First record of plastiglomerate and pyroplastic pollution in the world's longest natural beach.

The identification and description of novel plastic forms, such as pyroplastics and plastiglomerates, in coastal areas raised several concerns in the field of plastic pollution. Under the growing literature in the field, the present study preliminarily reports the occurrence of novel plastic forms on Cox's Bazar beach, Bangladesh. The description of the novel plastic forms agrees with the literature, mostly consisting of lithic and biogenic elements within a synthetic polymer matrix (HDPE, LDPE, PP, and PET identified). Several knowledge gaps regarding the interaction between the novel plastic forms and colonizing organisms, as well as the leaching rates of plastic additives, remain to be addressed as crucial points to understand their implications. Illegal waste dumping and burning were identified as the primary catalysts for the emergence of new plastic forms in Cox's Bazar. Overall, researchers must reach a baseline consensus regarding the methodologies and next steps in the field.

Repetitive self-healing of Diels-Alder grafted graphene nanoplatelet reinforced carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites with outstanding mechanical properties.

The concept of using bio-inspired healing mechanisms in fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP)-based laminated composites is one of the trending areas of research for lightweight high-performance materials. To introduce self-healing in laminated composites, we developed Diels-Alder (DA) grafted graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and introduced them into carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. The DA-grafted GNPs provided dual benefits, such as repetitive self-healing along with an increased mechanical performance of the modified CFRP. The GNPs were functionalized with DA adducts, i.e., bismaleimide and furfurylamine via a facile functionalization approach. The highest healing efficiency evaluated using double cantilever beam (DCB) tests was observed as ∼87% with more than 10 times repeated healing cycles. The innovative concept and strategy proposed in this work could be a gateway to a new area of research to upscale for industrialization of DA-based repetitive self-healable and durable CFRP-based composites.

Enhanced crack suppression ability of hybrid glass fiber reinforced laminated composites fabricated using GNP/epoxy system by optimized UDM parameters.

In this work, GFRPs with layer-up [+22/-22/90n]s were prepared and hybridized with 0.5wt% of GNPs to introduce in-situ crack suppression ability. Optimization of the processing parameters of ultrasonic dual mode mixing (UDM) process was adopted to disperse GNPs uniformly in the epoxy system and place them evenly at the interfacial zones of GFRPs. Test results show that 102% and 153% enhancement in tensile strength and Young's modulus has been achieved by the proposed method. Low stirring speed and low pulse-off time show significant effect on properties of the GFRPs. The fragmentation behaviour was investigated under optical microscope for GNP infused hybrid GFRPs and compared to that of the control. Failure investigation examined under FESEM showed reduced delamination for hybrid GFRPs having randomly oriented GNPs in their interfacial zone. This work exposes the effective espousal of the process to prepare GNP infused hybrid GFRPs having crack suppression ability at the interfaces.