Study on Long Term Property of Soft Soil Solidified with Industrial Waste Residue and Regenerated Fine Aggregate.

The long-term properties of solidified soft soil, including an immersion test, the dry-wet cycle and the freeze-thaw cycle, were systematically studied. Firstly, the immersion stability of solidified soft soil was confirmed. The appearance of soft soil solidified by a solidified agent and raw fine aggregate did not change significantly, and it was still intact without damage when the soaking time increased up to 28 d. Secondly, the mass and compressive strength loss of solidified soft soil were determined. When the number of dry-wet cycles was one, three, five and seven, the accumulated-mass loss rate was 1.4%, 3.0%, 4.5% and 6.0%, respectively, and the compressive-strength loss rate was -10.3%, 13.9%, 41.2% and 53.6%, respectively. Compared with solidified soft soil under standard curing environments, solidified soft soil after seven dry-wet cycles showed small cracks, and the structural compactness began to decline. Finally, the influence of the freeze-thaw cycle on the mass, compressive strength and microstructure of solidified soft soil was confirmed. When the number of freeze-thaw cycles was 5, 10, 15 and 20, the accumulated-mass loss rate was 12.6%, 16.7%, 17.9% and 18.8%, respectively. The microstructure of the solidified soft soil was damaged, and the increase in porosity was the main reason for its strength reduction or even failure. Nevertheless, soft soil with a solidified agent and recycled fine aggregate had no obvious damage to the microstructure, and the freeze-thaw resistance was relatively superior.

Influence of Recycled Fine Aggregate Content on Properties of Soft Soil Solidified by Industrial Waste Residue.

The influence of recycled fine aggregate content on the properties of soft soil solidified by industrial waste residue was systematically studied. First, the addition of recycled fine aggregate may provide skeleton support, which was conducive to improving the solidification properties. Comparing the addition of recycled fine aggregate content and a composite solidification agent separately, the compressive strength increased 48.01 times and 1.32 times, respectively. Second, the composition and quantity of the hydration products were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal gravity analysis (TG/DTG). In addition to silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide, a number of new minerals, including hydrated calcium silicate, calcium hydroxide and ettringite, were produced under different recycled fine aggregate contents. The diffraction peak of hydrated calcium hydroxide was weak, which indicated that the crystallinity and relative content was low. The main reason for this was that it was consumed as the activator of the secondary hydration reaction of blast furnace slag. With the increase in recycled fine aggregate content, the total weight loss (hydration products, crystal water, impurities) increased significantly, at rates of 6.9%, 7.0%, 7.2%, 8.8% and 9.7%. The addition of recycled fine aggregate does not change the composition and quantity of the hydration products, and the increased weight loss in this part might be caused by the cement paste attached to the surface of the recycled fine aggregate. Finally, their microstructure was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Larger and more pores appeared in the solidification system with the increase in recycled fine aggregate, and a large amount of ettringite was prepared. An excess in recycled fine aggregate caused more pores, and the negative impact of too many pores exceeded the lifting effect of the aggregate, resulting in the decline of its mechanical properties. Therefore, there was a suitable range for the use of recycled fine aggregate, which was not more than 40%. In conclusion, recycled fine aggregate not only acts as a skeleton to improve solidification strength, but could also realize the comprehensive utilization of waste, which provided a new scheme for solid waste utilization and soft soil solidification.

Impacts of the murine skull on high-frequency transcranial photoacoustic brain imaging.

Non-invasive photoacoustic tomography (PAT) of mouse brains with intact skulls has been a challenge due to the skull's strong acoustic attenuation, aberration, and reverberation, especially in the high-frequency range (>15 MHz). In this paper, we systematically investigated the impacts of the murine skull on the photoacoustic wave propagation and on the PAT image reconstruction. We studied the photoacoustic acoustic wave aberration due to the acoustic impedance mismatch at the skull boundaries and the mode conversion between the longitudinal wave and shear wave. The wave's reverberation within the skull was investigated for both longitudinal and shear modes. In the inverse process, we reconstructed the transcranial photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) and photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) images of a point target enclosed by the mouse skull, showing the skull's different impacts on both modalities. Finally, we experimentally validated the simulations by imaging an in vitro mouse skull phantom using representative transcranial PAM and PACT systems. The experimental results agreed well with the simulations and confirmed the accuracy of our forward and inverse models. We expect that our results will provide better understanding of the impacts of the murine skull on transcranial photoacoustic brain imaging and pave the ways for future technical improvements.

Green's function for anisotropic dispersive poroelastic media based on the Radon transform and eigenvector diagonalization.

A compact Green's function for general dispersive anisotropic poroelastic media in a full-frequency regime is presented for the first time. First, starting in a frequency domain, the anisotropic dispersion is exactly incorporated into the constitutive relationship, thus avoiding fractional derivatives in a time domain. Then, based on the Radon transform, the original three-dimensional differential equation is effectively reduced to a one-dimensional system in space. Furthermore, inspired by the strategy adopted in the characteristic analysis of hyperbolic equations, the eigenvector diagonalization method is applied to decouple the one-dimensional vector problem into several independent scalar equations. Consequently, the fundamental solutions are easily obtained. A further derivation shows that Green's function can be decomposed into circumferential and spherical integrals, corresponding to static and transient responses, respectively. The procedures shown in this study are also compatible with other pertinent multi-physics coupling problems, such as piezoelectric, magneto-electro-elastic and thermo-elastic materials. Finally, the verifications and validations with existing analytical solutions and numerical solvers corroborate the correctness of the proposed Green's function.

Microbial-induced remediation of Zn2+ pollution based on the capture and utilization of carbon dioxide

Background: Microbial-induced remediation of Zn2+ pollution based on the capture and utilization of carbon dioxide was investigated. In this study, carbon dioxide was absorbed and transformed into carbonate ions under the enzymatic action of Paenibacillus mucilaginosus, which was being utilized to mineralize Zn2+. Results: The compositional and morphological properties of the precipitations were studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal properties of the precipitates were investigated by thermogravimetric-differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC). The FTIR results confirmed that the functional groups of the precipitates were CO3² − and OH−. The XRD and EDS patterns showed that basic zinc carbonate could be obtained successfully by Microbial-induced remediation. The SEM micrographs demonstrated that the precipitates were in the nanometer range with sizes of 100-200 nm and were sphere-like in shape. Conclusions: The TG-DSC results showed that weight loss of the precipitates occurred around 253°C. The FTIR and TG-DSC results were in accord with the XRD and EDS results and proved again that the precipitates were basic zinc carbonate. This work thus demonstrates a new method for processing Zn2+ pollution based on the utilization of carbon dioxide.