The ineffective control of the release of pollutants into water has led to serious water pollution. Compared with conditions in the past, the polluting components in aquatic environments have become increasingly complex. Some emerging substances have led to a new threat to the safety of water. Therefore, developing cost-effective technologies for the remediation of water pollution is urgently needed. Adsorption has been considered the most effective operational unit in water treatment processes and thus adsorption materials have gained wide attention. Among them, metal organic frameworks (denoted as MOFs) have been rapidly developed in recent years due to their unique physicochemical performance. They are characterized by larger porosity and larger specific surface area, easier pore structure designing, and comfortable structural modification. In many fields such as adsorption, separation, storage, and transportation, MOFs show a better performance than conventional adsorption material... [more]

Fluidized bed reactors have been increasingly applied for mass production of Carbon Nanotube (CNT) using catalytic chemical vapor deposition technology. Effect of particle size (dp = 131 μm and 220 μm) on fluidization characteristics and aggregation behavior of the CNT particles have been determined in a fluidized bed for its design and scale-up. The CNT aggregation properties such as size and shape were measured in the dilute phase of a fluidized bed (0.15 m-ID × 2.6 m high) by the laser sheet technique for the visualization. Two CNT particle beds showed different tendency in variations of the aggregates factors with gas velocity due to differences in factors contributing to the aggregate formation. The CNT particles with a larger mean size presented as relatively larger in the aggregate size than the smaller CNT particles at given gas velocities. The aggregates from the large CNT particles showed a sharp increase in the aspect ratio and rapid decrease in the roundness and the solidit... [more]

Microdroplet dosing to cell on a chip could meet the demand of narrow diffusion distance, controllable pulse dosing and less impact to cells. In this work, we studied the diffusion process of microdroplet cell pulse dosing in the three-layer sandwich structure of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane)/PCTE (polycarbonate) microporous membrane/PDMS chip. The mathematical model is established to solve the diffusion process and the process of rhodamine transfer to micro-traps is simulated. The rhodamine mass fraction distribution, pressure field and velocity field around the microdroplet and cell surfaces are analyzed for further study of interdiffusion and convective diffusion effect. The cell pulse dosing time and drug delivery efficiency could be controlled by adjusting microdroplet and culture solution velocity without impairing cells at micro-traps. Furthermore, the accuracy and controllability of the cell dosing pulse time and maximum drug mass fraction on cell surfaces are achieved and the dr... [more]

The seepage action of underground water accelerates the deformation of roadway surrounding rock in deep mines. Therefore, the study of creep characteristics of surrounding rock under seepage action is the basis for the stability control of roadway surrounding rock in deep water-rich areas. In this paper, a seepage-creep coupling test system for complete rock samples was established. Combined with a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) test system, the seepage-creep law of coal measures sandstone and the damage mechanism were revealed. The study results showed that the maximum creep deformation of sandstone under natural and saturation state decreased gradually with the increase of confining pressure, and the maximum creep deformation under saturation state was greater than the corresponding value under natural state when the confining pressure was same. When the confining pressure was constant, the creep deformation, the constant creep deformation rate and the accelerated creep deformati... [more]

Indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrodes are troubled with high cost and poor mechanical stability. In this study, layer-by-layer (LBL)-processed thin films with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibited high transparency and electrical conductivity as a candidate for ITO replacement. The repetitive deposition of polycations and stabilized SWNTs with a negative surfactant exhibits sufficiently linear film growth and high optoelectronic performance to be used as transparent electrodes for vertically aligned (VA) liquid crystal display (LCD) cells. The LC molecules were uniformly aligned on the all of the prepared LBL electrodes. VA LCD cells with SWNT LBL electrodes exhibited voltage-transmittance (V-T) characteristics similar to those with the conventional ITO electrodes. Although the response speeds were slower than the LCD cell with the ITO electrode, as the SWNT layers increased, the display performance was closer to the LCD cells with conventional ITO electrode. This wo... [more]

The influence of pore fluid pressure on the normal deformation behaviors of joints is vital for understanding the interaction between hydraulic and mechanical processes of joints. The effect of pore fluid pressure on the normal deformation of a granite matched joint was investigated by laboratory experiments. Experimental results indicate pore fluid pressure significantly affects the normal deformation of jointed sample, and the relative normal deformation of jointed sample during fluid injection consists of the opening of the joint and the dilation of host rock. The action of pore fluid pressure on the joint follows the Terzaghi’s effective stress law. The normal deformation of the joint can be well quantitated by the generalized exponential model. The relative normal deformation of host rock during fluid injection would have a linear relationship with pore fluid pressure, and if affected by gas is more pronounced than water.

