Reaction characteristics of magnesium production under argon flow by silicothermic reduction and numerical simulation of argon entrainment process

In this study, the reaction characteristics of reduction of calcined dolomite with ferrosilicon under argon flow to produce magnesium were studied by conducting experiments Pidgeon pellets were used to study the effect of reduced temperature, argon flow, and reduced time on the conversion of calcined dolomite reduction by ferrosilicon. The results show that the conversion significantly increases with the increase in the reduction temperature and reduction time. The conversion first increases and then decreases with the increase in argon flow. The highest conversion was obtained when the argon flow rate was 3 L·min^(-1), and a nearly spherical shape, nanoscale magnesium powder was obtained. Then the characters of the circulating argon entrainment process were numerically studied by ANSYS Fluent 17. A physical model of multilayer pellet arrangement was established, and a numerical calculation model of chemical reaction, radiation, heat conduction, and convection heat transfer was constructed. This confirms that high-temperature argon can effectively strengthen the heat exchange between pellets, improve the heat transfer efficiency, and facilitate the pellets to react quickly. When the conversion is 80%, the production efficiency increased by about 28.6%. In addition, the magnesium production efficiency showed an increase tendency with the increase of the argon inlet flow rate.

Advances in Molten Salt Synthesis of Non-oxide Materials

The properties of non-oxide materials are continuously revealed,and their applications in the fields of ceramics,energy,and catalysis are increasingly extensive.Regardless of the traditional binary materials or the MAX phases,the preparation methods,which are environmentally friendly,efficient,economical,and easy to scale-up,have always been the focus of attention.Molten salt synthesis has demonstrated unparalleled advantages in achieving non-oxide materials.In addition,with the development of the process in molten salt synthesis,it also shows great potential in scale-up production.In this review,the recent progress of molten salt synthesis in the preparation of binary non-oxide and MAX phase is reviewed,as well as some novel processes.The reaction mechanisms and the influence of synthetic conditions for certain materials are discussed in detail.The paper is finalized with the discussion of the application prospect and future research trends of molten salt synthesis in non-oxide materials.

Coordination states of metal ions in molten salts and their characterization methods

The macroscopic characteristics of molten salts are governed by their microstructures.Research on the structures of molten salts provides the foundation for a full understanding of the physicochemical properties of molten salts as well as a deeper analysis of the microscopic electrolysis process in molten salts.Information about the microstructure of matter can be obtained with the help of several speculative and experimental procedures.In this review,the advantages and disadvantages of the various test procedures used to determine the microstructures of molten salts are compared.The typical coordination configurations of metal ions in molten salt systems are also summarized.Furthermore,the impact of temperature,anions,cations,and metal oxides(O2-)on the structures of molten salts is discussed in detail.The accuracy and completeness of the information on molten salt structures need to be investigated by the integration of multiple methods and interdisciplinary fields.Information on the microstructure and coordination of molten salts deepens the understanding of the elementary elements of the microstructure of matter.This paper,which is based on the review of the coordination states of metal ions in molten salts,is hoped to inspire researchers to explore the inter-relationship between the microstructure and macroscopic properties of materials.

Automatic Road Tunnel Crack Inspection Based on Crack Area Sensing and Multiscale Semantic Segmentation

The detection of crack defects on the walls of road tunnels is a crucial step in the process of ensuring travel safetyand performing routine tunnel maintenance. The automatic and accurate detection of cracks on the surface of roadtunnels is the key to improving the maintenance efficiency of road tunnels. Machine vision technology combinedwith a deep neural network model is an effective means to realize the localization and identification of crackdefects on the surface of road tunnels.We propose a complete set of automatic inspection methods for identifyingcracks on the walls of road tunnels as a solution to the problem of difficulty in identifying cracks during manualmaintenance. First, a set of equipment applied to the real-time acquisition of high-definition images of walls inroad tunnels is designed. Images of walls in road tunnels are acquired based on the designed equipment, whereimages containing crack defects are manually identified and selected. Subsequently, the training and validationsets used to construct the crack inspection model are obtained based on the acquired images, whereas the regionscontaining cracks and the pixels of the cracks are finely labeled. After that, a crack area sensing module is designedbased on the proposed you only look once version 7 model combined with coordinate attention mechanism (CAYOLOV7) network to locate the crack regions in the road tunnel surface images. Only subimages containingcracks are acquired and sent to the multiscale semantic segmentation module for extraction of the pixels to whichthe cracks belong based on the DeepLab V3+ network. The precision and recall of the crack region localizationon the surface of a road tunnel based on our proposed method are 82.4% and 93.8%, respectively. Moreover, themean intersection over union (MIoU) and pixel accuracy (PA) values for achieving pixel-level detection accuracyare 76.84% and 78.29%, respectively. The experimental results on the dataset show that our proposed two-stagedetection method outperforms other state-of-the-art models in crack region localization and detection. Based onour proposedmethod, the images captured on the surface of a road tunnel can complete crack detection at a speed often frames/second, and the detection accuracy can reach 0.25 mm, which meets the requirements for maintenanceof an actual project. The designed CA-YOLO V7 network enables precise localization of the area to which a crackbelongs in images acquired under different environmental and lighting conditions in road tunnels. The improvedDeepLab V3+ network based on lightweighting is able to extract crack morphology in a given region more quicklywhile maintaining segmentation accuracy. The established model combines defect localization and segmentationmodels for the first time, realizing pixel-level defect localization and extraction on the surface of road tunnelsin complex environments, and is capable of determining the actual size of cracks based on the physical coordinatesystemafter camera calibration. The trainedmodelhas highaccuracy andcanbe extendedandapplied to embeddedcomputing devices for the assessment and repair of damaged areas in different types of road tunnels.

