Category: Products

As the global demand for effective water treatment systems grows, particularly in regions where access to clean drinking water is scarce, the development of innovative filtration technologies has become a focus.

In a recent study titled “Removal of MS2 and fr Bacteriophages Using MgAl₂O₄-Modified, Al₂O₃-Stabilized Porous Ceramic Granules for Drinking Water Treatment”, researchers investigated the effectiveness of an advanced composite-based filtration membrane.

This ceramic membrane, made from alumina (Al₂O₃) and Baikowski® magnesium aluminate spinel (MgAl₂O₄), demonstrates potential for removing viruses, such as bacteriophages and other microorganisms that contribute to waterborne diseases.

Combatting Waterbone Pathogens with Spinel-based Composite Membranes

The membrane is fabricated by integrating spinel granules into an alumina matrix. This composite approach leverages the mechanical strength of alumina, and the filtration capabilities of spinel due to its fine pore structure and stability.

The Baikowski® product used S25CR is a high-purity jet-milled spinel powder (dv50 = 0.25 µm and surface area of 21–24 m²/g).

This combination of materials allows the membrane to maintain its performance even in extreme environmental conditions.

Baikowski® Spinel Powder Benefits for advanced filtration applications

At Baikowski®, spinel powders are designed to achieve the highest standards in ceramic applications. Here’s how our S25CR product align with the demand of advanced filtration systems:

• Particle Size and size distribution: Our jet-milled spinel powder offer fine particle size and controlled particle size distribution around 0.25 µm that enable precise tailoring of membrane porosity.
• High Purity Levels: With over 99% phase purity, our spinel powder minimizes impurities that can interfere with membrane performance. This purity is essential in preventing contamination, which can degrade the efficacy of filtration in sensitive applications like water filtration.

Post-Filtration Characterization and Thermal Regeneration

A critical part of the study involved characterizing the materials after filtration to assess the durability and stability of the membrane. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed that the phase composition of the spinel granules was preserved after exposure to 2 liters of contaminated water, indicating the membrane’s robustness. Electron microscopy further demonstrated that the granular structure remained intact, ensuring the membrane’s continued effectiveness even after prolonged use.

Additionally, the study measured the release of aluminum and magnesium into the permeate after filtration. No aluminum was detected, and the magnesium levels were significantly below the WHO’s recommended threshold for drinking water. This low level of magnesium release is a notable benefit, as excessive magnesium in water contributes to hardness.

One of the standout features of the spinel-based filtration system is its potential for thermal regeneration. When the membrane’s pores become clogged with contaminants, heat treatment at 400°C can restore its filtration capacity. This ability to regenerate the membrane extends its lifespan and makes it a more sustainable solution for water treatment.

Product Customization

In conclusion, spinel-based composite membranes offer a solution for filtering viruses and other microorganisms from drinking water, with the added benefit of being durable and regenerable. The Baikowski®’s high-purity spinel powder, S25CR, play a role in these advanced filtration technologies, ensuring both high filtration efficiency and long-term stability.
For more detailed insights, you can explore the full study here.

At Baikowski®, our R&D teams customize solutions, such as adjusting the dopant or the particle size, to meet your specifications. We work closely together to develop products that push the boundaries of your application needs. Any questions? Contact-us

The search for dental restorative materials that seamlessly blend strength, safety, and aesthetic appeal has long been a priority in dentistry. Mathym®’s innovative nano-zirconia suspension with high refractive index, zilight®, is at the forefront of addressing this challenge.

Meeting the Demand for Aesthetic and Strong Dental Materials

Patients are looking for dental restorations that are not only durable but also visually natural. Traditional materials like porcelain-fused-to-metal often fall short, especially in visible areas like the front teeth due to their opacity and sometimes greyish hue. While all-ceramic restorations offer some improvements, they still face some issues such as chipping, brittleness, and in particular limited translucency.

Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) ceramics, particularly those doped with 3 mol.% yttria (3YSZ), have gained popularity for their high strength, biocompatibility, and compatibility with CAD-CAM technologies. However, conventional 3YSZ often lacks the translucency required for highly aesthetic dental restorations.

Achieving Superior Optical and Mechanical Properties with zilight® range

The control of Mathym’s zirconia grain size to less than 100 nm enables to produce high translucency ceramics without compromising solidity. Moreover, the adjustment of yttria doping in the 8 mol.% range also allows enhanced optical transparency. The obtained ceramics exhibit opalescence similar to natural enamel, creating a bluish and orange appearance under different lighting conditions.

