Monodispersed five-fold twinned gold (Au) nanocrystals (NCs) with a pentagon (Pg) morphology exclusively bounded by {110} facets have been prepared through a PVP-assisted seed-mediated growth in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). Low water concentration, low reaction temperature and existence of DMF have been confirmed to play important roles in achieving the {110}-facet-bounded Au Pg NCs. A possible evolution process from Au decahedron (Dh), via {110}-facet-truncated decahedron (TD), {110}-facet-heavily-truncated decahedron (HTD) and pentagonal star (PS) to final Pg has been suggested to understand the formation of the Pg Au nanocrystals in the DMF reaction system.

A decarburization protective coating was fabricated onto spring steel by using bauxite with functional additives. Metalloscope, XRD, and TG-DTA thermal analysis revealed that, at <1050 °C, the depth of the ferrite layer of the coated specimen decreased because of the shield effect and carbon concentration of the coating. The protective effect increased to 100% above 1050 °C, because Na2Al6P2O15 formed by the sintering process pulled the solid phase closer and filled the void through wetting power and surface tension between the liquid and solid phases and made the coating more compact.

A protective SiO2–Al2O3–Na2O glass-based coating for slab reheating application was deposited on AISI 304 stainless steel by air spraying, and its effect on high-temperature oxidation behavior of AISI 304 was investigated. Isothermal oxidation of bare and coated specimens was carried out at 1250°C in air. The results showed that the glass coating could markedly decrease weight gain of AISI 304 by 91.7% after exposure of 9 h, minimize high-temperature scaling, and enhance steel surface quality. The protective effect is attributed to the formation of molten glass layer on steel surface at high temperature, which acts as an effective oxygen diffusion barrier. This glass-based protective coating by low-cost and easily handling method is potentially applicable in a slab reheating process.

A series of sorbents for flue gas SO2 scrubbing have been prepared from hydrated lime (HL) and blast furnace slag (BFS) with the factorial experiment design method. The sorbents were characterized and tested for SO2 reactivity in a differential fixed-bed reactor. It was found that, due to the formation of calcium silicate hydrates (CSHs), the reactivities of the sorbents prepared were higher than that of Ca(OH)2 alone. The present sorbent gave better utilization of the Ca originated from the Ca(OH)2 precursor and provided additional utilization capacity of the Ca derived from BFS. The present sorbents were mesoporous, and their specific surface areas were linearly correlated with their mesopore volumes. When the weight ratio of BFS/HL varied between 1/9 and 3/7, the SO2 capture of the sorbents prepared was independent of specific surface area. When the weight ratio of BFS/HL varied between 7/3 and 9/1, the SO2 capture was seen to increase linearly with specific surface area. Among the four process variables studied for the sorbent prepared in this work, the weight ratio of BFS/HL was found to be the most significant for the specific surface area of the sorbents. The optimum BSF/HL ratio looked to be around 9/1. The second and the third process variables studied were hydration time and the ratio of water/solid, respectively. The optimum hydration time was about 10 h, while the optimum water/solid ratio was 25/1. The last process variable studied was slurrying temperature. Slurrying temperature (T) had little effect on the specific surface area of the BFS/HL sorbent in the range 50−80 °C. This is useful for preparing high-performance silica-enhanced desulfurization sorbents for dry and semidry flue gas desulfurization processes, taking advantage of the waste BFS.

A new way to implement the simultaneous reutilization of solid waste, the desulfurization of coke oven gas (COG), and even the desulfurization of coke by the co-coking of coking coal (CC) and waste plastic (WP) blended with a sorbent is proposed; the evolution of H2S and the removal efficiency of H2S from COG during the co-coking process were investigated in a lab-scale cylindrical reactor. The experimental results indicated that for the coking of CC blended with ZnO, Fe2O3, or blast furnace dust (BFD) as a sorbent, the instantaneous concentration of H2S in COG was lower than 500 mg/m3 (which meets the technical specification requirement of the Chinese Cleaner Production Standard–Coking Industry, HJ/T 126-2003) when the molar ratio between the key component of the sorbent and the volatile S in CC or the CC/WP blend, nZn+Fe/nS, was about 1.2 for ZnO and Fe2O3, but not for BFD under the same conditions, suggesting that ZnO and Fe2O3 are promising sorbents, but that BFD must be treated chemical or thermally before being used as a sorbent because of the size and complicated nature of the influence of its phase/chemical composition on its desulfurization ability. However, for the co-coking of CC and WP blended with ZnO as a sorbent, nZn+Fe/nS must increase to 1.4 and 1.7 for 100/2 and 100/5 blends of CC/WP, respectively, to ensure a satisfactory efficiency for H2S removal from COG.