The various stages and progress in the development of interconnect materials for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) over the last two decades are reviewed. The criteria for the application of materials as interconnects are highlighted. In-terconnects based on lanthanum chromite ceramics demonstrate many inherent drawbacks and therefore are only useful for SOFCs operating around 1000 °C. The advance in the research of anode-supported flat SOFCs facilitates the replacement of ceramic interconnects with metallic ones due to their significantly lowered working temperature. Besides, interconnects made of metals or alloys offer many advantages as compared to their ceramic counterpart. The oxidation response and thermal expansion behaviors of various prospective metallic interconnects are examined and evaluated. The minimization of contact resistance to achieve desired and reliable stack performance during their projected lifetime still remains a highly challenging issue with metallic interconnects. Inexpensive coating materials and techniques may play a key role in pro-moting the commercialization of SOFC stack whose interconnects are constructed of some current commercially available alloys. Alternatively, development of new metallic materials that are capable of forming stable oxide scales with sluggish growth rate and sufficient electrical conductivity is called for.

Nanostructures enhance phonon scattering and improve the figure of merit of thermoelectric materials. Nanosized CoSb₃ skutterudite was synthesized by solvothermal methods using CoCl₂ and SbCl₃ as the precursors. A “two-step” model was suggested for the formation of CoSb₃ based on the X-ray diffraction analysis. The first step is the formation of cobalt diantimonide in the earlier stage during the synthesis process. Diantimonide was then combined with antimony atoms to form the skutterudite structured triantimonide, CoSb3, in the later stage of the synthesis process as the second step. The synthesized CoSb₃ powders consist of irregular particles with sizes of about 20 nm and sheets of about 80 nm.

The metallo-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique has been applied to the preparation of the photocatalyst titanium dioxide supported on activated carbon. The effects of various condition parameters such as carrier gas flow rate, source temperature and deposition temperature on the deposition rate were investigated. The maximum deposition rate of 8.2 mg/(g·h) was obtained under conditions of carrier gas flow rate of 400 ml/min, source temperature of 423 K and deposition temperature of 913 K. The deposition rate followed Arrhenius behavior at temperature of 753 K to 913 K, corresponding to activation energy E_a of 51.09 kJ/mol. TiO₂ existed only in anatase phase when the deposition temperature was 773 K to 973 K. With increase of deposition temperature from 1073 K to 1273 K, the rutile content sharply increased from 7% to 70%. It was found that a deposition temperature of 773 K and a higher source temperature of 448 K resulted in finely dispersed TiO₂ particles, which were mainly in the range of 10~20 nm.

Carcinogenic and mutagenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) generated in coal combustion have caused great environmental health concern. Seventeen PAHs (16 high priority PAHs recommended by USEPA plus Benzo[e]pyrene) present in five raw bituminous coals and released during bituminous coal combustion were studied. The effects of combustion temperature, gas atmosphere, and chlorine content of raw coal on PAHs formation were investigated. Two additives (copper and cupric oxide) were added when the coal was burned. The results indicated that significant quantities of PAHs were produced from incomplete combustion of coal pyrolysis products at high temperature, and that temperature is an important causative factor of PAHs formation. PAHs concentrations decrease with the increase of chlorine content in oxygen or in nitrogen atmosphere. Copper and cupric oxide additives can promote PAHs formation (especially the multi-ring PAHs) during coal combustion.

The production of elastase by Bacillus sp. EL31410 at various temperatures was investigated. In order to study the effect of temperature on elastase fermentation, different cultivation temperatures, ranging from 39 °C to 28 °C, were evaluated in shake flask. The result indicated that 37 °C was best for cell growth at earlier stage; while maximum elastase activity was obtained when the cells were cultivated at 30 °C. This result was verified by batch fermentation in 5-L bioreactor under 37 °C and 30 °C temperature, respectively. The specific cell growth rate at 37 °C was higher than that at 30 °C during earlier stage of cultivation. The maximum value [5.5 U/(h·g DCW)] of elastase formation rate occurred at 24 h at 30 °C compared to 4.6 U/(h·g DCW) at 30 h at 37 °C. Based on these results, two-stage temperature shift strategy and oscillatory temperature cultivation mode were evaluated in the next study. When compared to single temperature of 37 °C or 30 °C, both two-stage temperature shift strategy and oscillatory temperature strategy improved biomass but did not yield the same result as expected for elastase production. The maximum biomass (both 8.6 g/L) was achieved at 30 h at 37 °C, but at 42 h using two-stage temperature cultivation strategy. The highest elastase production (652 U/ml) was observed at 30 °C in batch process. It was concluded that cultivation at constant temperature of 30 °C was appropriate for elastase production by Bacillus sp. EL31410.

This study reports research on pesticide suspension rheology and a new rheological parameter, the relative value of approach, which has great advantage for judging the physical stability of a pesticide suspension concentrate. Experiments showed that the system can form stable dispersions when the value of the relative value of approach (Sr) is less than 0.1.

This paper describes an innovative method for the immobilization of acylase I, which was entrapped into the CA-CTA micropore membrane. The most suitable casting solutions proportion for immobilizing the enzyme was obtained through orthogonal experiment. Properties of the enzyme membrane were investigated and compared with those of free enzyme and blank membrane. The thermal stability and pH stability of the enzyme inside the membrane were changed by immobilization. The optimum pH was found to be 6.0, which changes 1.0 unit compared with that of free acylase I. The optimum temperature was found to be about 90 °C, which is higher than that of free acylase I (60 °C). Experimental results showed that immobilization had effects on the kinetic parameters of acylase I.

The novel method of improving the quality metric of protein microarray image presented in this paper reduces impulse noise by using an adaptive median filter that employs the switching scheme based on local statistics characters; and achieves the impulse detection by using the difference between the standard deviation of the pixels within the filter window and the current pixel of concern. It also uses a top-hat filter to correct the background variation. In order to decrease time consumption, the top-hat filter core is cross structure. The experimental results showed that, for a protein microarray image contaminated by impulse noise and with slow background variation, the new method can significantly increase the sig-nal-to-noise ratio, correct the trends in the background, and enhance the flatness of the background, the consistency of the signal intensity.