Separating aluminum from shredded automotive scrap

The metals recovered from automotive scrap can provide important resources for industrial development. Thus, the construction of a new plant was undertaken to help recycle valuable metals from nonferrous auto scrap in Taiwan. The main purpose of this project was to establish an automated heavy medium separation technique to cull aluminum from automotive scrap, and thus to replace the labor-intensive hand-picking process. The design capacity of the resulting heavy medium separation plant is two tonnes per hour and the completion of this plant will reduce hand-picking labor by 80%.     

Direct identification of monolayer rhenium diselenide by an individual diffraction pattern

In the current extensive studies of layered two-dimensional (2D) materials,compared to hexagonal structures such as graphene,hBN,and MoS2,lowsymmetry 2D materials have shown great potential for applications in anisotropic devices.Rhenium diselenide (ReSe2) possesses the bulk space group P(1) and belongs to the triclinic crystal system with a deformed cadmium-iodide-type structure.Here,we propose an electron diffraction-based method to distinguish the monolayer ReSe2 membrane from multilayer ReSe2 and its two different vertical orientations.Our method is also applicable to other low-symmetry crystal systems,including both triclinic and monoclinic lattices,as long as their third unit-cell basis vectors are not perpendicular to the basal plane.Our experimental results are well explained by kinematical electron diffraction theory and the corresponding simulations.Generalization of our method to other 2D materials,such as graphene,is also discussed.     

Cathodoluminescence and Field-Emission Properties of β-Ga2O3 Nanobelts

β-Ga₂O₃ nanobelts were synthesized using a vapor transport process in a controlled ambient. Structural characterization revealed that the as-synthesized samples consisted of monoclinic β-Ga₂O₃ nanobelts, and the presence of gallium-associated defects was verified using cathodoluminescence (CL). The formation of gallium-associated defects was explained by the insufficiency of the supply of cations, generating gallium vacancies on the (010) facet during growth. Furthermore, field-emission measurements indicated that β-Ga₂O₃ nanobelts exhibited defect-related electron emission. The turn-on fields of β-Ga₂O₃ nanobelts increased significantly with the degree of structural defects. For a sample prepared under 15% ambient oxygen, Fowler–Nordheim (F–N) analysis revealed two distinct field-enhancement factors of 1194 and 276, respectively. A correlation between field emission and structural defects was proposed. The experimental results demonstrate the presence of gallium-associated defects, which behave as electron traps, degrading the electron field-emission properties of β-Ga₂O₃ nanobelts.     

Selective Leaching Process for Neodymium Recovery from Scrap Nd-Fe-B Magnet

Neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnets were most widely applied to permanent magnetic products in the world due to their high magnetic force. The increasing growth of scrap Nd-Fe-B magnets resulted in disposal problems and the reduction of neodymium (Nd) valuable resources. In this study, we developed a simple hydrometallurgical precipitation process with pH adjustment to separate and recover Nd 100 pct recovery from scrap Nd-Fe-B magnets. Several physical and chemical methods such as demagnetization, grinding, screening, and leaching processes were also adopted to investigate the recovery of Nd and other metals from scrap Nd-Fe-B magnets. The leaching process was carried out with four leaching reagents such as NaOH, HCl, HNO₃, and H₂SO₄. Batch studies were also conducted to optimize the leaching operating conditions with respect to leaching time, concentration of leaching reagent, temperature, and solid/liquid ratio for both HCl and H₂SO₄ leaching reagents. Nd was successfully separated and recovered with 75.41 wt pct from optimized H₂SO₄ leaching solution through precipitation. Further, the purity and weight percentage of the obtained Nd product was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy–energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis. An X-ray diffraction (XRD) study confirmed the obtained product of Nd was in the form of NdOOH and Nd(OH)₃.     

Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity and Characterization of Synthesized Biodegradable Copolymers

Green copolymer Poly(MA-CA) was developed by the thermal condensation polymerization of monomers such as DL-Malic acid (MA) and Citric acid (CA). The copolymer of Poly(MA-CA) was synthesized by varying the ratio of MA and CA monomers with 1:0, 1:3, 1:1, 3:1 and 0:1, and their antibacterial properties were studied with respect to their activity on Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria by the bacterial count method. Furthermore, the biocidal activity of the plain monomers was also investigated and compared to those of the copolymers. Synthesized copolymers show good antibacterial effects towards both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The antimicrobial properties of the copolymers and the monomers were studied by varying the ratio of polymers, effect of polymer concentration and effect of pH. Results indicated that the antibacterial activity of the copolymers increased with MA content and polymer dose. At low content of MA (wt.%), the copolymers poly(MA-CA)(1:3) possessed a higher effect on Gram-positive bacteria Bacillus cereus and Micrococcus luteus than Gram-negative bacteria Salmonella and Shigella. The other copolymers with the ratio of 1:1 and 3:1 including MA homopolymer possesses 100% inhibition of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria under the conditions studied. The developed polymers were extensively characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis, thermal gravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy to understand their physicochemical properties.     

