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Porous materials can effectively improve the thermal insulation performance of materials. Therefore, this study used pure Ti foil, pure Al powder, and pure Nb powder as raw materials. Layered porous high Nb-TiAl alloys have been prepared by vacuum hot-pressing sintering and multi-step heat treatment (low-temperature heat treatment and high-temperature heat treatment). The materials are composed of α2-Ti3Al, γ-TiAl, and Al3Nb. Holes are formed in the Al3Nb layer. The thermal insulation and tensile properties are measured at high temperature. The results show that the thermal insulation performance of the layered porous high Nb-TiAl alloy sheet is better than that of the layered high Nb-TiAl alloy (non-porous) and the traditional TiAl alloy. In this work, the materials achieved a good mechanical property-insulation performance synergy.

Sea surface salinity (SSS) retrieval from satellite-based microwave radiometer is hampered by uncertainties due to atmospheric and surface scattering contributions. This study presents a comprehensive vector radiative transfer model (VRTM) for estimation of brightness temperature (TB) (for SSS retrieval) from L-band radiometry based on a matrix-operator method. It includes an efficient two-scale model (TSM) that combines a geometrical optics (GO) model and a small-perturbation model (SPM) for computing both the small- and large-scale scattering components of the sea surface. Moreover, it considers the influence of rain effects on TB by including the radiation extinction term (scattering and attenuation). The simulation results using the VRTM were validated with those obtained from the RT4 model for flat sea surface conditions and the RTTOV model for rough sea surface conditions. The relative difference in the estimated TB among the models was small (

Atmospheric correction is the key step for satellite ocean color remote sensing. However, most of the existing atmospheric correction algorithms do not consider the effects of Earth curvature. In fact, Earth curvature has a significant impact on satellite observation signals under large solar zenith angles or large viewing zenith angles. In this study, based on the Monte Carlo method, a vector radiative transfer model with spherical shell atmosphere geometry (hereafter our SSA-MC model) considering the influence of Earth curvature was established, which can be applied to conditions with high solar zenith angles or high viewing zenith angles. Our SSA-MC model was first compared with the Adams&Kattawar model, and the results show that the mean relative differences are 1.72%, 1.36% and 1.28% for solar zenith angles of 0∘, 70.47∘ and 84.26∘, respectively. Moreover, our SSA-MC model was further validated by more recently benchmarks from Korkin’s scalar and vector models, and the results show that the relative differences are mostly less than 0.5% even at extremely high solar zenith angles (84.26∘). Then, our SSA-MC model was verified with the Rayleigh scattering radiance calculated by the look-up tables (LUTs) in SeaDAS under low-to-moderate solar or viewing zenith angles, and the results show that the relative differences are less than 1.42% when solar zenith angles are less than 70∘ and viewing zenith angles are less than 60∘. Our SSA-MC model was also compared with the Polarized Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Radiative Transfer model based on the pseudo-spherical assumption (PCOART-SA), and the results show that the relative differences are mostly less than 2%. At last, based on our SSA-MC model, the effects of Earth curvature on Rayleigh scattering radiance were analyzed for both high solar zenith angles and high viewing zenith angles. The result shows that the mean relative error between the plane-parallel (PP) geometry and spherical shell atmosphere (SSA) geometry is 0.90% when the solar zenith angle is 60∘ and the viewing zenith angle is 60.15∘. However, the mean relative error increases with increasing solar zenith angle or viewing zenith angle. When the solar zenith angle is 84∘ and the viewing zenith angle is 84.02∘, the mean relative error is 4.63%. Thus, Earth curvature should be considered in atmospheric corrections at large solar or viewing zenith angles.

To better understand the hydrodynamic characteristics of Sansha Bay and how they are changed by the addition of a wharf, this study takes the design of the wharf on Changyao Island as an example. It uses the MIKE21 model to study the variation of tidal current velocity, tide direction and silt buildup before and after the construction of the wharf. The research results show that:1. The design solution of the wharf is feasible. 2. The included angle between the main axis of the wharf and the tides’ direction is chosen to be less than 10º. 3. After the construction of the wharf, the peak tidal flow velocity that passes through the pile foundation of the wharf and the dike behind the wharf decreases by 10% to 15% and 30% to 50%, respectively. The range of the influence of buildings on the tidal current velocity is 900 m around the buildings. 4. The final siltation the upstream and downstream of the main axis of the wharf is 0.30 to 0.70 m, that on the dike at the rear edge of the wharf is 0.60 to 1.40 m from the wharf, and the final scour depth on the waterway of wharf apron is 0.03 to 0.05m.

