Department of Advanced Materials and Composites

Department of Advanced Materials and Composites

Main areas of the department's scientific activity:

• Development of lightweight fiber-reinforced composites using glass and carbon fibers, enhanced with 2D materials including graphene.

• Synthesis of composite materials with quasi-2D graphene-like properties for use as reversible hydrogen storage materials, filtration media, sensors, and lithium-ion battery electrodes.

• Our most recent success is the synthesis of Graphene Quantum Dots, which we use in the fabrication of transparent photovoltaic cells.

Additionally, the department conducts research on the production of ceramic coatings using the sol-gel method and plasma-assisted aerosol-gel techniques. We have developed a range of technologies for applying mono- and multilayer coatings based on materials such as TiO₂, Al₂O₃, ZrO₂, SiO₂, hydroxyapatite, as well as composite coatings incorporating, for example, oxidized graphene flakes.

The department's teaching activities include lectures, exercises, laboratory classes, and training in areas such as Materials Science, Theoretical Fundamentals of Materials Engineering, Metallic Materials, Sintered, Ceramic and Composite Materials, Physics of Strength Phenomena, and Physicochemistry of Vacuum Surface Treatments. Since 2006, we have also been conducting courses based on the Problem Based Learning (PBL) method. These courses include international and interdisciplinary student team projects, such as the development of a lightweight unmanned quadcopter designed to monitor production halls and decommissioned industrial buildings.

Additionally, at the request of industrial partners, we carry out material analyses to identify, among others, causes of machinery failures, focusing on factors such as the accuracy of joining processes, fatigue cracking, and insufficient durability of machine components under operational conditions. In this area, our work also includes optimizing material properties and developing manufacturing technologies for specialized machine and equipment components.

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