Particle Size Distribution,Powder Agglomerates and Their Effects on Sinterability of Ultrafine Alumina Powders

An intensive study of the particle size distribution of four commercial ultrafine alumina powders to obtain information about the powder agglomeration and relate them to the compactibility and the sinterability has been made.

Analysis of the Agglomeration of Powder in a Coaxial Powder Feeding Nozzle Used for Laser Energy Deposition

To improve the agglomeration of powder in a coaxial powder feeding nozzle used in the frame of a laser energy deposition technique,the influence of several parameters must be carefully assessed.In the present study the problem is addressed by means of numerical simulations based on a DEM-CFD(Discrete Element Method and Discrete Element Method)coupled model.The influence of the powder flow concentration,powder flow focal length and the amount of powder at the nozzle outlet on the rate of convergence of the powder flow is considered.The role played by the nozzle outlet width,the angle between the inner and outer walls and the powder incident angle in determining the powder flow concentration is also considered.The results show that,with increasing of nozzle outlet width,the powder flow concentration per unit volume at the nozzle focal point undergoes a non-monotonic behaviour(it first increases and then decreases).When the nozzle outlet widthδis 1.00 mm,the powder flow concentration at the focal point is maximal and the powder flow convergence can be considered optimal.By increasing the angle between the inner and outer walls,the powder flow concentration related to the upper focus decreases,the focus diameter increases and the powder flow aggregation worsens.The powder flow concentration increases first and then decreases with increasing incident angle.When the incident angleθis 30°,the powder flow exhibits the best agglomeration properties.When the outlet width is smaller,the angle between the inner and outer walls is larger,and when the incident angle is set at 30°,the powder flow concentration of the coaxial nozzle can be effectively improved.

D.C.Plasma-Sprayed Coatings of Nanostructured Alumina-Titania-Silica

Nanocrystalline powders of w(Al2O3)=95%, w(TiO2)=3%, and w(SiO2)=2%, were reprocessed into agglomerated particles for plasma spraying, by using consecutive steps of ball milling, slurry forming, spray drying, and heat treatment. D. C. plasma was used to spray the agglomerated nanocrystalline powders, and resultant coatings were deposited on the substrate of stainless steel. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to examine the morphology of the agglomerated powders and the cross section of the alumina-titania-silica coatings. Exper-imental results show that the agglomerated nanocrystalline particles are spherical, with a size from (10 - 90)μm. The flow ability of the nanocrystalline powders is greatly improved after the reprocessing. The coatings deposited by the plasma spraying are mainly of nanostructure. Unlike conventional plasma-sprayed coatings, no laminar layer could be found in the nanostructured coatings. Although the nanostructured coatings have a lower microhardness than conventional microstructured coatings, the toughness of the nanostructured ceramic coatings is significantly improved.

CO2 gas sensors based on Yb1-xCaxFeO3 nanocrystalline powders

In this study, the Yb（1-x）CaxFeO3（0≤x≤0.3） nanocrystalline powders were prepared by sol-gel method. We used the method of quantitative analysis to research the gas-sensitive properties for Yb（1-x）CaxFeO3 to CO2. Also, we investigated the effects of various factors on gas sensing properties by simple variable method. The doping of Ca could not only decrease the resistance of YbFeO3, but also enhance its sensitivity to CO2. When the Ca content x=0.2, Yb（1-x）CaxFeO3 showed the best response to CO2. The response Rg/Ra to 5000 ppm CO2 for Yb（0.8）Ca（0.2）FeO3 at its optimal temperature of 260 °C with the room temperature humidity of 28%RH was 1.85. The response and recovery time decreased with an increase of the operating temperature for Yb（0.8）Ca（0.2）FeO3 sensor to 5000 ppm CO2. Furthermore, with an increase of CO2 concentration from 1000 to 50000 ppm, the response time of Yb（0.8）Ca（0.2）FeO3 became shorter, and meanwhile the recovery time was longer. CO2-sensing response for Yb（0.8）Ca（0.2）FeO3 increased with the increase of relative humidity. The response for Yb（0.8）Ca（0.2）FeO3 in the background of air（with the room temperature humidity of 39%RH） at 260 °C could reach 2.012 to 5000 ppm CO2, which was larger than the corresponding value（1.16） in dry air.

MULTI-SCALE AGGREGATION OF PARTICLES IN GAS-SOLIDS FLUIDIZED BEDS

The multi-scale characteristics of clusters in a fast fluidized bed and of agglomerates in a fluidized bed of cohesive particles are discussed on the basis of large amounts of experiments. The cluster size and concentration are dominated by the local voidage of the bed. A cluster consists of many sub-clusters with different sizes and discrete par-ticles, and the sub-cluster size probability density distribution appears as a negative exponential function. The agglom-erates in a fluidized bed of cohesive particles also possess the multi-scale nature. The large agglomerates form a fixed bed at the bottom, the medium agglomerates are fluidized in the middle, and the small agglomerates and discrete parti-cles become the dilute-phase region in the upper part of the bed. The agglomerate size is mainly affected by cohesive forces and gas velocity. The present models for predicting the size of clusters and agglomerates can not tackle the in-trinsic mechanism of the multi-scale aggregation, and a challenging problem for establishing mechanistic model is put forward.