: The physics of cement cohesion
Microcline feldspar (KAlSi$_3$O$_8$) is a common mineral with important roles for Earth's ecological balance. It participates in the carbon, potassium, and water cycles, contributing to CO$_2$ sequestration, soil formation, and atmospheric…
Energy dissipation in sheared dry and wet granulates is considered in the presence of an externally applied confining pressure. Discrete element simulations reveal that for sufficiently small confining pressures, the energy dissipation is…
Water is essential for almost every aspect of life on our planet and, unsurprisingly, its properties have been studied in great detail. However, disproportionately little remains known about the electrical properties of interfacial and…
Thermochemical energy storage (TCES) based on salt hydrates is a promising route for seasonal heat storage; however, the design of practical sorbent materials remains challenging due to a non-trivial coupling between composition, synthesis…
Understanding transport behavior in nanoconfined environments is critical to many natural and engineering systems, including cementitious materials, yet its molecular-level mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, molecular dynamics (MD)…
The impact of nanoparticles (NPs) comprised of atoms with covalent bonding is investigated numerically and theoretically. We use recent models of covalent bonding of carbon atoms and elaborate a numerical model of amorphous carbon (a-C)…
Heavy ion collisions, produced in particle accelerators, lead to the formation of a new state of matter, known as the quark gluon plasma. It is not possible to observe directly the plasma, where quarks and gluons are not confined into…
Reactions at solid-water interfaces play a foundational role in water treatment systems, catalysis, chemical separations, and in predicting chemical fate and transport in the environment. Over the last century, experimental measurements and…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations to investigate the formation of arrested structures upon demixing of a binary solvent containing neutrally wetting colloidal particles. Previous simulations for symmetric fluid quenches pointed to the…
The harmonic oscillator is one of the simplest physical systems but also one of the most fundamental. It is ubiquitous in nature, often serving as an approximation for a more complicated system or as a building block in larger models.…
Using computer simulations, we identify the mechanisms causing aggregation and structural arrest of colloidal suspensions interacting with a short-ranged attraction at moderate and high densities. Two different non-ergodicity transitions…
Water droplets coalesce into larger ones in atmospheric clouds to form rain. But droplets on collision courses do not always coalesce due to the cushioning effects of the air between them. The extent to which these so-called hydrodynamic…
Alloying metals with other elements is often done to improve the material strength or hardness. A key microscopic mechanism is precipitation hardening, where precipitates impede dislocation motion, but the role of such obstacles in…
Diamond and diamond-like carbon (DLC) are used as coating materials for numerous applications, ranging from biomedicine to tribology. Recently, it has been shown that the hydrophilicity of the carbon films can be enhanced by silicon doping,…
The structure and interactions in electrolytes at high concentration have implications from energy storage to biomolecular interactions. However many experimental observations are yet to be explained in these mixtures, which are far beyond…
Theoretical calculations of the elastic response of carbon composites and amorphous carbon are reported. The studied composites consist of crystalline nanoinclusions, either spherical diamonds or carbon nanotubes, embedded in amorphous…
Hydrogen as a fuel can be stored safely with high volumetric density in metals. It can, however, also be detrimental to metals causing embrittlement. Understanding fundamental behavior of hydrogen at atomic scale is key to improve the…
Colossal Ion Conductivity (CIC) is the phenomenon in which large changes in oxygen conductivity are observed when a solid state oxygen electrolyte is placed in a heterolayer super lattice. Several hypotheses have been posed concerning both…
The kinetics of water adsorption by a natural zeolite (clinoptilolite) sample has been investigated by high-frequency AC current intensity measurements. According to the achieved kinetic results, cations should play a relevant role in the…
The interface between a liquid and a solid is the location of plethora of intrincate mechanisms at the nanoscale, at the root of their specific emerging properties in natural processes or technological applications. However, while the…