Improved length of calcium sulfate crystal seeds and whiskers via ball milling and hydration treatment

Elucidating the effect of growth periods on the quality of calcium sulfate whiskers(CSWs)prepared from calcium sulfate dihydrate(DH)is imperative.Herein,crystal seeds and whiskers were prepared from DH in a water–glycerol system.Longer whiskers were obtained from crystal seeds prepared via hydration of DH for 30 s than via ball milling for 5 min followed by hydration for 20 s.The attachment of cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide and glycerol additives to the whisker tops promoted whisker growth.The whisker sponges exhibited good thermal barrier properties and compression cycle stability.

Role of Crystal Seed in Aluminum Hydroxide Crystallization from Ammonia System with Added NH_(4)Al(SO_(4))_(2)·12H_(2)O

A method to promote aluminum hydroxide crystal growth through pickling Al(OH)_(3)as seed in the ammonia system was proposed to overcome these defects.The experimental results show that,under the conditions of pickling time of 15 min,the acid concentration of 10%,the addition of 70 g/L pickling-Al(OH)_(3)seed,and the coarse granular Al(OH)_(3)products(d0.5=85.667)can be obtained.The characterization results show that the phase of the product is gibbsite,consistent with the seed.Moreover,the steps and ledges can be formed on pickling Al(OH)_(3)seed surface under the ammonia system,effectively promoting crystal growth.During crystal growth,the roughness of the crystal surface was first increased and then decreased,and the lamellar structure was deposited on the crystal seed surface.The final particles are approximately round,the surface is compact and dense.The growth of the product is surface reaction controlled.In addition,the content of the AlO_(6)unit is increased and contributed to Al(OH)_(3)crystal growth.

Experimental Study on Preparation of Natural Gas Hydrate by Crystallization

In this paper, the saturated solution crystallization method is proposed to promote the formation of hydrate by means of the known similarities between the hydrate formation process and the crystallization process. In this method,adding the second phase crystals was used to replace the spontaneous formation of hydrate crystal nuclei to form hydrate.The effects of saturated Na_2SO_4, MgSO_4, NH_4HCO_3 and CuSO_4 solutions on the formation rates of natural gas hydrate and gas storage capacity were investigated. The results showed that the saturated solution had an influence on the hydrate formation process. Under the given experimental conditions, the saturated Na_2SO_4 solution showed a highest increase in the hydrate formation rate, and the average hydrate formation rate in its presence was 11.8 times higher than that obtained in the deionized water. Moreover, the largest formation rate of gas hydrates observed in the saturated Na_2SO_4 solution was 386 times bigger than that in the deionized water, and the gas storage capacity increased by 10 times. In addition, the average hydrate formation rate in the saturated Mg SO_4 solution was faster than that in water by 20 times. The largest formation rate of gas hydrates in the saturated MgSO_4 solution was 165 times faster than that obtained in the deionized water, and the gas storage capacity increased by 6.2 times. The saturated NH_4HCO_3 and saturated CuSO_4 solutions also influenced the formation process of hydrate. Therefore, the crystallization method of saturated solution can be used to achieve a highefficiency preparation of natural gas hydrates, which provides theoretical guidance for the storage of natural gas in the form of hydrate.

The Early Strength of Slag Cements with Addition of Hydrate Microcrystals

The effect of hydrate microcrystals such as calcium silicate hydrates ( CSH) and ettringite on the early strength of slag cements was studied. The authors explored the possibility of improving the early strength of the slag cement by applying crystal seed technology. It is shown that slag crystal seeds make the early strength of the cement increased due to the action of hydrate crystal seeds , which speed up the hydration of clinker minerals in the nucleation of ettringite. Therefore, the early strength of the slag cement is obviously improved.

Synthesis of YAG∶Ce^(3+) Phosphor by Polyacrylamide Gel Method and Promoting Action of α-Al_2O_3 Seed Crystal on Phase Formation

YAG： Ce^3 ＋ phosphor particles were prepared using polyacrylamide gel method. The structure evolution of powders during annealing process was followed by X-ray diffraction determination. It is found that some intermediate phases, including θ-Al2O3, YAM and YAP, are formed when calcining polyacrylamide gel, however, the pure YAG phase can be formed directly when calcining polyacrylamide gel with α-Al2O3 as seed crystal. These facts show that the existence of α- Al2O3 seed crystal can block the formation of θ-Al2O3, YAM and YAP, and accelerate its reaction with Y2O3 to form YAG phase directly at lower temperature. The emission peak of prepared YAG ： Ce^3 ＋ phosphor is wide with maximum at 550 nm and the exitation band has two peaks, the major one is around at 460 nm, which matches the blue emission of GaN LED and is suitable for the assemble of white LED. Some fluxes can enhance the photoluminescence intensity of phosphor particles, that can be attributed both to the improvement of crystallization processes of YAG and to the stabilization of trivalence cerium ion in YAG：Ce^3 ＋.