These properties linked to the miniaturization of residual pores, the refinement of grain size, proper doping concentration, and sintering ability at only 900°C make zilight® a superior alternative to existing commercial options for dental applications.

The low sintering temperature is a remarkable competitive benefit that also allows energy consumption reduction, short processing times, and can minimize potential thermal damage to other components.

Compatible with ceramic 3D printing, our innovative solution is designed to meet advanced restoration techniques needs.

Enhancing Dental Applications with Mathym’s Innovations

Mathym’s commitment to innovation extends beyond zilight® nano-zirconia suspension.

Our offering also includes advanced dental nanofillers such as ytterbium fluoride, filixio®, and cerium nanoparticles, designed to enhance or add specific properties to dental materials such as radiopacity, wear resistance and color stability.

Aditionally, the nanoparticle functionalization ensures compatibility with various dental monomers, even at high concentrations.

All these advancements bring superior results across a variety of restorative procedures while preventing secondary caries by inhibiting bacterial growth and promoting enamel remineralization.

Learn more about Mathym’s dental offering

For further details and tailored solutions, contact our teams to discuss your needs.

 

Baikowski is at the forefront of innovation in materials science. Our products enable research and technological advancements in the field of technicl ceramics. Among the applications, there is the development of graphene oxide (GO) composite membranes anchored on α-alumina substrates as mentioned in the following scientific publication « Composite GO/Ceramic Membranes Prepared via Chemical Attachment: Characterisation and Gas Permeance Properties. »

By providing a stable and inert platform for GO deposition, the substrates enable the creation of composite membranes with finely tuned pore structures and enhanced separation capabilities in this study, essential for industrial applications.

The porous ceramic substrates made with our High Purity CR6 Baikalox® powder, provide the necessary resistance in high-temperature and corrosive environments where polymeric membranes will fail.

Potential Applications of Composite GO/ceramic membranes

These membranes exhibits enhanced stability and permeance, as well as tailored surface properties that can be employed in various industries to address critical separation and filtration challenges such as :

• 🌟 Gas Separation: The composite membranes are suitable for applications in industrial gas separation processes, purification of natural gas, and carbon capture technologies thanks to their ability to selectively permeate certain gases while retaining others.
• 🌟 Water Treatment: The hydrophilic and hydrophobic modifications enabled by chemical linkers such as PDA, GPTMS, and APTMS allow the membranes to effectively separate contaminants from water. This application is particularly relevant for wastewater treatment, desalination, and the removal of organic and inorganic pollutants from water sources.
• 🌟 Chemical Processing: The composite membranes’ resistance to chemical products and thermal stability make them suitable for the separation of organic solvents, recovery of valuable chemicals, and purification of reaction products.
• 🌟 Energy Sector: The selective permeation properties can be harnessed to separate hydrogen from other gases, which is a critical step in producing high-purity hydrogen for fuel cells and other energy applications.
• 🌟 Environmental Protection: By enabling the effective separation of harmful gases and pollutants, these membranes can help reduce emissions and treat industrial effluents, supporting cleaner and more sustainable processes.

CR6 High-Purity α-Alumina Powder Benefits

CR6 is a  powder of our Baikalox® range of products, well known for its fine particle size and excellent sintering properties.

These characteristics make it an ideal material for creating dense and robust ceramic supports, which are essential for high-performance composite membranes.

The specific properties of CR6 in that application include:

• 🌟 High Purity: this characteristic ensures minimal contamination, which is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the ceramic substrates and the GO layer deposited on them.
• 🌟 Controlled Particle Size Distribution: It contributes to the creation of uniform macroporous structures. This uniformity is essential for consistent membrane performance, as it influences both gas and water permeance.
• 🌟 Chemical Compatibility: compatibility of CR6 with various chemical linkers, such as polydopamine (PDA), 3-Glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS), and 3-Aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS), facilitated the effective anchoring of GO layers onto the ceramic substrates.
• 🌟 Excellent Sintering Behavior: It allows the creation of mechanically strong and thermally stable supports.

