Fabrication and properties of pressure-sintered reaction-bonded Si3N4 ceramics with addition of Eu2O3–MgO–Y2O3

Dense pressure-sintered reaction-bonded Si₃N₄ (PSRBSN) ceramics were obtained by a hot-press sintering method. Precursor Si powders were prepared with Eu₂O₃–MgO–Y₂O₃ sintering additive. The addition of Eu₂O₃–MgO–Y₂O₃ was shown to promote full nitridation of the Si powder. The nitrided Si₃N₄ particles had an equiaxial morphology, without whisker formation, after the Si powders doped with Eu₂O₃–MgO–Y₂O₃ were nitrided at 1400 °C for 2 h. After hot pressing, the relative density, Vickers hardness, flexural strength, and fracture toughness of the PSRBSN ceramics, with 5 wt% Eu₂O₃ doping, were 98.3 ± 0.2%, 17.8 ± 0.8 GPa, 697.0 ± 67.0 MPa, and 7.3 ± 0.3 MPa m^1/2, respectively. The thermal conductivity was 73.6 ± 0.2 W m^?1 K^?1, significantly higher than the counterpart without Eu₂O₃ doping, or with ZrO₂ doping by conventional methods.     

Pseudocapacitive contributions to electrochemical kinetics in NiOx electrochromic anodes

Because of its ability to change optical absorption dynamically by applied electric field, nickel oxide (NiO) is a promising anodic material in smart windows, which can improve energy conversion efficiency in construction buildings. Although many works have achieved high electrochromic performance with different method. The underlying mechanism is still not fully investigated. In this article, we prepared the NiO films with large specific surface area and high stability by electron beam evaporation. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to figure out the surface morphology and composition of as-deposited films. Afterwards, the electrochemical properties and optical performance of the prepared NiO films were investigated. On this basis, the origin of surface charge was fully analyzed by cyclic voltammetry and diffusion coefficient test. These experimental and theoretical results firmly confirm that both the surface reaction and capacitive effect bring about the excellent EC performance in NiO films. These results not only provide clear evidence about electrochemical kinetics in NiO films, but also offer some useful guidelines for the design of EC materials with higher performance and longer stability.     

Superhydrophobic aluminum alloy surface with excellent universality,corrosion resistance,and antifouling performance prepared without prepolishing

It is urgently necessary to seek more simple and effective methods to construct superhydrophobic metal surfaces to improve the corrosion resistance and antifouling performance. Herein, a facile method for fabricating superhydrophobic aluminum alloy surface is developed via boiling water treatment and stearic acid modification. It is noteworthy that no prepolishing on aluminum alloy is required and no caustic reagents and typical equipments are used during the preparation procedure. Therefore, the fabrication method is quite a simple and environment-friendly technique. Both micro- and nano-scaled binary structure forms at the resultant aluminum alloy surface while long alkyl chains are grafted onto the rough aluminum alloy surface chemically. Consequently, the resultant aluminum alloy exhibits outstanding superhydrophobicity. More importantly, the superhydrophobicity has excellent universality, diversity, stability, excellent corrosion resistance, and antifouling performance. The facile preparation, excellent superhydrophobic durability, and outstanding performance are quite in favor of the practical application.     

Spectral radiance reconstruction from trichromatic camera responses based on orthogonal test and regularized algorithm

Reconstruction of spectral information based on multi‐channel image system is a significant problem in color reproduction, detection, and recognition. A spectral radiance reconstruction from trichromatic digital camera responses is researched in this article. The mapping relationship between the trichromatic imaging system response and the incident spectral radiance is analyzed. Then, in order to remove the ill‐posedness of the problem, a regularized constraint solution model of spectral radiance reconstruction matrix is established. And the spectral radiance can be reconstructed by spectral radiance reconstruction matrices and trichromatic imaging system response. Finally, the spectral radiance reconstruction matrix is estimated by the system radiometric calibration experiment. The input radiance is offered by a LCD display. A 3‐factor and 9‐level orthogonal test is designed for the calibration experiment, and a test set of 24 colors is used for precision analysis. The results show that the average relative mean error of our method is 8.69%, it is lower than that of Wiener filtering method by 2.84%. The method can reconstruct spectral radiance information effectively.     