Knowledge of the bedding plane properties of coal seams is essential for the coalbed gas production because of their great influence on the inner flow characteristics and sorption features of gas and water. In this study, an experimental study on the anisotropic gas adsorption⁻desorption and permeability of coal is presented. The results show that during the adsorption⁻desorption process, an increase in the bedding plane angle of the specimen expands the length and area of the contact surface, thereby increasing the speed and quantity of adsorption and desorption. With an increase in the bedding angle, the number of pores and cracks was found to increase together with the volumetric strain. The evolution of permeability of coal heavily depended on stress⁻strain stages. The permeability decreased with the increase of stress at the initial compaction and elastic deformation stages, while it increased with the increase of stress at the stages of strain-hardening, softening and residual st... [more]

Hot dry rock is developed by injecting cold water into high-temperature rock mass. At the same time, cold water is heated in contact with the rock mass. With the continuous influx of cold water, the surrounding rock will undergo a rapid cooling process, which results in several cycles of heating and cooling. However, there is little research on the influence of cycles of heating and cooling with circulating water on the mechanical properties of rock, which is of great importance to the stability of rock mass engineering in the process of energy development. In this paper, the effects of cyclic heating and cooling with circulating water on the damage of granite are studied using uniaxial compressive, Brazilian and acoustic emission (AE) tests. The results show that heat treatment temperature and number of cycles have important effects on the mechanical properties of granite as follows: (1) at the same treatment temperature, an increase in the number of cycles means that the distribution... [more]

The microstructures of rock gradually evolve with changes in the external environment. This study focused on the microstructure evolution of glauberite and its weakening mechanism under different leaching conditions. The porosity were used as a characteristic index to study the effect of brine temperature and concentration on crack initiation and propagation in glauberite. The research subjects were specimens of ϕ3 × 10 mm cylindrical glauberite core, obtained from a bedded salt deposit buried more than 1000 m underground in the Yunying salt formation, China. The results showed that when the specimens were immersed in solution at low temperature, due to hydration impurities, cracks appeared spontaneously at the centre of the disc and the solution then penetrated the specimens via these cracks and dissolved the minerals around the crack lines. However, with an increase of temperature, the dissolution rate increased greatly, and crack nucleation and dissolved regions appeared simultaneou... [more]

Ion-sieves are a class of green adsorbent for extraction Li+ from salt lakes. Here, we propose a facile synthesis of hexagonal spinel LiMn₂O₄ (LMO) precursor under mild condition which was first prepared via a modified one-pot reduction hydrothermal method using KMnO₄ and ethanol. Subsequently, the stable spinel structured λ-MnO₂ (HMO) were prepared by acidification of LMO. The as-prepared HMO shows a unique hexagonal shape and can be used for rapid adsorption-desorption process for Li+adsorption. It was found that Li⁺ adsorption capacity of HMO was 24.7 mg·g^−1 in Li+ solution and the HMO also has a stable structure with manganese dissolution loss ratio of 3.9% during desorption process. Moreover, the lithium selectivity (α Li/Mg) reaches to 1.35 × 10³ in brine and the distribution coefficients (Kd) of Li+ is much greater than that of Mg2+. The results implied that HMO can be used in extract lithium from brine or seawater containing high ratio of magnesium and lithium.

