Dual effect synergistically triggered Ce:(Y,Tb)3(Al,Mn)5O12 transparent ceramics enabling a high color-rendering index and excellent thermal stability for white LEDs

Ce:Y₃Al₅O₁₂ transparent ceramics (TCs) with appropriate emission light proportion and high thermal stability are significant to construct white light emitting diode devices with excellent chromaticity parameters. In this work, strategies of controlling crystal-field splitting around Ce³⁺ ion and doping orange-red emitting ion, were adopted to fabricate Ce:(Y,Tb)₃(Al,Mn)₅O₁₂ TCs via vacuum sintering technique. Notably, 85.4 % of the room-temperature luminescence intensity of the TC was retained at 150 °C, and the color rendering index was as high as 79.8. Furthermore, a 12 nm red shift and a 16.2 % increase of full width at half maximum were achieved owing to the synergistic effects of Tb³⁺ and Mn²⁺ ions. By combining TCs with a 460 nm blue chip, a warm white light with a low correlated color temperature of 4155 K was acquired. Meanwhile, the action mechanism of Tb³⁺ ion and the energy transfer between Ce³⁺ and Mn²⁺ ions were verified in prepared TCs.     

基于多自由度气动机械手位置伺服系统稳定性控制研究

基于传统易碎薄板机械手位置伺服控制系统稳定性低、自动化分拣效率低等不足,设计了一种基于笛卡尔坐标式的气动码垛机器手和位置伺服稳定性控制系统。首先,设计并介绍笛卡尔坐标式码垛机械手的基本组成结构,对机械手末端吸盘气动回路控制系统进行设计和分析;然后分别对机械手X、Y、Z三个方向的伺服电机控制原理进行分析并设计了一种位置伺服系统的前馈自适应控制算法;最后,将传统位置闭环PID算法和前馈自适应控制算法进行位置跟踪稳定性对比试验。实验结果表明该笛卡尔坐标式的气动码垛机器手和位置伺服稳定性控制系统设计合理,满足实际生产要求。     

Hydrogen Production from Catalytic Steam Reforming of Bio-Oils: A Critical Review

In the future, hydrogen will be an important energy carrier and industrial raw material. Catalytic steam reforming of bio-oils is a promising and economically viable technology for hydrogen production. However, during the reforming process, the catalysts are rapidly deactivated due to coke formation and sintering. Thus, maintaining the activity and stability of catalysts is the key issue in this process. Optimized operation conditions could extend the catalyst lifetime by affecting the coke morphology or promoting coke gasification. This article summarizes the recent developments in the field of catalytic steam reforming of bio-oils, focusing on the operation conditions, the properties of the catalysts, and the effects of the catalyst supports. The expected insights into the catalytic steam reforming of bio-oils will provide further guidance for hydrogen production from bio-oils.     

Output feedback controller for polytopic systems exploiting the direct searching of the design space

This paper deals with the problem of designing a robust static output feedback controller for polytopic systems. The current research that tackled this problem is mainly based on LMI method, which is conservative by nature. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed, which considers the design space of the controller parameters and iteratively partitions the space to small simplexes. Then, by assessing the stability in each simplex, the solution space for design parameters is directly determined. It has been theoretically proved that, if there exists a feasible solution in the design space, the algorithm can find it. To validate the result of the proposed approach, comparative simulation examples are given to illustrate the performance of the design methodology as compared to those of previous approaches.     

Enhanced thermal stability of Bi2Te3-based alloys via interface engineering with atomic layer deposition

The ease of Te sublimation from Bi₂Te₃-based alloys significantly deteriorates thermoelectric and mechanical properties via the formation of voids. We propose a novel strategy based on atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve the thermal stability of Bi₂Te₃-based alloys via the encapsulation of grains with a ZnO layer. Only a few cycles of ZnO ALD over the Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 powders resulted in significant suppression of the generation of pores in Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 extrudates and increased the density even after post-annealing at 500 °C. This is attributed to the suppression of Te sublimation from the extrudates. The ALD coating also enhanced grain refinement in Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 extrudates. Consequently, their mechanical properties were significantly improved by the encapsulation approach. Furthermore, the ALD approach yields a substantial improvement in the figure-of-merit after the post-annealing. Therefore, we believe the proposed approach using ALD will be useful for enhancing the mechanical properties of Bi₂Te₃-based alloys without sacrificing thermoelectric performance.     

Remarkably enhanced energy storage properties of lead-free Ba0.53Sr0.47TiO3 thin films capacitors by optimizing bottom electrode thickness

The lead-free Ba_0.53Sr_0.47TiO₃ (BST) thin films buffered with La_0.67Sr_0.33MnO₃ (LSMO) bottom electrode of different thicknesses were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition method on a (001) SrTiO₃ substrate. It was found that the roughness of electrode decreases and substrate stress relaxes gradually with the increase of LSMO thickness, which is beneficial for weakening local high electric field and achieving higher E_b. Therefore, the recoverable energy density (W_rec) of BST films can be greatly improved up to 67.3 %, that is, from 30.6 J/cm³ for the LSMO thickness of 30 nm up to 51.2 J/cm³ for the LSMO thickness of 140 nm after optimizing the LSMO thickness. Furthermore, the thin film capacitor with a 140 nm LSMO bottom electrode shows an outstanding thermal stability from 20 °C to 160 °C and superior fatigue resistance after 10⁸ electrical cycles with only a slightly decrease of W_rec below 1.6 % and 3.7 %, respectively. Our work demonstrates that optimizing bottom electrodes thickness is a promising way for enhancing energy storage properties of thin-film capacitors.     

Characteristics of tiger nut milk: effects of milling

A standard method for the extraction of tiger nut milk has been introduced. It has been shown that, although milling duration improves the yield of tiger nut milk solids and its nutrient composition, there is a quantifiable loss of nutrient in the pressing residue during milk extraction. Milling duration improved the colloidal stability of the milk against creaming during 16 h of storage. A higher milling intensity resulted in the aggregation of biological polymers which resulted in colloidal destabilisation. Milling improved the lightness and stability and reduced browning rate of the tiger nut milk during storage. This report is important for the production of tiger nut milk of consistent and comparable characteristics. Milling has been introduced as a processing method for the qualitative and quantitative modulation of the properties of tiger nut milk. It is recommended to develop further strategies to improve the colloidal stability of tiger nut milk as a beverage.     

Adaptive actuator failure compensation design for unknown chaotic multi‐input systems

In this paper, an adaptive control approach is designed for compensating the faults in the actuators of chaotic systems and maintaining the acceptable system stability. We propose a state‐feedback model reference adaptive control scheme for unknown chaotic multi‐input systems. Only the dimensions of the chaotic systems are required to be known. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, new adaptive control laws are synthesized to accommodate actuator failures and system nonlinearities. An illustrative example is studied. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the design method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.