Characterizing PAH emission concentrations in ambient air during a large-scale joss paper open-burning event

Large-scale open burning of joss paper is an important ritual practice for deity worshipping during Buddhist and Taoist festivals. Since Buddhism and Taoism are two of the most popular religions in Chinese societies and some Asian countries, the impact of joss paper burning on the air quality needs further investigation. This study explores the concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in ambient air during one of the most important festivals, in which large-scale burning of joss paper occurs in temples and in people's houses. The PAH concentrations were measured simultaneously at a temple site and a background site during both the festival and non-festive (ordinary) periods. Each ambient sample was extracted by the Soxhlet analytical method (for both particle-bound and gas-phase) and analyzed with gas chromatography. Experimental results indicate that the total PAH concentration during the festival period is approximately 4.2 times higher than that during the ordinary period (5384 ng m(-3) vs. 1275 ng m(-3)). This study also employed statistical methods including diagnostic ratios and principal component analysis (PCA) to identify the possible PAH emission sources. Joss paper burning and vehicular emissions are identified as the principal sources of airborne PAHs during the large-scale open-burning event. The results of this work provide useful information for public awareness concerning PAH emission from the open burning of joss paper.     

Maximum Log-Likelihood Function-Based QAM Signal Classification over Fading Channels

In this paper, we propose a modulation classification algorithm for M-ary QAM signals in Rician and Rayleigh fading channels. The developed algorithms are based on the maximum log-likelihood functions, which are derived from received signals. First of all, we derived the amplitude PDF of M-ary QAM signal over flat and slowly Rayleigh and Rician fading channel, then we developed the log-likelihood functions and then the decision functions for classification. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed classifier, we give an example to classify the 16/32 QAM signals. Results indicate that the performance of classifier is heavily dependent on the severity of channel fading. When channel is AWGN, which means that there exists only one path (may be specular path) between transmitter and receiver, and the Rician factor k, approaches infinity in this case, henceforth, the performance is the best. The performance, however, is degraded with the decrease of k, and finally the classifier performs worst when channel becomes Rayleigh. Further performance improvement can be achieved by increasing the length of record.     

An overview of recycling and treatment of scrap computers

In order to recover valuable materials and to minimize the adverse effects of hazardous materials contained in scrap computers, a dismantling practice is commonly adopted to treat scrap computers. By using the dismantling process, both useful and hazardous materials can be manually separated and retrieved. On the basis of the properties of the retrieved materials, they can be sent to appropriate facilities for further recycling or treatment. Among the retrieved materials, the treatment of hazardous materials from cathode ray tubes (CRT) and printed circuit boards with integrated circuits have drawn considerable attention, thus implying that the proper treatment of such materials can greatly assure the successful recycling of scrap computers. For this reason, this study reviews the available technologies which can be applied to treat and recycle cathode ray tube components and printed circuit boards with integrated circuits. Actual recycling data from a scrap computer recycling plant located in Taiwan are also introduced. The data show that this recycling plant can recover 94.75 wt. % and 45.99 wt. % of useful materials from the main machines (i.e., CPU, power supplier, fan, IC boards, DVD drive, CD drive, hard disk, soft disk, shell casing, etc.) and monitors of scrap computers, respectively.     

Influence of compressive strength and applied force in concrete on particles exposure concentrations during cutting processes

The objective of this research was to identify the influence of applied force (AF) and the compressive strength (CS) of concrete on particle exposure concentrations during concrete cutting processes. Five cutting conditions were selected with AF varied between 9.8 and 49 N and CS varied between 2500 and 6000 psi. For each selected cutting condition, the measured total dust concentrations (C_tot) were used to further determine the corresponding three health-related exposure concentrations of the inhalable (C_inh), thoracic (C_thor), and respirable fraction (C_res). Results show that particle size distribution was consistently in a bimodal form under all selected cutting conditions. An increase in CS resulted in an increase in coarse particle generations leading to an increase in the four measured particle exposure levels. An increase in AF resulted in an increase in exposure concentrations with a higher fraction of fine particles (i.e., C_tho and C_res) However, for particle exposure concentrations with a higher fraction of coarse particles (i.e., C_tot and C_inh), an increase in AF resulted in an initial increase, followed by a decrease in concentration. Finally, the above inferences were further confirmed through the use of fixed-effect models to determine the influence of both CS and AF on the four exposure concentrations. These results provide a reference for industries to initiate appropriate control strategies to reduce the exposure levels encountered by workers.     

An asymptotic optimal algorithm for modulation classification

A suboptimal algorithm for modulation classification was proposed for classifying the modulation type of general M-ary phase-shifted keying (MPSK) signals. Yang and Soliman (see IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol.33, no.1, p.38-45, 1997) approximated the phase probability density function of a received signal to be the Tikhonov function. Instead, we employ the exact phase density function and derive an asymptotic optimal classification algorithm. We show a structure of this proposed classifier for continuous wave (CW), binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), quaternary phase-shift keying (QPSK), and 8PSK. Besides, we give an example to demonstrate the capability of this algorithm and compare its performance to that in Yang and Soliman. It is shown that the performance is more effective