In this experiment, a variety of inorganic materials were simply compounded with Polysilicate Aluminum Ferric Sulfate (PSAFS) to treat emulsified oil-contaminated water. Manganese sulfate (MnSO₄), magnesium sulfate (MgSO₄), and zinc sulfate (ZnSO₄) were selected as the materials to modify PSAFS in order to obtain a coagulant with good flocculation performance. During the preparation of modified PSAFS, metal manganese, magnesium, and zinc were introduced for modification, and four factors were used to optimize the best proportion of modifiers and PSAFS. The results showed that the order of demulsification and oil-removal ability is as follows: Mn-PSAFS (Mn-modified PSAFS) > Zn-PSAFS (Zn-modified PSAFS) > Mg-PSAFS (Mg-modified PSAFS) > PSAFS. Modified PSAFS was characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IR) and a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). In the range of 604 cm−1 to 1200 cm−1, due to the complexation reaction between metal ions and polysilicic acid, the absorption peaks of the mod... [more]

The nonlinear flow regimes of a crossed fracture model consisting of two fractures have been investigated, in which the influences of hydraulic gradient, surface roughness, intersecting angle, and scale effect have been taken into account. However, in these attempts, the aperture of the two crossed fractures is the same and effects of aperture ratio have not been considered. This study aims to extend their works, characterizing nonlinear flow through a system of two intersecting fractures with different apertures. First, three experiment models with two fractures having different apertures were established and flow tests were carried out. Then, numerical simulations by solving the Navier-Stokes equations were performed and the results compared with the experiment results. Finally, the effects of fracture aperture on the critical pressure difference and the ratio of hydraulic aperture to mechanical aperture were systematically analyzed. The results show that the numerical simulation res... [more]

The Pseudo Steady-State (PSS) constant bDpss is defined as the difference between the dimensionless wellbore pressure and dimensionless average pressure of a reservoir with a PSS flow regime. As an important parameter, bDpss has been widely used for decline curve analysis with Type Curves. For a well with a finite-conductivity fracture, bDpss is independent of time and is a function of the penetration ratio of facture and fracture conductivity. In this study, we develop a new semi-analytical solution for bDpss calculations using the PSS function of a circular reservoir. Based on the semi-analytical solution, a new conductivity-influence function (CIF) representing the additional pressure drop caused by the effect of fracture conductivity is presented. A normalized conductivity-influence function (NCIF) is also developed to calculate the CIF. Finally, a new approximate solution is proposed to obtain the bDpss value. This approximate solution is a fast, accurate, and time-saving calculat... [more]

Internal erosion at soil⁻structure interfaces is a dangerous failure pattern in earth-fill water-retaining structures. However, existing studies concentrate on the investigations of internal erosion by assuming homogeneous materials, while ignoring the vulnerable soil⁻structure-interface internal erosion in realistic cases. Therefore, orthogonal and single-factor tests are carried out with a newly designed apparatus to investigate the critical hydraulic gradient of internal erosion on soil⁻structure interfaces. The main conclusions can be draw as follows: (1) the impact order of the three factors is: degree of compaction > roughness > clay content; (2) the critical hydraulic gradient increases as the degree of compaction and clay content increases. This effect is found to be more obvious in the higher range of the degree of soil compaction and clay content. However, there exists an optimum interface roughness making the antiseepage strength at the interface reach a maximum; (3) the evo... [more]

A plasma-induced ozone colour-fading treatment was used for treating a blue sulphur-dyed knitted cotton fabric. Since the process parameters of plasma-induced ozone colour-fading treatment are inter-related with one other, the final colour-fading results are affected. An orthogonal array testing strategy (OATS) method was used for determining the optimum conditions of the plasma-induced ozone colour-fading treatment in this study. Three process parameters used in the plasma-induced ozone colour-fading treatment, i.e., oxygen gas concentration (%), water content in fabric (%), and treatment time (minutes), were used in the optimization process. Experimental results reveal the optimum conditions for fading the colour by plasma-induced ozone colour-fading treatment are: (1) oxygen gas concentration = 70%; (2) water content in fabric = 35%; and (3) treatment time = 30 min. The order of importance of these parameters is: oxygen gas concentration > water content in fabric > treatment time. I... [more]

Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) processes have been used widely in petroleum refineries. FCC regenerators play important roles for maintaining catalyst activity and supply the reaction heat. The regenerator efficiency is mainly connected to the hydrodynamics of the fluidized bed, because the gas and solid behaviors are very important factors in mass and heat transfer. The void properties, such as chord length, rising velocity, frequency, and fraction, have been determined in a large cold flow model (0.48 m-ID × 6.4 m-high) of the FCC regenerator, which was geometrically scaled down from a commercial FCC unit. The local void chord length, rising velocity, frequency, and fraction exhibit their maximum value along the radial direction of the bed. The cross-sectional mean void chord length, rising velocity, and fraction increase and the cross-sectional mean void frequency decreases with height in the bed. The variation of void properties in the FCC regenerator with turbulent fluidized bed e... [more]

Pervious concrete is a kind of porous and permeable material for pavements and slope protection projects, etc. In this paper, a kind of pervious concrete was prepared with Portland cement, silica fume (SF), polycarboxylate superplasticizer (SP), and limestone aggregates. The performance of concrete, such as its porosity, pore distribution, permeability coefficients, and mechanical properties, were studied through laboratory tests. The volumetric porosity was measured by the water displacement method, and the planar porosity and pore size distribution were determined using image processing technology. A permeameter with a transparent sidewall and an exact sidewall sealing method were used to measure the permeability coefficients accurately. The results show that the segregation index and flow values of pastes increased with the increase of SP and water cement ratio (W/C). The measured porosity (volumetric porosity and planar porosity) of pervious concrete with a single-size aggregate wa... [more]

Fracture grouting has been a mitigation measure widely used against seepage in the Yellow River Embankment. However, there is currently a lack of systematic investigations studying the anti-seepage effect of the fracture grouting employed in this longest river embankment in China. Therefore, in this work, laboratory and in situ experiments are carried out to investigate the reinforcement effect of fracture grouting in the Jinan section of the Yellow River Embankment. In particular, laboratory tests concentrate on studying the optimum strength improvement for cement⁻silicate grout by varying the content of backfilled fly ash and bentonite as admixtures. Mechanical strength and Scanning Electron Microscope photographs are investigated for assessing the strength and compactness improvement. Subsequently, based on the obtained optimum admixtures content, in situ grouting tests are carried out in the Jinan section of the Yellow River Embankment to evaluate the reinforcement and lapping effe... [more]

Grinding is a staple size-reduction process to produce food powders in which the powdered form is chemically and microbiologically stable and convenient to use as end products or intermediate products. The moisture content of food materials before grinding is a particularly important factor, since it determines the materials’ physical properties and the powder properties, such as flowability after grinding. Generally, the moisture content of food materials is closely related to its energy requirement for grinding, because the energy expenditure required to create new surfaces varies. Grinding models used to analyze and predict the grinding characteristics, including energy, have been developed in many studies. The moisture content also influences powder flow properties. The inter-particle liquid bridges among the particles are due to the moisture in powders; therefore, the flowability of powders is interrupted because of the increase of the cohesiveness of the powder. Understanding the... [more]

NaA zeolite membrane is an ideal hydrophilic candidate for organic dehydrations; however, its instability in salt solutions limits its application in industries as the membrane intactness was greatly affected due to the replacement of cation ions. In order to explore the relationship between the structural variation and the cation types, the obtained NaA zeolite membranes were treated by various monovalent and divalent cations like Ag⁺, K⁺, Li⁺, NH₄⁺, Zn2+, Mg2+, Ba2+ and Ca2+. The obtained membranes were subsequently characterized by contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), pervaporation (PV), and vapor permeation (VP). The results showed that all of the hydrophilicities of the exchanged membrane were reduced, and the membrane performance varied with cation charges and sizes. For the monovalent cations, the membrane performance was largely determined by the cation sizes, where the membrane remained intact. On the contrary, for the divalent cation treatments, the membrane sep... [more]

