Mumtaz Ali

Mumtaz Ali


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

4Years (2023-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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13 February 2023 in Polymers
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Muhammad ShoaibMuhammad Shoaib
Muhammad Shoaib
ZLZeeshan Latif
Zeeshan Latif
MAMumtaz Ali
Mumtaz Ali
AAAhmed Al-Ghamdi
Ahmed Al-Ghamdi
ZAZafar Arshad
Zafar Arshad
WSWageh Swelm
Wageh Swelm
Using of nano-inclusion to reinforce polymeric materials has emerged as a potential technique to achieve an upper extreme of specific strength. Despite the significant improvement of mechanical properties via nano-reinforcements, the commercial application of such nano-composites is still restricted, due to high cost and unwanted aggregation of nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. To address these issues, here we proposed a scalable and economical synthesis of TiO2 at low temperatures, resulting in self-dispersed nanoparticles, without any surfactant. As lower energy is consumed in the synthesis and processing of such nanoparticles, so their facile gram-scale synthesis is possible. The defect-rich surface of such nanoparticles accommodates excessive dangling bonds, serving as a center for the functional groups on the surface. Functional surface enables high dispersion stability of room temperature synthesized TiO2 particles. With this motivation, we optimized the processing conditions and concentration of as-synthesized nano-particles for better mechanical properties of unsaturated polyester (UP) resin. The composite structure (UP-TiO2) showed nearly two folds higher tensile, flexural, and impact strength, with 4% content of nanoparticles. Characterization tools show that these better mechanical properties are attributed to a strong interface and superior dispersion of nanoparticles, which facilitate better stress distribution in the composite structure. In addition, the crack generation and propagation are restricted at a much smaller scale in nanocomposites, therefore significant improvement in mechanical properties was observed.