Fire safe,sustainable loose furnishing

The aim of this exploratory study has been to investigate the fire properties and environmental aspects of different upholstery material combinations, mainly for domestic applications. An analysis of the sustainability and circularity of selected textiles, along with lifecycle assessment, is used to qualitatively evaluate materials from an environmental perspective. The cone calorimeter was the primary tool used to screen 20 different material combinations from a fire performance perspective. It was found that textile covers of conventional fibres such as wool, cotton and polyester, can be improved by blending them with fire resistant speciality fibres. A new three‐dimensional web structure has been examined as an alternative padding material, showing preliminary promising fire properties with regard to ignition time, heat release rates and smoke production.     

Novel TiC-based composites with enhanced mechanical properties

Novel TiC-based composites were synthesized by reactive hot-pressing at 1800 °C for 1 h with ZrB₂ addition as a sintering aid for the first time. The effects of ZrB₂ contents on the phase composition, microstructure evolution, and mechanical properties were reported. Based on the reaction and solid solution coupling effects between ZrB₂ and TiC, the product ZrC may be partially or completely dissolved into the TiC matrix, and then phase separation within the miscibility gap is observed to form lamellar nanostructured ZrC-rich (Zr, Ti)C. The TiC-10 mol.% ZrB₂ (starting batch composition) exhibits good comprehensive mechanical properties of hardness 27.7 ± 1.3 GPa, flexural strength 659 ± 48 MPa, and fracture toughness of 6.5 ± 0.6 MPa m^1/2, respectively, which reach or exceed most TiC-based composites using ceramics as sintering aids in the previous reports.     

Hydrogeochemical Processes and Inverse Modeling for a Multilayer Aquifer System in the Yuaner Coal Mine,Huaibei Coalfield,China

Coal mining can dramatically change hydrogeological conditions and induce serious environmental problems. Fifty groundwater samples were collected from the main aquifers in the Yuaner coal mine (Anhui Province, China). The results show that the main hydrogeochemical processes in the mine include dissolution, precipitation, pyrite oxidation, desulfurization, and cation exchange. The Neogene porous aquifer is affected by groundwater flow conditions; its main hydrogeochemical processes are dissolution of carbonate minerals and gypsum, and cation exchange. The Permian coal measure’s fractured sandstone aquifer was confirmed to be controlled by the region’s geological structure; its main hydrogeochemical processes are desulfurization and cation exchange. The Carboniferous Taiyuan limestone aquifer was determined by both groundwater flow conditions and regional geological structure; its main hydrogeochemical processes are dissolution of carbonate minerals and gypsum, pyrite oxidation, and cation exchange. Additionally, hydrogeochemical inverse modeling of the groundwater flow path confirm the hydrochemistry results and principal component analysis.

     

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.     

Revealing cracking and breakage behaviours of gibbsite particles

Mitigating gibbsite particle cracking and breakage during industrial alumina production can increase the quality of smelter grade alumina product by reducing the ultrafine particle content. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the particle cracking during static calcination and the breakage of calcined gibbsite particles under external force. In this work, we investigated the impact of the calcination ramping rate and the crystallite size on gibbsite particle cracking during static calcination. A slow ramping rate and a large pristine crystallite size tend to increase particle cracking. Apart from the study of particle cracking behaviour, we also investigated the breakage of calcined gibbsite particle under external force. Cracks on the particle surface can initiate breakage within the crystallite and along the grain boundary under external force. The breakage within crystallite occurs as the cleavage of the crystallite, while the breakage along the grain boundary leads to the shedding of a whole crystallite. We further explored the factors influencing the strength of calcined gibbsite particles. With increasing calcination temperature, the strength of particle increases when gibbsite converts to boehmite, and then decreases when boehmite converts into amorphous alumina. Particles containing smaller crystallites and calcined with fast ramping rates exhibit higher resistance to breakage.     

Reducing web latency with coding-based fast multi-path loss recovery

Wireless Networks - TCP latency is critical to the performance of Web services. However, packet loss greatly impairs the TCP performance due to its poor loss recovery mechanisms. Recent work FUSO...     

One step method of structure engineering porous graphitic carbon nitride for efficient visible-light photocatalytic reduction of Cr(Ⅵ)

Porous g-C3N4 nanosheets (PCN) were prepared by the nickel-assisted one-step thermal polymerization method.Hydrogen (H2) which was produced by the reaction between nickel (Ni) foam and ammonia (NH3) defined the structure and properties of PCN.During the formation of PCN,the participation of H2 not only enhanced the spacing between layers but also boosted the specific surface area that more active sites were exposed.Additionally,H2 promoted pores formation in the nanosheets,which was beneficial to the transfer of photons through lamellar structure and improved the absorption efficiency of visible light.Remarkably,the obtained PCN possessed better Cr(Ⅵ) photocatalytic reduction efficiency than pure g-C3N4.The reaction rate constant (k) of PCN (0.013 min-1) was approximately twice that of bare g-C3N4 (0.007 min-1).Furthermore,the effects of original pH and concentration of Cr(Ⅵ)-containing solution on removal efficiency of Cr(Ⅵ) were explored.A possible photocatalytic mechanism was proposed based on the experiments of radical scavengers and photoelectrochemical characterizations.     

Tactile colour pictogram to improve artwork appreciation of people with visual impairments

A recent development in tactile technology enables an improvement in the appreciation of the visual arts for people with visual impairment (PVI). The tactile sense, in conjunction with, or a possibly as an alternative to, the auditory sense, would allow PVIs to approach artwork in a more self‐driven and engaging way that would be difficult to achieve with just an auditory stimulus. Tactile colour pictograms (TCPs), which are raised geometric patterns, are ideographic characters that are designed to enable PVIs to identify colours and interpret information by touch. In this article, three TCPs are introduced to code colours in the Munsell colour system. Each colour pattern consists of a basic cell size of 10 mm × 10 mm to represent the patterns consistently in terms of regular shape. Each TCP consists of basic geometric patterns that are combined to create primary, secondary, and tertiary colour pictograms of shapes indicating colour hue, intensity and lightness. Each TCP represents 29 colours including six hues; they were then further expanded to represent 53 colours. Two of them did not increase the cell size, the other increased the cell size 1.5 times for some colours, such as yellow‐orange, yellow, blue, and blue‐purple. Our proposed TCPs use a slightly larger cell size compared to most tactile patterns currently used to indicate colour, but code for more colours. With user experience and identification tests, conducted with 23 visually impaired adults, the effectiveness of the TCPs suggests that they were helpful for the participants.