Decomposition process of bastnaesite concentrate in NaOH-CaO-H_2O system

A novel process of calcification-leaching for bastnaesite concentrate(REFCO_3) was proposed. The prior calcification was carried out in the system of NaOH-CaO-H_2O and the lgC-pH pattern for Ce-F-Ca-C-H_2O system was drawn. The thermodynamics result indicates that decomposition for bastnaesite requires certain alkaline condition, but excessive alkalinity also causes decomposition of CaF_2. XRD and SEM-EDS analyses on the calcification-leaching process reveal that bastnaesite first decomposes into RE(OH)_3 and CaF_2. Then, by HCl leaching rare earths were extracted,while CaF_2 was left in the leaching residue. In addition, effects of temperature, time, NaOH and CaO on the calcification were investigated. The results show that the leaching rate of rare earths(REs)reaches 72.5 wt%, at the same time 99.2 wt% of F is left in leaching residue with 20 wt% NaOH and 38 wt% CaO at 493 K for 180 min.     

Structural,optical and temperature dependent photoluminescence properties of Cr3+-activated LaGaO3 persistent phosphor for optical thermometry

Cr³⁺ doped LaGaO₃ phosphor was prepared by hydrothermal reaction method with post-annealing treatment. XRD pattern showed the pure orthorhombic phase of LaGaO₃ at an annealing temperature of 1000 °C. TEM image showed the particles in the range 40-120 nm. The bandgap energy and Urbach tail increased in the doped sample as compared to the undoped sample as estimated from UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectra. PL excitation spectra showed peaks in UV, blue and orange regions. The emission spectra showed broadband with peaks in the NIR region due to emission from ⁴T₂ and ²E states. The intermediate strength of the crystal field has been calculated from the estimated spectroscopic parameter. The average lifetime was found to be in the ms range. Afterglow decay was also recorded. From the low-temperature PL, the zero phonon line, stokes shift energy, vibrational energy and Huang-Rhys parameter were calculated. With rising the temperature, PL emission peak intensity and lifetime values decreased and FWHM increased because of increased numbers of electrons in ⁴T₂ state and increasing non-radiative transition. Temperature-dependent peak intensity ratios and lifetime values were utilized for temperature sensing applications in below room temperature and above room temperature. The results indicate the possibility of present phosphor to be used as optical nanothermometer.     

Effect of nano-sized Al2O3 reinforcing particles on uniaxial and high cycle fatigue behaviors of hot-forged AZ31B magnesium alloy

The effect of hot-forging process was investigated on microstructural and mechanical properties of AZ31B alloy and AZ31B/1.5vol.%Al₂O₃ nanocomposite under static and cycling loading. The as-cast alloy and composite were firstly subjected to a homogenization heat treatment at 450 °C and then an open-die forging at 450 °C. The results indicated that the presence of reinforcing particles led to grain refinement and improvement of dynamic recrystallization. The forging process was more effective to eliminate the porosity in the cast alloy workpiece. Microhardness of the forged composite was increased by up to 80% and 16%, in comparison with those of the cast and forged alloy samples, respectively. Ultimate tensile strength and maximum tensile strain of the composite were improved by up to 45% and 23%, compared with those of the forged alloy in similar regions. These enhancements were respectively 50% and 37% in the compression test. The composite exhibited a fatigue life improvement in the region with low applied strain; however, a degradation was observed in the high applied strain region. Unlike AZ31B samples, tensile, compressive and high cycle fatigue behaviors of the composite showed less sensitivity to the applied strain, which can be attributed to the amount of porosity in the samples before and after the hot-forging.     

AMOLED灰阶补偿算法研究

为了解决一种小型AMOLED显示屏由灰阶丢失导致的图像变形问题,提出了一种AMOLED灰阶补偿算法。首先测试不同亮度下AMOLED显示灰阶时亮度变化的数据,然后依据测试数据建立亮度变化与灰阶丢失的映射关系,最后使用非线性灰阶压缩的方法对输入图像进行变换,补偿灰阶丢失引起的图像失真。通过软件仿真和硬件测试表明,该算法可以有效地补偿由于AMOLED亮度变化而无法正常显示的灰阶的问题,使图像能够正常显示。因此该算法可以保证小型AMOLED显示屏在不同亮度下工作时能够正常显示灰阶。     

Hierarchical mesoporous silica microspheres as unique hard-template for preparation of hierarchical mesoporous TiO2 microspheres with trimodal mesoporosities via nanocasting