Using originally isolated xylan-type hemicelluloses for material application suffers from poor mechanical properties including low tensile strength and brittleness. The subsequent chemical modifications of hemicelluloses are facing the problems of high costs and toxic chemicals. Consequently, this study tried to investigate the factors affecting the film-forming properties of the originally isolated xylan-hemicelluloses and promoting their material properties from the extraction step. Two different extraction methods, a one-step alkali or alkaline peroxide solution method and a two-step alkali extraction-delignification method were used to extract the hemicellulose with different chemical structures from sugarcane bagasse. For the two-step alkali extraction-delignification method, hemicelluloses were first extracted by alkali solution and then delignified by dioxane/water, hydrogen peroxide solution or sodium hypochlorite solution. The lignin contents of all the extracted hemicelluloses ranged from 1.6%–9.5%, of which the lowest value was obtained through delignification by sodium hypochlorite. The number average molecular weight ranged from 8200 to 26800, while the xylan/arabinan ratio ranged from 5.0 to 9.1. The hemicelluloses were characterized and processed into films. Tensile strength of films could be considerably improved up to ˜52% when using sodium hypochlorite solution as the delignification agents and the lignin content was greatly reduced for the hemicellulose fraction. Statistical models were generated between film mechanical properties and hemicellulose structural characteristics. The models predicted that hemicellulose with higher molecular weight, more linear structure and lower lignin content would result in better mechanical properties.

The polarization characteristics of water-leaving radiation contain rich information on oceanic constituents. Determining the atmospheric diffuse transmittance is crucial for extracting the polarization information of water-leaving radiation from the radiation acquired by polarimetry satellites at the top of the atmosphere. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the atmospheric diffuse transmittance of the linear polarization component of water-leaving radiation. Here, we first evaluated the difference between the atmospheric diffuse transmittance of the linear polarization component (TQ, TU) and the intensity component (TI) of the water-leaving radiation based on the Ocean Successive Orders with Atmosphere Advanced radiative transfer model. As a consequence, there were apparent differences between TQ, TU and TI. In the case of a large solar zenith angle and a large viewing zenith angle, the difference between TQ, TU and TI will exceed 1. Meanwhile, compared with TI, the oceanic constituents had a prominent interference with TQ and TU, and the sediment concentration had little interference with TQ and TU in low- and medium-turbidity water with respect to the aerosol model, optical thickness, observation geometry, and phytoplankton. Moreover, TQ and TU lookup tables were generated for medium- and low-turbidity water, which laid the foundation for extracting the water-leaving radiation polarization information from the satellite observation polarization signal.

Hemicellulose, one of the most abundant biopolymers next to cellulose, has been considered as a potential substitute to synthetic polymers. Film casting from water is the most basic route for material applications of xylan. However, depending on plant sources and separation methods, xylans do not always form films and the related mechanism is unclear, which significantly hinders their material applications. We extensively characterized various fractions of bagasse xylan to understand the molecular features promoting the film formation. The side groups of xylans or impurities contributed to the prevention of excessive aggregation or crystallization of xylan molecules, leading to the film-forming capacity. However, once the film is formed, the side groups do not seem to be necessarily contributing to the mechanical resistance.

Super adsorbents exhibit great potential to remove pollutants from media or store considerable amounts of water, which may undermine the pressure triggered by environmental pollution and shortage of water resources. Super adsorbents made from biopolymers have been an attractive topic because of biodegradability, renewability and outstanding adsorption capacity. Hemicelluloses are a type of biopolymers very abundant in agricultural, forestry and pulping industrial wastes. Hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents are thriving because the inherent chemical structures and physical properties of hemicelluloses make themselves easy to be processed into matrix materials applicable in super adsorbents. This review summarizes recent studies in hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents, i.e. hydrogels and active carbons, from the perspectives of types, applications, fabrication methods, the elements affecting the adsorption performance and the kinetics of adsorption process, which thus helps to further improve the properties of hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents and to promote the industrial production and utilization of hemicelluloses and hemicellulose-based bio-adsorbents.

Sea-surface salinity (SSS) can be measured from space using a microwave sensor. However, achieving the desired accuracy in SSS retrieval is challenging due to the lower sensitivity of the brightnes...

