Value recovery from end-of-use products facilitated by automated dismantling planning

Circular economy is a promising business model that promotes sustainable development by closing material loops. Making progress toward a circular economy requires the recovery of valuable materials and components from end-of-use products and subsequent reuse of them in some form, thus maximizing the utility of components and materials. Currently, end-of-use products value recovery is carried out without a rational planning, causing the loss of the recoverable value embedded in material and components. To address this problem, dismantling planning and appropriate technologies should be employed to improve the economic performance of end-of-use products value recovery. In this paper, a two-stage dismantling planning method is proposed to find a profitable end-of-use strategy. In the first stage of this method, disassembly optimization model is constructed and can be executed to obtain the optimal disassembly plan allowing maximum preservation of component function value, in a preservative disassembly scenario. To speed up the modeling, a method for automatic generation of AND/OR graph—a structure of incorporating all possible disassembly operations and associated subassemblies, is presented. In the second stage of the method, in order to increase profitability, Pareto analysis is employed to identify bottlenecks to disassembly and automated/destructive technologies are considered to remove the bottlenecks. A hard disk drive serves as a case study to illustrate the suggested method.     

Photocatalytic mechanism of high-activity anatase TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> with exposed (001) facets from molecular-atomic scale: HRTEM and Raman studies

Anatase TiO₂ with a variant percentage of exposed (001) facets was prepared under hydrothermal processes by adjusting the volume of HF, and the photocatalytic mechanism was studied from atomic-molecular scale by HRTEM and Raman spectroscopy. It was revealed that: 1) From HRTEM observations, the surface of original TiO₂ with exposed (001) facets was clean without impurity, and the crystal lattice was clear and completed; however, when mixed with methylene blue (MB) solution, there were many 1 nm molecular absorbed at the surface of TiO₂; after the photocatalytic experiment, MB molecules disappeared and the TiO₂ lattice image became fuzzy. 2) The broken path of the MB chemical bond was obtained by Raman spectroscopy, i.e., after the irradiation of the light, the vibrational mode of C-N-C disappeared due to the chemical bond breakage, and the groups containing C-N bond and carbon rings were gradually decomposed. Accordingly, we propose that the driving force for breaking the chemical bond and the disappearance of groups is from the surface lattice distortion of TiO₂ during photocatalyzation.     

A Single Sampling Plan Based on Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Model for Linear Profiles

The exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) model has been successfully used in acceptance sampling plans. The EWMA model provides the quality information of the current lot and the preceding lots. In addition, a multiple dependent state (MDS) sampling plan considers the quality information of the preceding lots. In this study, we present two new sampling plans for linear profiles. One is based on EWMA model with yield index using the single sampling plan, and the other is based on EWMA model with yield index using the MDS sampling plans. The plan parameters are determined by a nonlinear optimization approach. As the smoothing parameter value equals to one, the first proposed plan becomes the traditional single sampling plan. In addition, we compare the proposed plans with the traditional single sampling plan. The results indicate that the MDS sampling plan based on EWMA model with yield index with smaller value of smoothing parameter performs better than the traditional single sampling plan and the single sampling plan based on EWMA model with yield index in terms of the sample size required. One real example is used to illustrate the proposed plan. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

气相法白炭黑填充天然橡胶的裂纹扩展机理

研究了不同粒径,不同份数的白炭黑对天然橡胶(NR)裂纹生长行为的影响。采用具有裂纹生长测试功能的DMA(DMA-Crack Growth)对预割口试样的裂纹扩展速度进行测试。利用超高速显微摄像技术对裂纹扩展尖端进行在线追踪,得到裂纹扩展尖端的动态显微图像。结果表明,添加20 phr原生粒径为15 nm的气相法白炭黑时,裂纹尖端韧带均匀且细密,对裂纹生长起到很好的阻碍作用;添加20 phr原生粒径为7 nm的气相法白炭黑时,对试样的裂纹生长有不利影响。     

非晶硅薄膜晶化方法

多晶硅薄膜由于具有较高的载流子迁移率和良好的光电性能,广泛应用于集成电路及光电器件中,尤其在太阳电池领域引起了广泛关注。多晶材料晶界处会发生载流子的复合,降低载流子寿命。结晶度与晶粒尺寸是多晶硅薄膜取得良好性能的关键因素,直接制备的多晶硅薄膜一般晶粒尺寸较小、晶界较多,所以常采用非晶硅晶化法制备出晶粒尺寸较大的多晶硅薄膜。介绍了几种常见的非晶硅薄膜晶化方法,总结了各种晶化方法的机理和制备的薄膜的物理性质。     

汽车轻量化技术:铝/镁合金及其成型技术发展动态

为了推动我国汽车工业轻量化进程,文章从新材料、成型新技术、新应用三个方面对铝合金、镁合金两类轻金属材料的国内外研究动态进行了回顾,分析了两类轻金属材料在汽车工业应用的阻力,提出了我国汽车工业铝/镁合金可能的发展建议。