Technology which can monitor states of granular systems will become a key to optimize manufacturing systems for developing functional materials such as for battery and medicine. Several methods are already available including process tomography and PIV. This paper focuses and discusses mixing index by Shannon Entropy, Shannon mixing index termed in the paper, by comparing the Lacey mixing known as standard mixing index based on statistics and experimental data. The following results are obtained: 1) Shannon mixing index can handle multi-component systems, instead of Lacey mixing index being limited to binary systems. 2) Shannon mixing index can evaluate really small amount of component quantitatively as well as qualitatively, which is not available by statistically based methods. 3) Shannon mixing index can be calculated experimentally by material sampling method, which is comparable to predictions by DEM (Discrete Element Method) simulation. The results obtained through the research indicates that Shannon Entropy can be qualified to the standard mixing index.

Reaction of mono calcium phosphate monohydrate (MCPM) and calcium carbonate at 36.5°C was applied to prepare octacalcium phosphate (OCP) porous compact expected to be a bioresorbable bone precursor in accord with autologous bone recycling process. XRD analysis confirmed that intermediate product of porous dicalcium phosphate dihydrate (DCPD) compact is synthesized practically in the first period of 2 hours, and that DCPD crystalline is reasonably decomposed into OCP through the hydrolysis reaction within 7 days. The pH value of phosphate buffered solution exerts an influence on the CO₂ gas evolution reaction and hence the transformation rate of DCPD crystalline into OCP. OCP porous compacts were evaluated in simulated body fluid (SBF) for its transformation ability to hydroxyapatite (HAp). SEM micrographs, XRD and EDS analyses demonstrated that petaloid shaped calcium-deficient HAp should be crystallized on the basis of the bone-like apatite layers in OCP crystalline structure.

Microstructural observation using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a promising technique for obtaining new findings with atomic-scale and developing phenomenological theory for ceramic materials. This paper reports on observation techniques and diverse findings obtained by observations of several ceramics. The knowledge obtained here is expected to be useful in the design of future materials.

A single cell contains a variety of organelles, including a nucleus, mitochondria, the golgi apparatus and others. If it were possible to prepare a nano craft that could specifically target a specific organelle, it would open a new field of research directed toward therapeutic treatments for a variety of diseases. We recently developed a new concept that we refer to as “Programmed Packaging”, by which we succeeded in creating a multifunctional envelope-type nano device (MEND) as a non-viral vector. Our attempts to target mitochondria are discussed here, mainly focusing on a MITO-Porter, a MEND for delivering cargoes to mitochondria. A variety of human diseases, including various neurodegenerative disorders, ischemic heart disease, diabetes and cancer have been reported to be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Because of this, mitochondrial therapy would be expected to be useful and productive in the treatment of such diseases. Our findings regarding mitochondrial drug delivery systems that are directed toward mitochondrial nano medicine development are summrized herein.

Grinding is one of the most basic and important operations of powder processing. Grinding has been carried out all over the world for a long time. However, the grinding mechanism has not been elucidated scientifically. Computer simulation have a possibility to be a useful tool to clarify the grinding mechanism. In this review, new simulation methods for particle breakage were introduced, and the advantage of each method was discussed. Prediction of grinding results based on the impact energy has an advantage of calculation load, however, it is difficult to analyze the grinding process. On the other hand, direct simulation of particle breakage can analyze the grinding process. It is necessary to choose an appropriate method according to the purpose.

In a number of applications of dense gas-solid flows such as fluidized bed and pneumatic conveyer, the size of solid particles is not uniform and a large size difference exists. Because it is strongly related to the system efficiency, the understanding of mixing and dispersion characteristics of the particles in detail is important while it is not trivial due to inherent complexities of phenomena and measurement difficulties in experiments. In this review paper, fundamentals and results of several validation studies of Fictitious particle method (FPM) that is a model extended from Discrete element method-computational fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) targeting systems with large particle size difference are presented.

12CaO·7Al₂O₃ (so called C12A7) has been known as mayenite, which is a component of alumina cement. As the crystal is composed of positively charged nano-cages, it can clathrate several different anion species and show different outstanding properties, e.g., high oxidizing ability, high conductivity maintaining its optical transparency, catalytic reactivity for producing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases, etc., depending on the chemical species clathrated in the cates. In the present study, we focus on the newly obtained C12A7 prepared by solution plasma process and examined its phase stability and crystal structures of the unknown C12A7. TEM, XRD, TG-DTA analyses revealed the unknown C12A7 phase has large lattice parameters and small crystallite size compared to the standard (normal) C12A7 phase and is unstable in O₂ containing atmosphere, whereas is stable in H₂ atmosphere.

Periodic structures of colloidal particles have attracted considerable interest because they are promising for a wide range of potential applications. Convective self-assembly of colloidal particles is a possible candidate because it is capable of fabricating ordered arrays in a simple manner at low-cost without any templates. We have succeeded in fabricating stripe pattern parallel to the air-solvent-substrate contact line and dot array pattern by using this technique. In the present study, we newly revealed the formation of stripe patterned structures perpendicular to the contact line by controlling the particle concentration and particle size. We found out that the vertical stripe pattern is formed when the particle size of 500 ‍nm is used under the concentration region between those for the horizontal stripe and dot array patterns. The width of the vertical stripes increases with the particle concentration, while the spacing between stripes remains unchanged against the concentration. Furthermore, we fabricated a peculiar hybrid pattern composed of vertical stripes and dot arrays by using a two-step convective self-assembly method, in which a vertical stripe pattern of 570 ‍nm silica particles was first prepared on a substrate, and the vertical stripe pattern was then immersed in a suspension of 120 ‍nm silica particles.