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h i g h l i g h t s Photocatalytic, superhydrophobic and self-cleaning capabilities were promoted on asphalt mixtures. AC 6 and AC 14 mixtures were coated with TiO 2 and/or ZnO aqueous solutions by spraying. Physicochemical and morphological properties of bitumen samples were evaluated by FTIR and AFM. New pavement surface capabilities assessed with Water Angle Contact and Photocatalytic Efficiency tests. No deterioration was guaranteed for AC 14 TiO 2 , AC 14 TiO 2 ZnO, AC 6 TiO 2 and AC 6 TiO 2 ZnO solutions.

Laser-glazing has been revealing a high potential for the improvement of plasma-sprayed (PS) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) by reducing surface roughness, eliminating open porosity on the surface and generating a controlled segmented crack network, although the relationship of the processing parameters with the resultant properties has not yet been completely established. In this investigation, TBCs consisting of atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) ZrO 2 -8%wtY 2 O 3 were subjected to a CO 2 continuous wave laser glazing process in order to seal its surface porosity generating an external dense layer. For that purpose, different amounts of radiation resulting from different scanning speeds were applied to the specimens as well as different track overlapping. Results have shown a significant decrease of the surface roughness after the laser treatment. All specimens presented a fully dense and porous free external layer with a polyfaceted columnar microstructure highly adherent to the plasma-sprayed coating. Controlled surface crack networks, extremely dependent on the laser scanning speed and track overlapping, were achieved for each set of processing parameters. The cracks were found to have a tendency to be oriented in two perpendicular directions, one in the direction of the laser beam travel direction, the other perpendicular to it. Moreover, the cracks parallel to the beam moving direction are found to be on the overlapping zone, coinciding with the edge of the subsequent track. The cracks are perpendicular to the surface along the densified layer and tend to branch and deviate from the vertical direction below it, within the porous PS coating. XRD results revealed mainly t' non-transformable tetragonal zirconia with a small percentage of residual monoclinic zirconia for the as-sprayed coating. All glazed coatings presented only t' non-transformable tetragonal zirconia with some variations on preferable crystal orientation. Grain sizes varied from 26 to 52 nm, increasing with an increase of laser irradiated energy, microstrain behaved inversely. Keywords IntroductionThermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have successfully entered service in the turbine section of advanced gas turbine engines in the mid-1970s [1]. Since then, several improvements on the selected materials, processing techniques and life prediction tools have been taking place to contribute for the improvement of TBC's performance as well as for the widening of the field of applications.Current thermal barrier coating systems consist of a bond coat deposited over the material to be protected and then the TBC itself is applied to the bond coat. The metallic bond coat (MCrAlY, M=Ni, Cr or Ni/Cr) acts as a corrosion resistant layer to protect the substrate material (Nickel-based superalloy), forming alumina as the principal protective scale (thermally grown oxide (TGO)). Due to mismatch of thermoelastic properties between the metallic substrate and the ceramic top coat, the bond coat is also necessary to accommodate residual stresses avoiding its...

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Atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) ZrO 2 -8%WtY 2 O 3 thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were subjected to a CO 2 continuous wave laser-glazing process in order to generate an external dense layer produced by different processing parameters. For that purpose, different beam scanning speeds and track overlapping were chosen.Surface roughness has been reduced significantly after laser-glazing. Despite the surface crack network, all laser-glazed specimens presented a fully dense and porous free external layer with a columnar microstructure. Surface cracks along the densified layer were found to have tendency to be oriented in two perpendicular directions, one in the direction of the laser beam travel, the other perpendicular to it. Moreover, the cracks parallel to the beam moving direction are found to be on the overlapping zone, coinciding with the edge of the subsequent track. The cracks along the densified layer are vertical and tend to branch and deviate from the vertical direction within the porous PS coating. The largest overlapping allied to the smallest amount of irradiated energy generated the most uniform layer with the shortest crack branches within the PS coating. For the as-sprayed coating, the XRD results revealed mainly t' non-transformable tetragonal zirconia with a small percentage of residual monoclinic zirconia. All glazed coatings presented only t' non-transformable tetragonal zirconia with some variations on preferable crystal orientation.

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Nowadays, there is increasing concern in transportation engineering about the use of techniques less harmful to the environment and also about road safety. Heterogeneous photocatalysis based on the application of semiconductor materials onto asphalt mixtures is a promising technology because it can mitigate air pollution and road accidents. The functionalized asphalt mixtures with photocatalytic capability can degrade pollutants, such as damaging gases and oil/grease adsorbed on their surface, from specific reactions triggered by sunlight photons, providing significant environmental and social benefits. In this article, a review of photocatalysis applied in asphalt mixtures is presented. The most important characteristics related to the functionalization of asphalt mixtures for photocatalytic applications and their corresponding characterization are presented, and the achieved main results are also discussed.

Flexible hybrid xerogels bringing together high optical transparency up to 96%, low shrinkage down to 5.5%, very smooth surface (average roughness of about 0.3 nm) and thermal stability up to 200 °C were achieved as a result of the optimization of sol‐gel preparative method and a new combination of sol‐gel precursors. Two types of hybrid materials (hereafter referred, respectively, as urea‐silicate and amino‐alcohol‐silicate gels) were synthesized in this work. The shrinkage and the transparency of these materials have been drastically improved by using two different derived siloxanes (3‐isocyanate propyltriethoxysilane and 3‐glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane) and two amine‐terminated polyether precursors with different molecular weights. A drying process was implemented to minimize yellowing of prepared samples. Under these conditions, we were able to efficiently reproduce a well‐defined imprinted pattern at materials surface by using an original casting mould. The study of the diffraction characteristics of the obtained grating revealed a good reproducibility of the imprinted grating that shows to be comparable with the original mould. The developed methodology opens the possibility to produce diffraction lenses with a wide range of forms by a simple method based on sol‐gel process. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012