China PARTICUOLOGY

As a new scientific discipline, nanoparticle aerosol science and technology (NAST) deals with the formation, properties and behavior of nanoparticles in gases. Driven by its practical applications in many different fields, NAST has been undergoing rapid development. A conceptual framework of the discipline, with its own basic principles, experimental methods and computational techniques, is now taking shape. This paper presents an overview of the current status and research needs of the new discipline. The presentation begins with a discourse on the relationship among various particle systems, which occur frequently in nature and industry. The properties and behavior of nanoparticle aerosols are then discussed, with emphasis on the key roles played by particle size and morphology. Similar to fluid dynamics, NAST is an enabling discipline in the sense that it has provided the concepts and methodology needed for the development of many other fields. Applications of nanoparticle aerosol science and technology are highlighted in three important areas: (1) aerosol processes for synthesis of nanoparticles, (2) atmospheric nanoparticles and global climate, and (3) dosimetry of inhaled nanoparticles. These fields have features in common insofar as nanoparticle aerosols follow the same basic laws of physics and chemistry.

The transport and chemical production processes of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosols over East Asia were investigated by use of the Models-3 Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system coupled with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). For the evaluation of the model's ability in depicting their 3-dimensional concentration distributions and temporal variations, modeled concentrations of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosols are compared with the observations obtained at a ground station in Japan in March 2001 and onboard of an aircraft DC-8 on 18 and 21 March 2001 during the Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) field campaign. Comparison shows that simulated values of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosols are generally in good agreement with their observed data, and the model captures most important observed features, and reproduces temporal and spatial variations of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosol concentrations reasonably well, e.g., the timing and locations of the concentration spikes of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosols are well reproduced, but large discrepancies between observed and simulated values are also clearly seen at some points and some times due to the coarse grid resolution and uncertainties of the emissions used in this study. This comparison results indicate that CMAQ is able to simulate the distributions of nitrate, sulfate, and ammonium aerosols and their related species in the troposphere over East Asia reasonably well.

The objectives of this research were to characterise the clay minerals composition of soil-derived dust in Northern China and to set up a mineralogical signature to trace their origin. Mineral composition of aerosol particles was investigated at Aksu, Dunhuang, Yulin, Tongliao and Changwu during an intensive field campaign period of ACE-Asia. The results show that the kaolinite (K) to chlorite (C) ratio is sensitive to the regional origin of Asian dust. Western source areas (represented by Aksu) displayed the lowest K/C ratio of 0.3 (average), while it was found to increase up to 0.70 (average) upon moving towards northern source areas (represented by Yulin). By studying transported dust in a deposition area representative of the Chinese Loess Plateau, the usefulness of the K/C ratio, when associated with back air-mass trajectories, was found to lie in revealing the origin of the dust. Comparison of the mineralogical data between Asian dust and Sahara dust, shows that the K/C ratio is also an effective signature to identify the source areas on a hemisphere scale.

A density functional theory is applied to calculating the local density profiles of colloids confined in a slit-like pore as well as the radial distribution functions of bulk colloids. The interaction between the colloidal particles is described using a hard-core Yukawa model. The excess Helmholtz energy functional is a combination of the modified fundamental measure theory of Yu and Wu (2002) for the hard-core contribution and a corrected mean-field theory for the attractive contribution. Comparison with the results from the Monte Carlo simulations shows that the corrected theory improves the density profiles of colloids in the vicinity of contact over the original mean-field theory. Both the present corrected theory and simulations suggest that there are depletion and desorption for the colloid with strong attraction between particles at low temperature.

Recently, silver as an electrochemical deposit on copper substrate has been attracting much attention in the microelectronics field. To deposit nano-scale silver particles on copper, immersion plating using cyanide-based baths is commonly used. In this study, non-toxic ethanol was used as the plating solution. Sputtered copper samples were immersed in an ethanol-based solution containing 0.2 g·L^-1 silver for silver deposition. The silver deposits were characterized by a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope (EDS), and an atomic force microscope (AFM). It was found that the deposited particles are metallic silver. After 3 s immersion, fine particles whose diameters were around 6 nm had covered about 40% of the surface of the copper substrate. After 10 s immersion, the copper surface was completely covered by silver particles, the diameters of which have increased to about 10–15 nm. After the whole surface was covered, a dense and smooth silver coating was obtained.

Research on the flow field inside a turbo classifier is complicated though important. According to the stochastic trajectory model of particles in gas-solid two-phase flow, and adopting the PHOENICS code, numerical simulation is carried out on the flow field, including particle trajectory, in the inner cavity of a turbo classifier, using both straight and backward crooked elbow blades. Computation results show that when the backward crooked elbow blades are used, the mixed stream that passes through the two blades produces a vortex in the positive direction which counteracts the attached vortex in the opposite direction due to the high-speed turbo rotation, making the flow steadier, thus improving both the grade efficiency and precision of the turbo classifier. This research provides positive theoretical evidences for designing sub-micron particle classifiers with high efficiency and accuracy.

Numerical simulation of gas-solid flow in a two-dimensional fluidized bed with an inclined jet was performed. The numerical model is based on the two-fluid model of gas and solids phase in which the solids constitutive equations are based on the kinetic theory of granular flow. The improved ICE algorithm, which can be used for both low and high-velocity fluid flow, were used to solve the model equations. The mechanism of jet formation was analyzed using both numerical simulations and experiments. The emergence and movement of gas bubbles were captured numerically and experimentally. The influences of jet velocity, nozzle diameter, nozzle inclination and jet position on jet penetration length were obtained. A semi-empirical expression was derived and the parameters were correlated from experimental data. The correlation equation, which can be easily used to obtain the inclined jet penetration length, was compared with our experimental data and published correlation equations.

A new approach to produce superfine WC-Co powder by direct reduction and carbonization is proposed. Water-soluble salts containing W and Co were used as raw materials. Tungsten and cobalt oxide powder (CoWO₄/WO₃) was first formed by a spray-pyrolysis technique, which was then mixed with carbon black and converted to WC-Co composite powder at 950°C for 4 h in N₂ atmosphere. The resulting powder has a particle size of 100–300 nm.