The invention relates to a method for preparing a material based on an aluminosilicate selected from barium aluminosilicate BAS, barium-strontium aluminosilicate BSAS, and strontium aluminosilicate SAS, said aluminosilicate consisting of aluminosilicate with a hexagonal structure, characterised in that it includes a single sintering step in which a mixture of powders of precursors of said aluminosilicate, including an aluminium hydroxide Al(OH).sub.3 powder, are sintered by a hot-sintering technique with a pulsed electric field SPS; whereby a material based on an aluminosilicate, said aluminosilicate consisting of an aluminosilicate with a hexagonal structure is obtained. The material based on an aluminosilicate prepared by said method can be used in a method for preparing a composite material consisting of an aluminosilicate matrix reinforced by reinforcements made of metalloid or metal oxide.

Ceramic-bonded diamond composite particle includes a plurality of diamond grains and silicon carbide reaction bonded to the diamond grains having a composition of 60-90 wt. % diamond, 10-40 wt. % silicon carbide, ≦2 wt. % silicon. Particles are formed by processes that forms granules in a pre-consolidation process, forms a densified compact including ceramic-bonded diamond composite material in a consolidation process or forms ceramic-bonded diamond composite material directly, and a post-consolidation process in which the densified compact or ceramic-bonded diamond composite material is mechanically broken to form a plurality of the particles. Inert or active material can be incorporated into the densified compact or coated on granules to reduce the number and extent of diamond to silicon carbide bonding occurring in the consolidation process and make the ceramic-bonded diamond composite material more friable and easily breakable into composite particles.

A porous fired granulated body is formed by consolidating numerous alumina particles to each other while letting mainly interconnected pores remain in network form across an entire cross section of a granulated body particle (11). The pores (13) have an inner diameter controlled by a droplet diameter of a pore forming agent and have numerous precipitated alumina crystals (15) formed on inner surfaces thereof. Manufacture is performed by spraying the pore forming agent (emulsion) onto a raw material to form a coating layer of the pore forming agent on a surface of the raw material particle and controlling the inner diameter of the pores. A porous fired granulated body of alumina having a high specific surface area and having higher strength for the same specific surface area can thus be provided by a simple manufacturing method.

A multilayer electronic component that includes a stacked body having therein a plurality of dielectric layers including a CZ-based perovskite phase and an element M1, a plurality of internal electrode layers including Cu, and an interface layer including the element M1 in at least a portion of an interface with the plurality of internal electrode layers. Element M1 is an element that has a binding energy between CZ and Cu via the element M1 of less than or equal to −9.8 eV by first-principles calculation using a pseudopotential method. When amounts of elements included in the dielectric layers are expressed as parts by mol, a ratio m1 of an amount of the element M1 to an amount of the Zr in the interface layer is 0.03≤m1≤0.25.

A novel metal oxide or a novel sputtering target is provided. A sputtering target includes a conductive material and an insulating material. The insulating material includes an oxide, a nitride, or an oxynitride including an element M1. The element M1 is one or more kinds of elements selected from Al, Ga, Si, Mg, Zr, Be, and B. The conductive material includes an oxide, a nitride, or an oxynitride including indium and zinc. A metal oxide film is deposited using the sputtering target in which the conductive material and the insulating material are separated from each other.

The production of a device for holding one or more electrodes for electrical discharge machining, comprising a body having a rectilinear portion in which at least one first duct is provided for the passage of one or more electrode(s). The body further has an integral curved portion in which (at least) one second curved dielectric fluid supply duct is provided and in which is provided a curved extension of said at least one first duct. The curved extension and the second curved duct are made of ceramic, with an inner mean roughness of: Ra<2 μm.

Provided is an inorganic structure including a plurality of zirconium silicate particles; and a binding part that covers a surface of each of the zirconium silicate particles and binds the zirconium silicate particles together. The binding part contains an amorphous compound containing silicon, a metallic element other than silicon, and oxygen, and contains substantially no alkali metal, B, V, Te, P, Bi, Pb and Zn. Also provided is a method for producing an inorganic structure including: a step for obtaining a mixture by mixing a plurality of zirconium silicate particles, a plurality of amorphous silicon dioxide particles, and an aqueous solution containing a metallic element other than silicon; and a step for pressurizing and heating the mixture under conditions of a pressure of 10 to 600 MPa and a temperature of 50 to 300° C.

To provide a sliding member having improved wear resistance, and a method of manufacturing the sliding member. A femoral head ball according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a composite ceramic containing alumina and at least one oxide other than alumina. A surface roughness Ra of the sliding surface when the femoral head ball slides against a constituent member constituting an artificial joint is not more than 0.01 μm. The sliding surface includes a plurality of recessed portions each having an opening diameter of not more than 2 μm.

The present invention relates to a method for producing a metal nitride, which is a method for synthesizing a metal nitride by igniting a raw material powder containing a metal powder housed in a reaction vessel (2) under a nitrogen atmosphere and propagating nitriding combustion heat of the metal powder to the whole of the housed raw material powder, characterized in that the raw material powder is housed in the reaction vessel (2) as a molded body (1B) having a void ratio of 40 to 70%. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a method for producing a metal nitride capable of suppressing the occurrence of powder scattering and improving the recovery rate of the metal nitride.

Functionalized textile materials are provided. At least a portion of a textile surface in includes a ceramic material, such as a binderless porous structured ceramic, and optionally, one or more functional layer is applied, resulting in a textile material with one or more desirable functional properties, such as hydrophilicity, hydrophobicity, flame retardancy, photocatalysis, anti-fouling, and/or deodorant properties.