Recent progress of the gas diffusion layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Material and structure designs of microporous layer

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have become the most attractive power supply units for stationary and mobile applications. The operation, design characteristics, as well as performance of PEMFCs, are closely related to the multiphase transport of mass, heat, and electricity in the cell, a critical of which is the gas diffusion layer (GDL). It is very important to guarantee the transmission of water and gasses under high current density, and which is the weakness of PEMFCs at present. Microporous layer (MPL) is considered to be the key variable for mass transfer, so varieties of works focus on modification of MPL materials and its structure design. However, there is still a lack of special review to summarize and prospect the progress of MPL in recent years. This review article therefore focuses on the insights and comprehensive understanding of four critical issues of the MPL, the porosity, pore size distribution, wettability, structural design and the durability of MPL. At last, the conclusion and recommendations section summarized the future prospects and recommendations for possible research opportunities.     

基于力测量法研究滑石的晶面各向异性

层状硅酸盐矿物滑石在解离时会形成具有明显性质差异的2种表面，滑石的晶面各向异性会导致矿物不同表面表现出不同的润湿性以及不同的电荷密度。通过原子力显微镜力（AFM）曲线测量以及经典DLVO理论计算，对滑石的非极性面和极性面进行深入研究，首先利用AFM力曲线测量和计算，得到不同pH值时氮化硅的电位值，利用AFM直接力测量法对符合粗糙度要求的滑石非极性面和极性面样品在10 mmol/L的KCl溶液中进行测量，得到不同pH值环境下的力曲线，通过DLVO理论拟合计算得到滑石非极性面和极性面的表面电位值。滑石的非极性面电位值在研究的pH范围内一直为负，且恒定，极性面电位值随pH升高而降低，零电点出现在pH=7.6左右。将计算得到的滑石表面电位与氮化硅之间的作用力拟合曲线与实际测得的作用力进行对比发现，计算值与测量值基本一致，拟合度较高。     

固废制备微晶泡沫玻璃的研究进展

为实现固体废弃物的高值化利用，从微晶泡沫玻璃的制备机理、工艺流程及温度制度等方面分析了工业固体废弃物制备微晶泡沫玻璃的可行性，重点论述了金属矿尾矿、赤泥、高炉矿渣、煤矸石、粉煤灰等固体废弃物制备微晶泡沫玻璃的国内外研究进展，并对微晶泡沫玻璃的研究和发展趋势进行了展望。     

Strain hardening behaviors and mechanisms of polyurethane under various strain rate loading

The uniaxial tension experiments are performed on thermoplastic polyurethane to investigate its mechanical behaviors and related potential mechanisms, and the loading strain rate is designing to be wide ranging from 0.0001 to 1 s⁻¹. It is found that the polyurethane presents an obvious rate-dependence, and the stress strain curves share distinct strain hardening characteristics under the investigated strain rates. Furthermore, the strain hardening ratios are sharing nearly same trends and appear to be influenced by both strain rate and the induced adiabatic heating. Besides, the ratio is also strain-dependent on previous loading history. Then, a two-dimension unit cell model is built to investigate potential equivalent mechanisms, of which the hard phase as inclusion is equivalent with crystallization zone, crosslinking sites, and so forth. The simulation results facilitate to explain the distinct strain hardening ratios, even for the matrix from the extrapolated curves under super-low strain rate loading. Finally, the analogic mechanisms of equivalent hard inclusions are proposed, which can reasonably explain the strain rate- and strain-dependence characteristics of polyurethane mechanical behaviors.     

A Student's t-based density peaks clustering with superpixel segmentation (tDPCSS) method for image color clustering

Image color clustering is a basic technique in image processing and computer vision, which is often applied in image segmentation, color transfer, contrast enhancement, object detection, skin color capture, and so forth. Various clustering algorithms have been employed for image color clustering in recent years. However, most of the algorithms require a large amount of memory or a predetermined number of clusters. In addition, some of the existing algorithms are sensitive to the parameter configurations. In order to tackle the above problems, we propose an image color clustering method named Student's t-based density peaks clustering with superpixel segmentation (tDPCSS), which can automatically obtain clustering results, without requiring a large amount of memory, and is not dependent on the parameters of the algorithm or the number of clusters. In tDPCSS, superpixels are obtained based on automatic and constrained simple non-iterative clustering, to automatically decrease the image data volume. A Student's t kernel function and a cluster center selection method are adopted to eliminate the dependence of the density peak clustering on parameters and the number of clusters, respectively. The experiments undertaken in this study confirmed that the proposed approach outperforms k-means, fuzzy c-means, mean-shift clustering, and density peak clustering with superpixel segmentation in the accuracy of the cluster centers and the validity of the clustering results.     

Combined effects of wheat gluten and carboxymethylcellulose on dough rheological behaviours and gluten network of potato–wheat flour-based bread

Incorporating high level of potato flour into wheat flour enhances nutritional values of bread but induces a series of problems that lead to the decline of the bread quality. To overcome the barrier, wheat gluten and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) were added into potato–wheat composite flour to improve dough machinability and bread quality. The rheological properties, thermo-mechanical properties and microstructures of dough were investigated. The results showed that the interaction between gluten and CMC mitigated the discontinuity of gluten matrix and gluten protein aggregation caused by the addition of potato flour, which yielded a more branched and compact gluten network. The compact three-dimensional viscoelastic structure induced improvements of gas retention capacity and dough stability, making it mimic the machinability properties of wheat flour dough. Bread qualities were apparently improved with the combined use of 4% gluten and 6% CMC, of which specific volume increased by 42.86%, and simultaneously, hardness reduced by 75.93%.     

On the local behavior of spaces of range image patches

We focus on the quantitative and local topological properties of range images. We consider the spaces M_m of m × m high-contrast patches of range images for m=?3, 5, 7, 9, 11. Using computational topological tools to analyze range image patches, we detect that M₃ (M₉, M₁₁) has core subsets with the topology of a circle, M₃, M₅, M₇, M₉ and that M₁₁ have some subspaces with the topology of a Klein bottle. We also discover that the largest subspace with the Klein bottle’s topology decreases as the measurements of patches increase, which generalizes the results in the paper of H. Adams and G. Carlsson, and demonstrates properties among optical images and range image patches, which are more similar than those established by Lee et al.

     

搅拌式风力致热装置启动性能研究

搭建搅拌式风力致热试验台,以自制的2种致热器为研究对象,使其分别在3个不同平均角加速度24.92、14.66、8.04 rad/s2下启动。通过动态扭矩测试仪和数据采集仪测试记录致热器启动阶段的相关数据。结果表明:致热器启动时所需扭矩与角加速度的一次方、转速、叶片半径的二次方成正比,同时得出这些因素之间的关系式;满负荷时,启动扭矩会出现一个峰值,且角加速度越大峰值越大,自然风必须提供峰值以上的扭矩,否则装置无法启动。