This study successfully prepared high-porosity aluminosilicate fibrous porous ceramics through vacuum suction filtration using aluminosilicate fiber as the primary raw material and glass powder as binder, with the appropriate incorporation of glass fiber. The effects of the composition of raw materials and sintering process on the structure and properties of the material were studied. The results show that when the content of glass powder reached 20 wt% and the samples were sintered at the temperature of 1,000 °C, strong bonds were formed between the binder phase and fibers, resulting in a compressive strength of 0.63 MPa. When the sintering temperatures were increased from 1,000 °C to 1,200, the open porosity of the samples decreased from 89.08 % to 82.38 %, while the linear shrinkage increased from 1.13 % to 10.17 %. Meanwhile, during the sintering process, a large amount of cristobalite and mullite were precipitated from the aluminosilicate fibers, which reduced the performance of the aluminosilicate fibers and hindered the comprehensive improvement in sample performance. Based on these conditions, after adding 30 wt% glass fiber and being sintered at 1,000 °C, the sample exhibited higher compressive strength (1.34 MPa), higher open porosity (89.13 %), and lower linear shrinkage (5.26 %). The aluminosilicate fibrous porous ceramic samples exhibited excellent permeability performance due to their high porosity and interconnected three-dimensional pore structures. When the samples were filtered at a flow rate of 150 mL/min, the measured pressure drop and permeability were 0.56 KPa and 0.77 × 10-6 m2 respectively.

In the past half century, production of major food crops in the world has kept pace with the population increase. The yields of major cereals such as maize, rice and wheat have been more than doubled in most parts of the world and even tripled in certain countries. However, food production is facing even greater challenges in the next half century because of high demands in both quantity and quality, and ever increasing pressures on resources and environments. At the same time, advances in genomics, biotechnology and genetic studies have brought about unprecedented opportunities for crop genetic improvement. Rice is a major food crop feeding approximately half of the world’s population, and has provided a model system for cereal research. In my presentation, I will describe the demands for increased production for future needs, address the main issues that we have encountered as challenges, present current progress in rice functional genomics research, and provide prospect on how the advance in research can be translated into technologies and activities for rice genetic improvement.