In the referenced study, custom-made α-alumina disks with a ~2 mm thickness and a 22 mm diameter were employed as substrates. The disks were fabricated by pressing the CR6 alumina powder in a custom-made mold and sintering at 800°C for 30 hours and further at 1180°C for 2 hours. One side of the disk was polished until no obvious scratch was observed under visual inspection with a light microscope.

How CR6 Alumina Contributes to Membrane Performance?

One of the primary challenges in composite membrane technology is ensuring strong and stable adhesion of GO layers to ceramic substrates.
The success here is mainly due to :

• 🌟 Enhanced Stability: The CR6-based substrates have showed remarkable stability, maintaining their structural integrity and performance under various conditions.
• 🌟 The smooth and polished surface: these surface characteristics have ensured optimal interaction with the modifying agents (PDA, APTES, GLYMO) and the graphene-based nanocomposites.
• 🌟 Thickness: The substrates have enabled the formation of composite membranes with precise thickness control, optimizing the membrane for different separation applications.

Our high purity CR6 alumina has proven to be a critical component in the advancement of composite membrane technologies. Its superior properties facilitate the creation of reliable and high-performing membrane supports, enabling the successful integration of graphene-based nanocomposites.

This synergy between high-purity alumina and advanced nanomaterials opens new possibilities for applications in gas separation, water purification, and other fields requiring durable and efficient membrane solutions.

Learn more on CR6 composite membrane application in the following study : A Combined Gas and Water Permeances Method for Revealing the Deposition Morphology of GO Grafting on Ceramic Membranes

 

Adaptive Driving Beam (ADB) is a smart system that can automatically adjust the light distribution of the headlights according to the traffic conditions, such as the presence of oncoming vehicles or pedestrians. By creating a glare-free area around vehicles, ADB can provide optimal illumination at long distances for the driver without dazzling other road users, enhancing both safety and comfort at night. ADB technology rely on perception systems that gather data, software controls that trigger an appropriate response, and advanced headlamp optics incorporating YAG converters to carry out the command.

Light conversion phosphors role in the solid-state lighting and ADB technology?

The light source is a key component for ABD, which is usually based on LED (light-emitting diode) technology and light changes are mainly controlled with a LED matrix design.

If LED have efficiency, long lifetime, low power consumption and fast response advantages over conventional halogen or xenon lamps, they also have color light rendering and thermal stability challenges. For high-power applications such as ADB, thermal stability and luminescent efficiency of phosphors can overcome these drawbacks.

Indeed, light conversion phosphors are materials that can absorb light of a certain wavelength (usually blue or near-ultraviolet) and re-emit light of a different wavelength (usually yellow or red). By combining the original and the converted light, white light with a desired color temperature and color rendering index can be obtained. The ideal color temperature for headlight should be close to the sunlight (around 5000K-6000K) in order to provide optimal visibility for human eyes.

One of the most widely used light conversion phosphors for white LEDs is YAG:Ce3+ (yttrium aluminum garnet doped with cerium ions) that efficiently convert blue into yellow light, resulting in a warm white light with a high luminous efficacy. By producing a high brightness and contrast ratio, it helps to create a clear and sharp image on the road.

Baikowski® high crystallinity, phasic and chemical purity submicronic YAG:Ce powder offers optimized particle size and distribution that allows the production of YAG-based converters with outstanding performances such as:

• 🌟 High efficiency with minimal energy wasted as heat and high light-performance from the input source
• 🌟 A quick and accurate response to the input signal for precise adjustments.
• 🌟 Exceptional stability in both light color and brightness

Fully compatible with nanostructured blue diodes and various LED chip designs, our YAG nanophosphors enable device miniaturization>

Learn more about Baikowski® unique submicronic YAG powders

Custom YAG-based converters for high-performance ADB lighting

By doping, enhanced performance of YAG:Ce3+ can be achieved. Here are some examples that could comply with your ADB lighting specification needs:

• 🌟 Color rendering: Doping YAG:Ce3+ with Tb3+ (terbium ions) allows a broader emission spectrum that improves the color rendering index of the white light.
• 🌟 Emissive properties and stability: the addition of gadolinium (Gd3+) ions as a codopant ensures consistent color and brightness
• 🌟 Quantum efficiency: Europium codoping can boost the quantum efficiency of the YAG:Ce phosphor, resulting in enhanced light output

Do not hesitate to contact our commercial and R&D teams for tailored YAG design.