In solid backfill coal mining (SBCM), loose gangue backfill material (LGBM) is used to backfill the goaf after coal resources are exploited from the underground mines. Under certain geological conditions, LGBM with a certain height may be soaked in the water, and then becomes saturated, significantly altering its mechanical properties. The confined compression experiments were used in this paper to analyze the deformation and the crushing characteristics of LGBM with varying water soaked heights in coal mines. The results showed that a large number of small holes that were distributed in the gangue blocks were the main reason why the material absorbed water and was softened. The crushing ratio and the maximum axial strain of LGBM samples gradually increased with the water soaked heights of the samples. In addition, there was a strong linear correlation between the crushing ratio and the maximum axial strain. When LGBM was used as a solid backfill material in SBCM, its deformation resis... [more]

The ampholytic chitosan based flocculant carboxylated chitosan graft-(3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl) trimethylammonium chloride-dimethyl diallyl ammonium chloride (CPCTS-g-P (CTA-DMDAAC)) was synthesized by photo polymerization using carboxylated chitosan (CPCTS), 3-chloro-2-chloropropyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTA) and dimethyldiallylammonium chloride (DMDAAC) as the cationic co-monomers. The effects of monomer concentration, the ratio of CPCTS and cationic monomers, cationic degree, initiator time, photoinitiator concentration, and pH value on the properties of CPCTS-g-P (CTA-DMDAAC) were studied. The microcystis aeruginosa that was cultured in laboratory was used for CPCTS-g-P (CTA-DMDAAC) flocculation tests. The effects of CPCTS-g-P (CTA-DMDAAC) dosage, pH value and G value on flocculation performance were investigated. The maximum removal rate of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) that were obtained by CPCTS-g-P (CTA-DMDAAC) were 98.8% and 96.5% under the conditi... [more]

A lab-scale of a side stream anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) equipped with a tubular membrane operated at the mesophilic temperature of 37.0 ± 1.2 °C for treating domestic wastewater was tested to investigate its performance and fouling characteristics at two organic loading rates (OLR) of 0.25 kg COD m−3d−1, and 0.70 kg COD m−3d−1, respectively. The AnMBR was operated for 600 days at sludge retention time (SRT) of 100 days. This AnMBR exhibits excellent chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of 91% at 0.25 kg COD m−3d−1, and 94% at 0.7 kg COD m−3d−1 respectively, with effluent-soluble COD below 50 mg/L. Chemically-enhanced cleaning method using NaOH, NaOCl, and citric acid solution were introduced for fouling investigation at these two stages. The results showed that sequential chemical cleaning of alkaline and acid were most effective to recover the membrane flux. The alkaline cleaning was effective at removing organic foulants, while citric acid cleaning was effective at removin... [more]

Due to the complex formation process of a rock mass, a large number of fissures, joints, faults, other defects exist and the defects commonly contain infilled materials. The jointed rock masses are in a complex geological environment, in which the geometric distribution and the boundary condition can greatly affect the mechanical behavior of the infilled jointed rock mass. In this study, the infilled jointed rock mass specimens with different dip angles are prepared using similar materials, and the uniaxial and biaxial compression tests on the specimens are conducted. The effect of the joint dip angle on the mechanical behavior of the infilled jointed rock mass under uniaxial and biaxial compressions is investigated. The results show that the uniaxial compressive strength shows a W-shaped variation, and the biaxial compressive strength shows a V-shaped variation with an increase in the dip angle. Most of the cracks appear in pairs around the joint and occur symmetrically in a bilateral... [more]

This work investigates the effect of various membrane substrates and coating conditions on the formation of carbon/ceramic mixed matrix membranes for desalination application. The substrates were impregnated with phenolic resin via a vacuum-assisted method followed by carbonization under an inert gas. Substrates with pore sizes of 100 nm required a single impregnation step only, where short vacuum times (90%) and high water fluxes (up to 25 L m−2 h−1). The increase in water flux as a function of the vacuum time confirms the vacuum etching effect resulting from the vacuum-assisted method. Substrates with pore sizes of 140 nm required two impregnation steps. These pores were too large for the ceramic inter-particle space to be filled with phenolic resin via a single step. In the second impregnation step, increasing the concentration of the phenolic resin resulted in membranes with lower water fluxes. These results indicate that thicker films were formed by increasing the phenolic resin c... [more]