Customization of ZrO2 loose/tight bilayer ultrafiltration membranes by reverse micelles-mediated aqueous sol-gel process for wastewater treatment

Two types of spherical zirconyl oxalate aqueous sols were successfully customized by a reverse micelles-mediated aqueous sol-gel process, and the sols were sequentially spin-coated on porous supports to prepare ZrO₂ loose/tight bilayer ultrafiltration membranes. After three times of spin-coating process, a defect-free ZrO₂ loose ultrafiltration membrane with pure water permeability of 110.5 ± 2.25 L m^?2 h^-1 bar^-1, molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of 16.5 kDa and excellent rejection of up to 97.5 % for bovine serum albumin was fabricated. Then, the loose ultrafiltration membrane was used as a substrate to prepare ZrO₂ tight ultrafiltration membrane. Performances of tight ultrafiltration membrane regarding to permeability, retention of polyethylene glycol and treatment of dyes wastewater were evaluated. The tight ultrafiltration membrane with a thickness of 200 nm exhibited a pure water permeability of 22.5 ± 0.3 L m^-2 h^-1 bar^-1 and MWCO of 1150 Da. Additionally, the rejections of methyl red and methyl orange by the tight ultrafiltration membrane were both <65 %, while of alizarin red, direct red, bromocresol green and methyl blue achieved maximum values of 98.5 %, 99.2 %, 99.5 % and 99.6 %, respectively. The fouled membranes could restore the virgin performance for reuse by cleaning and low-temperature calcination.     

Organic mesh template-based laminated object manufacturing to fabricate ceramics with regular micron scaled pore structures

A new aqueous slurry-based laminated object manufacturing process for porous ceramics is proposed: firstly, an organic mesh sheet is pre-paved as a pore-forming template before slurry layer scraping; secondly, the 2D pattern is built with laser outline cutting of the dried mesh–ceramic composite layer; finally, the pore structure is formed after degreasing and sintering. Alumina parts with porosities of 51.5 %, round hole diameters of 80 ± 5 μm were fabricated using 70 wt. % solid content slurry and 100 mesh nylon net. Using an organic mesh as the framework and template not only reduces the risk of damage of the green body but also ensures the regularity, uniformity and connectivity of the micron scaled pore network. The layer-by-layer drying method avoids the delamination phenomenon and improves the paving density. The new method can realize the flexible design of the pore structure by using various organic mesh templates.     

微纳层叠聚丙烯腈凝胶流动特性的数值模拟研究

建立了层叠流道的三维模型和有限元网格模型，根据流变测试数据，采用Polymat对物料的黏度模型参数进行拟合，并利用Polyflow软件对聚丙烯腈（PAN）凝胶在层叠流道内的三维等温流动过程进行了数值模拟分析。研究发现，当入口流量增大时，层叠流道出口速度的不均匀性增加；沿流动方向流道内压力逐渐降低，并在出口处降低至同一最低值；流道进出口压力差与入口流量大小具有正相关性；在流道的中心截面上剪切速率分布均匀，波动较小。     

Matrix Manipulation of Directly-Synthesized PbS Quantum Dot Inks Enabled by Coordination Engineering

The direct-synthesis of conductive PbS quantum dot (QD) ink is facile, scalable, and low-cost, boosting the future commercialization of optoelectronics based on colloidal QDs. However, manipulating the QD matrix structures still is a challenge, which limits the corresponding QD solar cell performance. Here, for the first time a coordination-engineering strategy to finely adjust the matrix thickness around the QDs is presented, in which halogen salts are introduced into the reaction to convert the excessive insulating lead iodide into soluble iodoplumbate species. As a result, the obtained QD film exhibits shrunk insulating shells, leading to higher charge carrier transport and superior surface passivation compared to the control devices. A significantly improved power-conversion efficiency from 10.52% to 12.12% can be achieved after the matrix engineering. Therefore, the work shows high significance in promoting the practical application of directly synthesized PbS QD inks in large-area low-cost optoelectronic devices.     

4,6-二氯嘧啶合成工艺研究

4,6-二氯嘧啶是一种重要的化工中间体.研究了反应温度、溶剂种类、催化剂种类、催化剂用量和反应物投料配比在4,6-二氯嘧啶合成过程中对反应的影响.结果 表明,在以邻硝基甲苯为溶剂,苄基三乙基氯化铵为催化剂,且催化剂用量为4,6-二羟基嘧啶质量的2％,n(4,6-二羟基嘧啶):n(三光气)=1∶0.8,反应温度为100～110℃的最佳条件下,产品收率可以达到93.4％.     

Relationships of tensile strength with crosslink density for the high-carbon black-filled EPDM compounds with various softeners

Equilibrium swelling and rheological tests were adopted to systematically investigate the effects of softener type and dosage on the crosslink densities. The results turned out that the chemical crosslink density could be distinguished from the physical crosslink density by comparing the results of equilibrium swelling and rheological tests. The liquid butadiene (LB) as a softener leads to the greatest reduction in crosslink density, followed by polyethylene wax (PW) and paraffinic oil (PO). The tensile strength decreases with increasing PO content while shows peak values with increase of LB and PW contents. The dependencies of chemical crosslink density on the aging time under 150°C are quite different for the three softeners, which can be expected from the double crosslinking networks consisting of small softener and large main crosslinking networks. Further investigation has been performed to correlate the tensile strength with chemical crosslink density of ethylene propylene diene monomer elastomer vulcanizates. Three different linear relationships can be obtained for the softeners independent of the aging time. It can now be expected from this study that the role of some new softeners in rubber compounds is not only confined to plasticization but also forms crosslinking networks in the peroxide-cured rubbers.