The silicothermic reduction of magnesium in flowing argon and numerical simulation of novel technology

The silicothermic reduction of magnesium was investigated by the non-isothermal thermoanalysis in flowing argon,while the traditional investigations of silicothermic process for magnesium reduction were carried out under vacuum conditions.Firstly,the thermal gravimetric(TG)and derivative thermogravimetric(DTG)characteristic of briquettes prepared with calcined dolomite,ferrosilicon and fluorite were characterized by the thermogravimetric analyzer(TGA)at different heating rates.The intrinsic chemical kinetic mechanism was identified as a formal chemical reaction with the Nth order type which showed apparent activation energy E and reaction order n were 290.168 kJ mol^(-1) and 1.076,respectively.Then,a novel technique of magnesium production without vacuum was put forward and a three-dimensional unsteady numerical model incorporating the chemical reaction,radiation,heat conduction and heat convection was established and simulated,which was verified by Pidgeon process and novel tech no logy.rIhe nu merical results showed that the cycle time of the novel technique could be reduced when the argon temperature was higher than 1343 K and the argon entrance velocity was over 0.05 m s^(-1).And the effect of the argon temperature on reduction degree was much larger than that of entrance velocity.

Study on the electrochemical behavior of Mg and Al ions in LiCl-KCl melt and preparation of Mg-Al alloy

The electrochemical behavior of Mg^(2+)and Al^(3+)in LiCl-KCl(mass 4:1)melt at 973 K was studied on a Mo electrode systematically by cyclic voltammetry,square wave voltammetry and chronopotentiometry.The results showed that the reductions of Mg^(2+)and Al^(3+)were reversible processes controlled by the rate of the mass transfer.When Mg^(2+)and Al^(3+)coexisted in LiCl-KCl melt,they had no significant effect on the reduction potential of each other.The equilibrium potentials of Mg^(2+)/Mg and Al^(3+)/Al were obtained by open circuit potential method.Their apparent standard potentials were also calculated in this system and the values were-2.52 V vs Cl_(2)/Cl^(−),-1.66 V vs Cl_(2)/Cl^(−),respectively.Correspondingly,the apparent Gibbs free energies of Mg^(2+)/Mg and Al^(3+)/Al were-485.71 kJ/mol^(-1),-480.78 kJ/mol^(-1).Finally,potentiostatic electrolysis was performed on a Mo electrode in LiCl-KCl-MgCl_(2)-AlCl_(3)(the mass ratio of MgCl_(2) to AlCl_(3) was 10:1)melt at different potentials.The components of the deposits were characterized by scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectroscopy.The study revealed that the content of Al in the deposit decreased as the overpotential increased and Al tended to segregate at the grain boundaries.

Effect of fluoride ions on coordination structure of titanium in molten NaCl–KCl

The effects of fluoride ions(F^(-)) on the electrochemical behavior and coordination properties of titanium ions(Ti^(n+)) were studied in this work,by combining electrochemical and mathematical analysis as well as spectral techniques.The α was taken as a factor to indicate the molar concentration ratio of F^(-) and Ti^(n+).Cyclic voltammetry(CV),square wave voltammetry(SWV),and open circuit potential method(OCP)were used to study the electrochemical behavior of titanium ions under conditions of various α,and in-situ sampler was used to prepare molten salt samples when α equal to 0.0,1.0,2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0,6.0,and 8.0.And then,samples were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) and Raman spectroscopy.The results showed that F^(-) in molten salt can reduce the reduction steps of titanium ions and greatly affects the proportion of valence titanium ions which making the high-valence titanium content increased and more stable.Ti^(2+) cannot be detected in the molten salt when α is higher than 3.0 and finally transferred to titanium ions with higher valence state.Investigation revealed that the mechanism behind those phenomenon is the coordination compounds(TiCl_(j) F_(i)^(m-)) forming.

