The dispersion effect of carbon nanofibers （CNFs） in aqueous solution and the mechanical properties, porosity, pore size distribution and microstructure of CNFs reinforced cement-based composites were investigated in this paper. To achieve effective dispersion of CNFs, a method utilizing ultrasonic processing and a commercially surfactant were employed. CNFs were incorporated to cementitious materials with the addition of 0.1 wt% and 0.2 wt% of cement with a water/cement ratio of 0.35. The mechanical properties of CNFs/ cement composites were analyzed, the porosity and pore size distribution were characterized by ^1H low field nuclear magnetic resonance （NMR）, and the microstructure was observed by scanning electron microscopy （SEM）. The results indicate that the optimum concentration ratio of MC to CNFs is 2：1 for dispersing in aqueous solution. Moreover, in the field of mechanical properties, CNFs can improve the flexural strength and compressive strength. The increased mechanical properties and the decreased porosity of the matrices correspond to the increasing CNFs content and CNFs act as bridges and networks across cracks and voids.
Diatomite was used as raw material to prepare sodium silicate with a modulus of 3.1 by alkali dissolution method and the resulted sodium silicate solution was employed as a precursor. Methyl methaerylate monomers were introduced in wet gels through solution-immersion, and upon heating at 70 ℃, the mesoporous surfaces throughout the skeletal framework were coated with the polymer layer. PMMA modified silica aerogels were successfully synthesized via ambient pressure drying. The properties were investigated by FT- IR, NMR, TGA, nitrogen adsorption-desorption, FESEM and nano-indentation, etc. Results indicate that with the increasing of PMMA incorporated into silica aerogels, the bulk density and the BET surface area increase, the porosity decreases. Through the observation of FESEM, it is found that the interconnecting pores and the big pores add, the pore size distribution expands from 5-17 to 28-150 urn. By comparison, the PMMA modified silica aerogels achieve a 52-fold increase in hardness and a 10-fold increase in modulus.
