A black nickel oxide powder, one of the commercial nickel oxide ores, was reduced by hydrogen gas in a batchtype fluidized-bed reactor in a temperature range of 350 to 500 oC and in a residence time range of 5 to 120 min. The hydrogen reduction behavior of the black nickel oxide was found to be somewhat different from that of green nickel oxide ore. For the black nickel oxide, the maximum temperature (below which nickel oxide particles can be reduced without any agglomeration) was significantly lower than that observed for the green nickel oxide. In addition, the best curve fittings of the Avrami model were obtained at higher values of the overall rate constant “k” and at lower values of the exponent “m”, compared to those values for the green nickel oxide. It may be inferred from these results that the hydrogen reduction rate of the black nickel oxide is faster than that of the green nickel oxide in the early stages, but the situation reverses in the later stages. For the black nickel oxide ore, in spite of the low temperature sintering, it was possible to achieve a high degree fluidized-bed reduction at lower temperatures and at lower gas consumption rates than was possible for the green nickel oxide. In this regard, the use of black nickel oxide is expected to yield a benefit if its ore price is sufficiently lower than that of the green nickel oxide.
To establish low-temperature process conditions, process-property correlation has been investigated for Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) thin films deposited by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering. Thickness of GZO films and deposition temperature were varied from 50 to 500 nm and from room temperature to 250 oC, respectively. Electrical properties of the GZO films initially improved with increase of temperature to 150 oC, but deteriorated subsequently with further increase of the temperature. At lower temperatures, the electrical properties improved with increasing thickness; however, at higher temperatures, increasing thickness resulted in deteriorated electrical properties. Such changes in electrical properties were correlated to the microstructural evolution, which is dependent on the deposition temperature and the film thickness. While the GZO films had c-axis preferred orientation due to preferred nucleation, structural disordering with increasing deposition temperature and film thickness promoted grain growth with a-axis orientation. Consequently, it was possible to obtain a good electrical property at relatively low deposition temperature with small thickness.
Recently, there have been many efforts to establish suitable processes for recycling fly ash, which is produced in thermal power plants and which poses serious environmental problems. Use of fly ash as a major ingredient of ceramic tiles can increase fly ash utilization, as well as reduce the cost of raw materials in ceramic tile production. In this study, the effects of fly ash addition on ceramic tile properties such as bending strength, water absorption and porosity were investigated. A manufacturing process of ceramic tile was developed for utilization of fly ash with high carbon content. In this approach, it is important to hold the ceramic tiles at a temperature that is sufficient for carbon oxidation, before the pores supplying oxygen to the inside of the ceramic tile are sealed. Ceramic wall tiles were manufactured with 0-40wt% of fly ash addition. The water absorption and porosity of the fired body were slightly changed with increasing fly ash content up to 30wt% and decreased with greater amounts of fly ash addition. The bending strength of ceramic tile including 10wt% fly ash increased, reaching a level comparable to that of ceramic tile without fly ash.
Ink-jet printing techniques with ceramic ink, which contains ceramic pigments as colorant, are in increasingly use in the ceramic industry. Generally, ceramic pigments that are produced by conventional method show diameters of several micrometers; these micrometer sized particles in the ink-jet printing process can cause undesirable behavior such as print head nozzle clogging. To prevent this problem, a particle size reduction process is required. In this study, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) pigments were synthesized via solid state method. Each pigment particle was milled to submicron size by an attrition mill. The effects of micronizing on the morphology, mechanical property, crystal structure and color property of the CMYK ceramic pigments were investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), particle size analysis (PSA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and CIE L*a*b*.
A thin film thermoelectric generator that consisted of 5 p/n pairs was fabricated with 1 μm-thick n-type In3Sb1Te2 and p-type Ge2Sb2Te5 deposited via radio frequency magnetron sputtering. First, 1 μm-thick GST and IST thin films were deposited at 250 oC and room temperature, respectively, via radio-frequency sputtering; these films were annealed from 250 to 450 oC via rapid thermal annealing. The optimal power factor was found at an annealing temperature of 400 oC for 10 min. To demonstrate thermoelectric generation, we measured the output voltage and estimated the maximum power of the n-IST/ p-GST generator by imposing a temperature difference between the hot and cold junctions. The maximum output voltage and the estimated maximum power of the 1 μm-thick n-IST/p-GST TE generators are approximately 17.1 mV and 5.1 nW at ΔT = 12K, respectively.