Polycrystalline ZSM-5 Aggregates Induced by Seed and Catalytic Performance in Methanol to Hydrocarbon

Synthesis of ZSM-5 zeolite typically utilizes small molecule polyamines or quaternary ammonium salts as organic structure guiding agent(OSDA).By contrast,the OSDA-free hydrothermal synthesis system eliminates the use of organic templates and the subsequent calcination procedure.This not only reduces the cost of synthesis,but also prevents environmental pollution from the combustion of organic templates,representing an eco-friendly approach.Despite this,literature suggests that even so-called template-free synthesis systems often involve trace amount of organic substances like alcohol.In the present work,a calcined commercial ZSM-5 zeolite was served as seed,with sodium aluminate as aluminum source and silica sol as silicon source,ensuring an entirely template-free synthesis system.Polycrystalline ZSM-5 aggregates consisted of rod-like nanocrystals were successfully prepared in the completely OSDA-free system.Effects of the Si/Al ratio in ZSM-5 seed,dosage and crystallization conditions such as crystallization temperature and crystallization time on ZSM-5 synthesis were investigated.The results show that a highly crystallinity ZSM-5 aggregate consisting of primary nano-sized crystals less than 100 nm is produced from a gel precursor with 5.6%(in mass)seed after hydrothermal treatment for 48 h.Furthermore,the Si/Al ratio in ZSM-5 seed has little effect on the topological structure and pore structure of the synthesized samples.However,the seeds with a low Si/Al ratio facilitate faster crystallization of zeolite and enhance the acidity,especially the strong acid centers,of the catalyst.The catalytic performance of the synthesized polycrystalline ZSM-5 was evaluated during dehydration of methanol and compared with a commercial reference ZSM-5r.The results exhibit that as compared with the reference catalyst,the fabricated sample has a longer catalytic lifetime(16 h vs 8 h)attributed to its hierarchical pores derived from the loosely packed primary nanoparticles.Additionally,the prepared polycrystalline catalyst also exhibits a higher aromatics selectivity(28.1%-29.8%vs 26.5%).

Hydration of Activated Anhydrate Phosphogypsum

Phosphogypsum（PG） calcined at 500 ℃ was activated by K2SO4 and salt lime with loose structure as seed crystal. To determine the effect of activation, hydration of the anhydrate PG activated was investigated by examination of the setting time, the proportion of hydrated anhydrate PG, the microstructure of the hardenite and the resistance to water. Results show that activated anhydrate PG hydrates much more rapidly than that in the absence of activators. The activated anhydrate PG has proper setting time and hydrated proportion. The resistance to water was greatly improved. SEM photos show that the set activated PG has hydrated products of rod-like and closely connected crystals. The different addition of activator leads to different compact structure.

Optimization of rare earth carbonate reactive-crystallization process based on response surface method

Rare earth carbonate precipitation is mainly amorphous,of large volume and difficult to filter.To prepare crystalline rare earth carbonate,mother liquor of heavy rare earth was taken as research object,and the experimental scheme was designed based on the response surface central composite design(CCD)method.The concentration of mother liquor,aging time and seed crystal dosage were taken as independent variables,and the particle size of rare earth carbonate was taken as the response value to establish a quadratic polynomial numerical model to optimize the reactive-crystallization process of rare earth carbonate.The results show that these three factors have significant effect on the particle size of rare earth carbonate,and the influence order is mother liquid concentration>aging time>seed crystal dosage.Moreover,the interaction between mother liquor concentration and seed crystal dosage has a significant effect on the size of rare earth carbonate particles.The optimal parameters predicted by the model are as follows:the concentration of mother liquid is 1.75 g/L,seed crystal dosage is 13.56 wt%,and aging time is 8 h.Under these conditions,the predicted particle size is 28.74μm,and the experiment particle size is 28.23μm,between both,the relative error is 0.73%,which indicates that the established response surface model has a good prediction effect and a certain practical significance to guide the reactive-crystallization process of rare earth carbonate.The obtained rare earth carbonate has a crystallinity of 97.82%,uniform particles size,and low-hydrated crystals with a tengerite structure.