Experimental research on temperature rise and electric characteristics of aluminum air battery under open‐circuit condition for new energy vehicle

Due to lack of systematic research on open‐circuit voltage (OCV) and electrolyte temperature rise characteristics of aluminum air battery, in order to explore the influential factors on the OCV and electrolyte temperature rise of aluminum air battery, in this paper, for the first time, we studied the effects of different ambient temperature conditions, different concentrations of NaOH and KOH electrolyte, and pure aluminum and aluminum alloy on the OCV and electrolyte temperature rise of aluminum air battery. Results show that the OCV of aluminum air battery is obviously affected by ambient temperature conditions, electrolyte concentration, and different anode materials. The OCV range is 1.5 to 1.8 V at 0°C under different KOH‐electrolyte concentrations when aluminum alloy is used as anode material; with the increase of ambient temperature, the OCV will rise, and the range is 1.8 to 1.95 V. The working process of aluminum air battery is accompanied by the phenomenon of heat release, and the temperature rise range of electrolyte will not exceed 7°C when aluminum alloy is used as the anode material; however, the highest temperature of the electrolyte can reach 100°C when pure aluminum is used as the negative electrode material. The results of this study will provide theoretical guidance for designing aluminum air batteries and identifying their optimal operating conditions.     

Acoustic properties of sound-absorbing polyester fabrics woven with thick staple and thin draw textured yarn for use in interior decoration

Environmental pollution in our daily life because of noise is an increasing public health concern. We designed and woven with staple- and draw-textured yarns, for sound absorbance purposes. For wefts and warps, two different thicknesses of the thick staple-yarn and thin draw-textured filament yarn were used. The prepared fabrics were classified in porous, medium, and dense, on the basis of their densities and air permeabilities, and the sound absorption coefficients of the fabrics were found to be linearly related to the air permeability. The sound absorption coefficient determined by the impedance tube method was higher for porous fabrics compared with that for dense fabrics in the high frequency region. By the reverberant field method, the sound absorption coefficients for all fabrics were highest in the low frequency region. Porous fabrics exhibited a shorter reverberation time and a higher sound absorption coefficient than dense fabrics owing to their good sound absorption property.     

Comparative study on quality characteristics of pickled and fermented sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis) meat in retort cooking

Sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis) meat has not been fully utilised due to quality defects which were raised by Chinese sturgeon processing industry. This study was aimed to develop a high-quality sturgeon meat product and the effect of fermentation on qualities was studied. Results showed that fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae could enhance ‘mushroom’, ‘fruity’ and ‘chocolate’ flavour by 1-octen-3-ol, ethyl acetate and 3-methyl-butanal; and enrich flavour through mild lipid oxidation and hydrolysis. In addition, fermentation could give an attractive colour with higher a*, b* and L* value. Texture properties were also improved with higher hardness, springiness, gumminess and chewiness. Higher free amino acids, TCA-soluble peptides and taste score in fermented sturgeon meat indicated better flavour and taste. The organoleptic evaluation suggested an overall satisfactory of wine-aroma sturgeon meat by fermentation with S. cerevisiae.     

Cooperative communication system for high performance using ambient signals

This paper proposes the Internet connectivity of RF-powered devices in the backscatter system. The RF-powered devices do not use a battery and charge energy by harvesting from ambient RF signals of TV, a cellular phone and Wi-Fi devices. The Internet connectivity of the RF-powered devices in the backscatter system is very useful in Internet of things technology because the RF-powered devices which are called to a tag have a small size by the harvesting from ambient RF signals without a battery. This paper proposes a method improving the communication performance of the Wi-Fi backscatter system by applying the cooperative communication scheme.

     

A collaborative contour detector by gradient and active contours for ultrasound kidney images

In the process of urinary system disease diagnosis, a complete kidney contour is crucial to estimate its size, area, volume and other properties. These properties can effectively help doctors diagnosis and prepare treatment plans. However, ultrasound images suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio, speckle, missing boundaries and other artefacts. Traditional contour detection algorithms can hardly extract a continuous and accurate kidney contour. To solve the problem, we propose a collaborative contour detector by gradient and active contour. It not only can make sure that the extracted contour is continuous and accurate but also is simple and suitable to use in practice. Both the simulated experiments and clinical experiments show that the proposed algorithm achieves a good performance in ultrasound kidney images and can effectively assist doctors in diagnosis.