title: Recent Advances on Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene Reinforced Ceramics Nanocomposites.
abstract: Ceramics suffer the curse of extreme brittleness and demand new design philosophies and novel concepts of manufacturing to overcome such intrinsic drawbacks, in order to take advantage of most of their excellent properties. This has been one of the foremost challenges for ceramic material experts. Tailoring the ceramics structures at nanometre level has been a leading research frontier; whilst upgrading via reinforcing ceramic matrices with nanomaterials including the latest carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene has now become an eminent practice for advanced applications. Most recently, several new strategies have indeed improved the properties of the ceramics/CNT nanocomposites, such as by tuning with dopants, new dispersions routes and modified sintering methods. The utilisation of graphene in ceramic nanocomposites, either as a solo reinforcement or as a hybrid with CNTs, is the newest development. This article will summarise the recent advances, key difficulties and potential applications of the ceramics nanocomposites reinforced with CNTs and graphene.
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Research in Engineering Materials, Advanced Manufacturing Institute, King Saud University, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia. ifahmad@ksu.edu.sa.
authors.forename: Iftikhar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.affiliation: College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK. by219@exeter.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Bahareh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yazdani
authors.affiliation: College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK. y.zhu@exeter.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Yanqiu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: carbon nanotubes (CNTs); ceramics; graphene; mechanical properties, interface; nanocomposites