Following the success of its first conference, held in Durban in 2013, the Composite Research Group at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Durban University of Technology will be hosting its second International Conference on Composites, Biocomposites and Nanocomposities (ICCBN) from October 28 to 30, which will be beneficial to the mining industry.

Composites are from two or more constituent materials with significantly different chemical properties, that when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components.

Biocomposites are made by melt mixing bio-based polymer with natural filler. These kinds of materials often mimic the structure of the living materials involved in the process, keeping the strengthening properties of the matrix that was used, but always providing biocompatibility.

Polymers derived from renewable and nonrenewable resources form the matrix phase. The matrix is important to protect the fibres from environmental degradation and mechanical damage, to hold the fibres together and to transfer the loads on it.

Moreover, nanocomposites are multiphase solid materials where one of the phases has one, two or three dimensions of less than 100 nanometres. These materials are used in nanomining, which is the development of new nanocomposites using materials from the mining industry.

The conference will cover a variety of themes including materials and applications, processing and characterisation, analysis and optimisation, social and ethics as well as toxicology.

The university is also inviting industry to submit abstracts of papers and authors to submit abstracts of their books of between 250 and 300 words for oral or poster presentations by the end of this month for consideration.

At the first ICCBN over 100 papers were presented during parallel sessions, with selected papers having been recommended for publication in the Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, the Journal of Composite Materials as well as Strain.