This paper is mainly focused on the characterisation of a glass material (GM) obtained from the thermal treatment of a bottom ash (BA) produced at the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incineration plant of Valorsul. By melting the BA at 1400°C during 2 hours, and without using any chemical additives, a homogeneous black-coloured glass was obtained. The thermal and mechanical properties of this glass were characterised. The thermal expansion coefficient, measured by dilatometry, was 9-10 × 10-6 per °C and the modulus of rupture, determined by four-point bending test, was 75±6 MPa, which are similar values to those exhibited by commercial soda-lime-silica glasses used in structural applications. The chemical and the ecotoxicological leaching behaviour of the GM were also analysed. The GM was submitted to a leaching procedure composed of 15 sequential extraction cycles. A liquid/solid (L/S) ratio of 2 1/kg was applied in each cycle. The leachates were filtered through a membrane of PTFE (porosity: 0.45 μm). The filtered leachates were characterised for different chemical parameters and for an ecotoxicological indicator (bacterium Vibrio fischeri). The GM was also submitted to a microwave acidic digestion for the assessment of the total metal content. The crude BA was also submitted to the same experimental procedures. The GM showed levels of chemical emission and ecotoxicity for V. fischeri much lower than those determined for the crude BA. Similar characterisation studies will be pursued with the glass-ceramics produced by adequate thermal treatment of the glass, in order to investigate the effect of the crystallization on the final properties.

The purpose of this work is to present in-depth electrical characterization on transparent TFTs, using zinc oxide produced at room temperature as the semiconductor material. Some of the studied aspects were the relation between the output conductance in the post-pinch-off regime and width-to-length ratios, the gate leakage current, the semiconductor/insulator interface traps density and its relation with threshold voltage. The main point of the analysis was focused on channel mobility. Values extracted using different methodologies, like effective, saturation and average mobility, are presented and discussed regarding their significance and validity. The evolution of the different types of mobility with the applied gate voltage was investigated and the obtained results are somehow in disagreement with the typical behavior found on classical silicon based MOSFETs, which is mainly attributed to the completely different structures of the semiconductor materials used in the two situations: while in MOSFETS we have monocrystalline silicon, our transparent TFTs use poly/nanocrystalline zinc oxide with grain sizes of about 10 nm.

This paper describes the evaluation of different refractory compounds – SiO2, ZrO2 and Y2O3 –as face coats of investment casting shells for c-TiAl. The effect of the different refractories on the metal–mould interaction is studied in different aspects. Experimental results include characterisation of the constituents present at the metal/ mould interface, the segregation profiles of residual elements, namely oxygen, from the interface to the inner part of the samples, the extension and microhardness of the samples external hard case and the samples surface finishing.