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Liquid argon is used as a target material in several current and planned experiments related to dark matter direct searching and neutrino detection. SiPM is becoming the standard for scintillator detectors because of its advantages over traditional PMT. In this paper, we developed a single-phase liquid argon detector with SiPM readout and evaluated its light yield with an 241 Am γ source. After eliminating the effect of SiPM cross-talks and after-pulses, we achieve the light yield of 12.5 ± 3.4 photoelectrons per keVee primarily generated by the argon scintillation, which is one of the best results for a liquid argon detector. In addition, we provide an experimental method to estimate the effect of cross-talks and after-pulses on light yield using dark noise data. Finally, we quantitatively give the relationship between the light yield and the decay time of the slow component of a liquid argon detector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe a novel method for the polymerisation of acrylamide in the context of developing more effective sedimentation of red mud. Poly(o-methylstyrene-acrylamide-propenohydroxamic acid was synthesised by the copolymerisation of acrylamide as the aqueous phase and o-methylstyrene as the dispersed phase in a microemulsion system using Span-20 as a surfactant. The molecular weights were measured through the small-angle laser-light scattering method and the copolymers were characterised by Fourier transform infrared radiation, ultraviolet and Differential Scanning Calorimetry. By varying the temperature and pH during polymerisation, the optimal effect of the polymer structure on the process of red mud settling was investigated. The results show that the hydroxamic acid flocculant, which contains 10·5% o-methylphenylethylene with a molecular weight of 14 × 106, has excellent performance in the sedimentation and provides dramatically lower overflow solids at high mud settling rate compared to using hydroxamic acid alone as flocculant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]