Dinickel-silicide (Ni2Si)/glass was employed as a counter electrode for a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) device. Ni2Si was formed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at 700 oC for 15 seconds of a 50 nm-Ni/50 nm-Si/glass structure. For comparison, Ni2Si on quartz was also prepared through conventional electric furnace annealing (CEA) at 800 oC for 30 minutes. XRD, XPS, and EDS line scanning of TEM were used to confirm the formation of Ni2Si. TEM and CV were employed to confirm the microstructure and catalytic activity. Photovoltaic properties were examined using a solar simulator and potentiostat. XRD, XPS, and EDS line scanning results showed that both CEA and RTA successfully led to tne formation of nano thick- Ni2Si phase. The catalytic activity of CEA-Ni2Si and RTA-Ni2Si with respect to Pt were 68 % and 56 %. Energy conversion efficiencies (ECEs) of DSSCs with CEA-Ni2Si and RTA-Ni2Si catalysts were 3.66 % and 3.16 %, respectively. Our results imply that nano-thick Ni2Si may be used to replace Pt as a reduction catalytic layer for a DSSCs. Moreover, we show that nanothick Ni2Si can be made available on a low-cost glass substrate via the RTA process.
Nanosized and aggregated Y2O3:Eu Red phosphors were prepared by template method from metal salt impregnated into crystalline cellulose. The particle size and photoluminescent property of Y2O3:Eu red phosphors were controlled by variation of the calcination temperature and time. Dispersed nanosol was also obtained from the aggregated Y2O3:Eu Red phosphor under bead mill wet process. The dispersion property of the Y2O3:Eu nanosol was optimized by controlling the bead size, bead content ratio and milling time. The median particle size (D50) of Y2O3:Eu nanosol was found to be around 100 nm, and to be below 90 nm after centrifuging. In spite of the low photoluminescent properties of Y2O3:Eu nanosol, it was observed that the photoluminescent property recovered after re-calcination. The dispersion and photoluminescent properties of Y2O3:Eu nanosol were investigated using a particle size analyzer, FE-SEM, and a fluorescence spectrometer.
The BCBJ (Back Contact and Back Junction) or back-lit solar cell design eliminates shading loss by placing the pn junction and metal electrode contacts all on one side that faces away from the sun. However, as the electron-hole generation sites now are located very far from the pn junction, loss by minority-carrier recombination can be a significant issue. Utilizing Medici, a 2-dimensional semiconductor device simulation tool, the interdependency between the substrate thickness and the minority-carrier recombination lifetime was studied in terms of how these factors affect the solar cell power output. Qualitatively speaking, the results indicate that a very high quality substrate with a long recombination lifetime is needed to maintain the maximum power generation. The quantitative value of the recombination lifetime of minority-carriers, i.e., electrons in p-type substrates, required in the BCBJ cell is about one order of magnitude longer than that in the front-lit cell, i.e., 5 × 10−4 sec vs. 5 × 10−5 sec. Regardless of substrate thickness up to 150 μm, the power output in the BCBJ cell stays at nearly the maximum value of about 1.8 × 10−2 W·cm−2, or 18 mW·cm−2, as long as the recombination lifetime is 5 × 10−4 s or longer. The output power, however, declines steeply to as low as 10 mW·cm−2 when the recombination lifetime becomes significantly shorter than 5 × 10−4 sec. Substrate thinning is found to be not as effective as in the front-lit case in stemming the decline in the output power. In view of these results, for BCBJ applications, the substrate needs to be only mono-crystalline Si of very high quality. This bars the use of poly-crystalline Si, which is gaining wider acceptance in standard front-lit solar cells.
Natural and expandable graphites were chemically treated in acidic aqueous solutions such as acetic acid or mixtures of acetic acid and nitric acid. Structures and thermal conductivities of the as-treated graphites were characterized in detail. Both graphites were significantly oxidized in the mixed acidic solution of H2SO4 and HNO3, which condition was generally used for the oxidation of carbon nanotubes. This considerable oxidation of graphites caused a depression of their thermal conductivity. The structural characteristics, obtained by XRD and XPS, show that the graphites treated in the relatively weak acidic conditions (acetic acid or mixture of acetic acid and nitric acid) were quite similar to the untreated graphites. However, the thermal conductivities of both acidic-treated graphites were remarkably increased.
WC-CrC-Ni coatings were prepared by nine processes of the Taguchi program with three levels for the four spray parameters: spray distance, flow rates of hydrogen and oxygen, and powder feed rate. The optimal coating process (OCP) was oxygen flow rate of 38 FMR, hydrogen flow rate of 53 FMR, powder feed rate of 25 g/min, and spray distance of 7 inches. Hardness of 1150 Hv and porosity of 1.2 %, were obtained by OCP; these are better results compared with the highest 1033 Hv and the lowest 1.5% porosity obtained by nine processes of the Taguchi program. Friction coefficient of the WC-CrC-Ni coating decreased from 0.36 ± 0.07 at 25 oC to 0.23 ± 0.07 at 450 oC. These values were smaller than those of the EHC (electrolytic hard chrome) plating at both temperatures due to lubrication from the oxide debris. The wear trace and wear depth of the coating are smaller than those of the EHC at both temperatures. Pitting was not found in the WC-CrC-Ni coating sample, while it did appear in the EHC sample.