This work for the first time reported that hierarchical meso-mesoporous SBA-15 silica microspheres (HMM-SiO₂-MSs) can serve as a unique and suitable hard-template for the nanocasting preparation of mesoporous TiO₂ with both hierarchical mesostructures and well-preserved microsphere particle morphology. A two-step impregnation (TSI) method was developed and customized and its effectiveness was studied in comparison with the single-step impregnation method. Trimodal mesoporosities and their origin are newly recognized and analyzed. The materials were examined by various techniques, including the FE-SEM, N₂ sorption, TEM and XRD. Under optimized conditions, the hierarchical mesostructures and spherical particle morphology of HMM-SiO₂-MSs can be replicated for HMM-TiO₂-MSs. The high surface area and pore volume of HMM-TiO₂-MSs reach 194 m² g^-1 and 0.68 cm³ g^-1, respectively, with the latter more than twice those templated by conventional SBA-15s. Besides HMM-TiO₂-MSs, such HMM-SiO₂-MSs as hard-template might be extended to the preparation of other materials with hierarchical mesostructures.     

Synthesis and photoluminescent properties of orange-emitting Sm3+-activated KPb4(PO4)3 phosphor for LEDs

A series of Sm³⁺-doped KPb₄(PO₄)₃ phosphors have been successfully synthesized by high-temperature solid-state reaction method, and the structure, morphology and luminescent properties were investigated. The SEM images suggest that the prepared phosphor has an irregular morphology with a diameter of about 10 ~ 20 μm. Under near-ultraviolet (NUV) light (404 nm) excitation, all prepared phosphors KPb_4-xSm_xP₃O₁₂ (x = 0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5) show the characteristic f → f emission bands of the Sm³⁺ activator. And the emission intensities have an upward trend with increasing the Sm³⁺ concentration when x is lower than 0.1. By monitoring 598 nm emission, the excitation spectrum of KPb_3.9Sm_0.1(PO₄)₃ contains a series of sharp bands in the range of 250 ~ 500 nm, which matches well with the NUV LED chip. The CIE coordinates of KPb_3.9Sm_0.1(PO₄)₃ phosphor was evaluated to be (0.5714, 0.4253), corresponding to orange color with a high color purity of about 90%.     

Time–frequency interpretation of multi-frequency signal from rotating machinery using an improved Hilbert–Huang transform

The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) has proven to be a promising tool for the analysis of non-stationary signals commonly occurred in industrial machines. However, in practice, multi-frequency intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and pseudo IMFs are likely generated and lead to grossly erroneous or even completely meaningless instantaneous frequencies, which raise difficulties in interpreting signal features by the HHT spectrum. To enhance the time–frequency resolution of the traditional HHT, an improved HHT is proposed in this study. By constructing a bank of partially overlapping bandpass filters, a series of filtered signals are obtained at first. Then a subset of filtered signals, each associated with certain energy-dominated components, are selected based on the maximal-spectral kurtosis–minimal-redundancy criterion and the information-related coefficient, and further decomposed by empirical mode decomposition to extract sets of IMFs. Furthermore, IMF selection scheme is applied to select the relevant IMFs on which the HHT spectrum is constructed. The novelty of this method is that the HHT spectrum is just constructed with the relevant, almost monochromatic IMFs rather than with the IMFs possibly with multiple frequency components or with pseudo components. The results on the simulated data, test rig data, and industrial gearbox data show that the proposed method is superior to the traditional HHT in feature extraction and can produce a more accurate time–frequency distribution for the inspected signal.     

Pilot-aided sampling frequency offset estimation and compensation using DSP technique in DD-OOFDM systems

To improve the outage performance of an optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system under the frequency offset between the sampling clocks in the transmitter and receiver, a pilot-aided sampling frequency offset (SFO) estimation and compensation scheme for the optical OFDM system with intensity-modulation and direct-detection (DD-OOFDM) is experimentally demonstrated. The experimental and simulated results show that the scheme can work effectively even with large sampling frequency offsets. In addition, it can achieve a good bit error rate (BER) performance without the sampling clock frequency synchronization in the receiver.     

Structures and electronic properties of symmetric and nonsymmetric graphene grain boundaries

The graphene grain boundaries with periodic length up to 18 Å have been studied using density functional theory. Atomic structures, thermodynamic stabilities and electronic properties of 40 grain boundaries with symmetric and nonsymmetric structures were investigated. According to the arrangements of pentagons and heptagons on the boundary, grain boundaries were cataloged into four classes. Some nonsymmetric grain boundaries constructed here have identical misorientation angles to the experimentally observed ones. The formation energies of grain boundaries can be correlated with the misorientation angle and inflection angle. Nonsymmetric grain boundaries possess comparable formation energies to their symmetric counterparts when the periodic length along the defect line is larger than 1 nm. Analysis of electronic density of states shows that the existence of a grain boundary usually increases the density of states near the Fermi level, whereas some symmetric grain boundaries can open a small band gap due to local sp²-to-sp³ rehybridization.