Sustainable recycling of titanium from TiO_(2) in spent SCR denitration catalyst via molten salt electrolysis

Spent catalyst used for denitration by selective catalytic reduction(spent SCR denitration catalysts) is one of the important urban mines due to the high content of TiO_(2)(~85 wt%) and the massive accumulation amount(over 100,000 tons),therefore,value-added reutilization of titanium in spent SCR catalysts is considerably meaningful.In this paper,a novel method is proposed for converting the titanium oxide in spent SCR denitration catalysts to metallic titanium.Specifically,titanium dioxide(TiO_(2)) was firstly obtained from spent SCR denitration catalysts after removing the impurities by hydrometallurgy process.Then,TiO_(2) is converted to Ti_(2)CO by carbothermic reduction method,and Ti_(2)CO was further purified by oleic acid capture.Finally,by utilizing the as-prepared Ti_(2)CO as the consumable anode in the NaCl-KCl molten salt,high-purity metallic titanium was deposited at cathode,all confirming the feasibility for the conversion of low-grade TiO_(2) in the spent catalysts,from 60 wt% to high-purity metallic Ti(99.5 wt%), furthermore,the energy consumption of this process is 3950 kWh tonne-1 Ti,which is lower than that of most traditional titanium metallurgy methods.The method herein can provide new insights for the value-added recycling of titanium resources in urban mines.

Air plasma-sprayed high-entropy (Y_(0.2)Yb_(0.2)Lu_(0.2)Eu_(0.2)Er_(0.2))_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) coating with high thermal protection performance

High-entropy rare-earth aluminate(Y_(0.2)Yb_(0.2)Lu_(0.2)Eu_(0.2)Er_(0.2))_(3)Al_(5)O_(12)(HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12))has been considered as a promising thermal protection coating(TPC)material based on its low thermal conductivity and close thermal expansion coefficient to that of Al2O3.However,such a coating has not been experimentally prepared,and its thermal protection performance has not been evaluated.To prove the feasibility of utilizing HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) as a TPC,HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) coating was deposited on a nickelbased superalloy for the first time using the atmospheric plasma spraying technique.The stability,surface,and cross-sectional morphologies,as well as the fracture surface of the HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) coating were investigated,and the thermal shock resistance was evaluated using the oxyacetylene flame test.The results show that the HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) coating can remain intact after 50 cycles at 1200℃ for 200 s,while the edge peeling phenomenon occurs after 10 cycles at 1400℃ for 200 s.This study clearly demonstrates that HE-RE_(3)Al_(5)O_(12) coating is effective for protecting the nickel-based superalloy,and the atmospheric plasma spraying is a suitable method for preparing this kind of coatings.

Atomic-resolution investigation of structural transformation caused by oxygen vacancy in La_(0.9)Sr_(0.1)TiO_(3+δ)titanate layer perovskite ceramics

Perovskite functional ceramics have been widely applied for thermal protection owing to their unique physical properties.However,formation of oxygen vacancies under external stimuli usually limits their performance in practical applications.Therefore,the mechanism of the effect of oxygen vacancy on the layer structure of perovskite La_(0.9)Sr_(0.1)TiO_(3+δ)was investigated by experiments and first-principles simulations.The experimental results showed that the lattice distortion occurred in oxygen-deficient environment to give a longer c-axis,along with a significant adjustment in the modes of A/B–O bond vibration,resulting in lower reflectivity.Advanced transmission electron microscopy studies revealed that oxygen vacancies induced localized atomic rearrangements via[TiO_(6)]layer movements to adapt to the lattice distortion.This eventually restructured a part of the layer interfaces by expanding the overlapping projection of atoms in the c-axial direction.The specific transformation process was described as a compendious process,while geometric phase analysis effectively clarified how oxygen vacancies can inhibit reflectivity on the layer structure.Thus,this study provides effective approaches for researching the effects of oxygen vacancy on the physical properties of orthorhombic layer perovskite structures,which may facilitate the development of perovskite-based functional devices.