Development of steady-state electrical-heating fluorescence-sensing (SEF) technique for thermal characterization of one dimensional (1D) structures by employing graphene quantum dots (GQDs) as temperature sensors.

A fluorescence signal has been demonstrated as an effective implement for micro/nanoscale temperature measurement which can be realized by either direct fluorescence excitation from materials or by employing nanoparticles as sensors. In this work, a steady-state electrical-heating fluorescence-sensing (SEF) technique is developed for the thermal characterization of one-dimensional (1D) materials. In this method, the sample is suspended between two electrodes and applied with steady-state Joule heating. The temperature response of the sample is monitored by collecting a simultaneous fluorescence signal from the sample itself or nanoparticles uniformly attached on it. According to the 1D heat conduction model, a linear temperature dependence of heating powers is obtained, thus the thermal conductivity of the sample can be readily determined. In this work, a standard platinum wire is selected to measure its thermal conductivity to validate this technique. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) are employed as the fluorescence agent for temperature sensing. Parallel measurement by using the transient electro-thermal (TET) technique demonstrates that a small dose of GQDs has negligible influence on the intrinsic thermal property of platinum wire. This SEF technique can be applied in two ways: for samples with a fluorescence excitation capability, this method can be implemented directly; for others with weak or no fluorescence excitation, a very small portion of nanoparticles with excellent fluorescence excitation can be used for temperature probing and thermophysical property measurement.

Investigation of sulfur forms and transformation during the co-combustion of sewage sludge and coal using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to investigate the characteristics and evolution of sulfur (S) in mixtures of bituminous coal and sewage sludge (SS) and their chars during isothermal combustion. Five groups of mixtures with SS content of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 100%, were examined at different burn-off ratios (beta) of 0, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100%. The S in the coal mainly exist as the forms of mercaptan (S1), sulfide (S2), thiophene (S3), sulfoxide (S4), sulfone (S5) and sulfate (S6). During the coal combustion process, the content of S1 and S2 decreased, while that of S3 and S5 increased in the early stage and decreased in the late stage. The S4 content increased throughout the entire process of combustion. Small amount of S6 was detected, showing a fluctuated pattern. The trend of S1, S2, S5 and S6 in SS was alike with that in coal, whereas S4 decreased at the end of combustion. The changing process of S3 in SS was opposite to that of coal, while the composition of S in the mixtures resulted from the mixing of coal and SS. The transformation of each functional group during co-combustion were correlated with their transformation characteristics during the mono-combustion of coal and SS, and no obvious interaction was observed, which demonstrated that the coal-origin and SS-origin sulfur in mixtures kept their own characteristics in the combustion. SS may accumulate on the solid surface as alpha increase, resulting its significant influence on the evolution of each form of S. When alpha was low, most of the S-contained functional groups presented the characteristics of coal. The percentage of coal-origin functional groups declined as alpha increased. The transforming trends of most functional groups were similar with that of SS when alpha reached 30%.