THE STRUCTURE OF THERMOPLASTIC STARCH

The granular structure, crystal structure and gelatinization temp. of thermoplastic starch were studied with a polarized light microscope and a scanning electron microscope, and the crystallinity and crystalline patterns were determined through X ray diffraction. The results indicate that the original granular structure and spherical crystalline structure of starch were disrupted by the action of pressure, heat and shear force with the help of additives. The starch can be melted during extrusion, and part of the spheric crystal was destroyed and changed into a continual amorphous with a few crystalline fractions dispersed in it. The configuration of starch molecules changed from double helices to single helix, which indicated the formation of the complex.

A micromechanical model for efective conductivity in granular electrode structures

Optimization of composition and microstructure is important to enhance performance of solid oxide fuel cells （SOFC） and lithium-ion batteries （LIB）. For this, the porous electrode structures of both SOFC and LIB are modeled as a binary mixture of electronic and ionic conducting particles to estimate effective transport properties. Particle packings of 10000 spherical, binary sized and randomly positioned particles are created numerically and densified considering the different manufacturing processes in SOFC and LIB： the sintering of SOFC electrodes is approximated geometrically, whereas the calendering process and volume change due to intercalation in LIB are modeled physically by a discrete el- ement approach. A combination of a tracking algorithm and a resistor network approach is developed to predict the con- nectivity and effective conductivity for the various densified structures. For SOFC, a systematic study of the influence of morphology on connectivity and conductivity is performed on a large number of assemblies with different compositions and particle size ratios between 1 and 10. In comparison to percolation theory, an enlarged percolation area is found, es- pecially for large size ratios. It is shown that in contrast to former studies the percolation threshold correlates to varying coordination numbers. The effective conductivity shows not only an increase with volume fraction as expected but also with size ratio. For LIB, a general increase of conductivity during the intercalation process was observed in correlation with increasing contact forces. The positive influence of cal- endering on the percolation threshold and the effective conductivity of carbon black is shown. The anisotropy caused by the calendering process does not influence the carbon black phase.

The rough representation and measurement of quotient structure in algebraic quotient space model

Granular computing is a very hot research field in recent years. In our previous work an algebraic quotient space model was proposed,where the quotient structure could not be deduced if the granulation was based on an equivalence relation. In this paper,definitions were given and formulas of the lower quotient congruence and upper quotient congruence were calculated to roughly represent the quotient structure. Then the accuracy and roughness were defined to measure the quotient structure in quantification. Finally,a numerical example was given to demonstrate that the rough representation and measuring methods are efficient and applicable. The work has greatly enriched the algebraic quotient space model and granular computing theory.

Extension of Rough Set on Granular Structures and Axiomatic Characterizations

In granular computing granular structures represent knowledge on universe,in this paper several important granular structures are considered.In a general granular structure the notions of interior point, accumulation point and boundary point etc are proposed,by use of these notions and referring to topological method,the lower and upper approximations of a subset of universe are defined such that they are one kind of generalization of the existing approximations based on some special granular structure.Basic properties of new rough set approximations are investigated.Furthermore,granular structures on universe are characterized by the lower and upper approximation operators.

Additivity of pore structural parameters of granular activated carbons derived from different coals and their blends

A series of granular activated carbons （GACs） were prepared by briquetting method from Chinese coals of different ranks and their blends, with coal pitch as the binder. Pore structural parameters including BET specific surface area （SBEr）, total pore volume （Vr） and average pore diameter （da） were measured and cal- culated as well as process parameters such as yield of char （CY） and burn-off （B）. The relationship between the pore structural parameters of the GAC from coal blend （BC-GAC） and the ones of the GACs from corresponding single coals （SC-GACs） was analyzed, in which an index, the relative error （δ）, was presented to define the bias between fitted values and experimental values of these parameters of the BC-GACs. The results show that the BC-GAC keeps qualitatively the pore structural features of the SC-GACs; as concerned as the quantitative relationship, the pore structural parameters of the BC-GAC from coal blend consisting of non-caking coals can be obtained by adding proportionally the pore structural parameters of the SC-GACs with a less than 10%. Meanwhile, for the BC-GAC from coal blend containing weak caking bituminous coal, the δ increases up to 25% and the experimental pore size distribution differs greatly from the fitted one.

Storage and Subsequent Reactivation of Phosphate-Accumulating Aerobic Granules

Phosphate-accumulating aerobic granules cultivated in a sequencing batch reactor were composed of inner rod-shaped bacteria aggregates and outer twining filamentous bacteria. The influence of two-month storage under dif- ferent conditions on the storage and subsequent reactivation performance of aerobic granules was investigated. After two-month storage the granules sealed at 4 ~C in distilled water or normal saline （named granules A and granules B, respectively） could maintain their characteristics as before, while the granules idled in the reactor at room temperature （named granules C） exhibited decreased properties. During reactivation, granules A and granules B presented almost identical recovery performance, faster than granules C, in terms of phosphorus removal efficiency, mixed liquor sus- pended solids （MLSS）, phosphate release and accumulating ability. The results suggest that hermetical storage at low temperature promoted the maintenance of the granular properties and the reviving behaviors of phosphateaccumulating aerobic granules, and storage medium had little influence on the storage and recovery perfomlance.

Effect of number of granulometric fractions on structure and micromechanics of compressed granular packings

The role of number of grain size fractions on structural and mechanical properties of uniaxially com- pressed granular packings with a uniform particle size distribution in terms of number of particles and with various particle size dispersities was studied using the discrete element method. The study addressed packing density, coordination number, contact forces, global stress, and energy dissipation in assemblies composed of frictional spheres. Packing density was found to change with increasing num- ber of granulometric fractions in mixtures with a small ratio of the diameters of the largest to smallest particles. Results indicated a certain value of particle size ratio below which the number of particle size fractions strongly affected packing density. The average coordination number decreased with increasing number of fractions. Detailed analysis of the effect of particle size dispersity on mechanical coordination number, including particles with no less than four contacts, revealed that, contrary to the average coordi- nation number, the mechanical coordination number increased with increasing ratio of the diameters of the largest to smallest particles in the sample. The composition of polydisperse samples strongly affected stress distribution and energy dissipation in granular packings.

Rapid aerobic granulation in an SBR treating piggery wastewater by seeding sludge from a municipal WWTP

Aerobic sludge granulation was rapidly obtained in the erlenmeyer bottle and sequencing batch reactor（SBR） using piggery wastewater.Aerobic granulation occurred on day 3 and granules with mean diameter of 0.2 mm and SVI_（30） of 20.3 mL/g formed in SBR on day 18.High concentrations of Ca and Fe in the raw piggery wastewater and operating mode accelerated aerobic granulation,even though the seed sludge was from a municipal wastewater treatment plant（WWTP）.Alpha diversity analysis revealed Operational Taxonomic Units,Shannon,ACE and Chao 1 indexes in aerobic granules were 2013,5.51,4665.5 and 3734.5,which were obviously lower compared to seed sludge.The percentages of major microbial communities,such as Protect）acteria,Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were obviously higher in aerobic granules than seed sludge.Chlorqflexi,Planctomycetes,Actinobactena,TM7 and Aridobacteria showed much higher abundances in the inoculum.The main reasons might be the characteristics of raw piggery wastewater and granule structure.