To protect forest resources and increase the value of agro-industrial residues, it would be helpful to produce paper-based materials from non-woody or recycled fiber resources. This study investigated the reinforcement mechanism of bacterial cellulose (BC) on paper sheets made from different sources including softwood, hardwood, sugarcane bagasse, bamboo, wheat straw, and recycled fiber, which represent a selection of high quality, medium quality, and low quality fibers. The results showed that by maintaining BC addition at a low level of 0.5–1.5% (total paper dry weight), the paper sheets made from high and medium quality fibers have the maximum tensile index improvement, with 5–25%. The tensile index of low quality fiber including wheat straw pulp and recycled fiber pulp increased slightly and gradually with the level of BC addition; at 5% BC addition, the tensile indexes increased by 9 and 40%, respectively. To investigate the BC reinforcement mechanism, different fiber characteristics, SEM images of BC reinforced paper, BC retention rate on paper, and the effects of dispersant addition were evaluated. It was found that high BC addition or retention rate in paper sheets do not necessarily result in good BC reinforcement effects but that proper dispersion of BC is important.

Ying, J.Y.; Liang, K.W.; Wu, Q.S.; Xie, M.; Jin, X.C.; Ye, Q., and Yang, Z.L., 2020. Calculation of suspended sediment concentration based on deep learning and OBS turbidity. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 627-630. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Based on BP and Elman deep learning models with water depth, velocity, flow direction and salinity as input term and suspended sediment concentration as output term were constructed, and the calculated results were compared with the measured suspended sediment concentration and the suspended sediment concentration calculated by OBS turbidity. The results show that the suspended sediment concentration calculated by deep learning model can meet the needs of sediment dynamics research, but the calculation effect is not so good in high water stand, low water stand, fastest flood and fastest ebb periods, and the accuracy is far less than that of OSB calculation results. In the future, deep learning models can be improved in computational accuracy by adding input terms, and experimentally adjusting thresholds and connection weights.

As one of the most abundant natural polymers in nature, polysaccharides have the potential to replace petroleum-based polymers that are difficult to degrade in paper coatings. Polysaccharide molecules have a large number of hydroxyl groups that can bind strongly with paper fibers through hydrogen bonds. Chemical modification can also effectively improve the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of polysaccharide-based coating layers and thus can further improve the related properties of coated paper. Polysaccharides can also give paper additional functional properties by dispersing and adhering functional fillers, e.g., conductive particles, catalytic particles or antimicrobial chemicals, onto paper surface. Based on these, this paper reviews the application of natural polysaccharides, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, starch, chitosan, and sodium alginate, and their derivatives in paper coatings. This paper analyzes the improvements and influences of chemical structures and properties of polysaccharides on the mechanical, barrier, and hydrophobic properties of coated paper. This paper also summarizes the researches where polysaccharides are used as the adhesives to adhere inorganic or functional fillers onto paper surface to endow paper with great surface properties or special functions such as conductivity, catalytic, antibiotic, and fluorescence.

The sea surface salinity (SSS) can be measured from space by using L-band (1.4 GHz) microwave radiometers. The L-band has been chosen for its sensitivity of brightness temperature to the change of salinity. However, SSS remote sensing is still challenging due to the low sensitivity of brightness temperature to SSS variation: for the vertical polarization, the sensitivity is about 0.4 to 0.8 K/psu with different incident angles and sea surface temperature; for horizontal polarization, the sensitivity is about 0.2 to 0.6 K/psu. It means that we have to make radiometric measurements with accuracy better than 1K even for the best sensitivity of brightness temperature to SSS. Therefore, in order to retrieve SSS, the measured brightness temperature at the top of atmosphere (TOA) needs to be corrected for many sources of error. One main geophysical source of error comes from atmosphere. Currently, the atmospheric effect at L-band is usually corrected by absorption and emission model, which estimate the radiation absorbed and emitted by atmosphere. However, the radiation scattered by precipitation is neglected in absorption and emission models, which might be significant under heavy precipitation. In this paper, a vector radiative transfer model for coupled atmosphere and ocean systems with a rough surface is developed to simulate the brightness temperature at the TOA under different precipitations. The model is based on the adding-doubling method, which includes oceanic emission and reflection, atmospheric absorption and scattering. For the ocean system with a rough surface, an empirical emission model established by Gabarro and the isotropic Cox-Munk wave model considering shadowing effect are used to simulate the emission and reflection of sea surface. For the atmospheric attenuation, it is divided into two parts: For the rain layer, a Marshall-Palmer distribution is used and the scattering properties of the hydrometeors are calculated by Mie theory (the scattering hydrometeors are assumed to be spherical). For the other atmosphere layers, which are assumed to be clear sky, Liebe's millimeter wave propagation model (MPM93) is used to calculate the absorption coefficients of oxygen, water vapor, and cloud droplets. To simulate the change of brightness temperature caused by different rain rate (0-50 mm/h), we assume a 26-layer precipitation structure corresponding to NCEP FNL data. Our radiative transfer simulations showed that the brightness temperature at TOA can be influenced significantly by the heavy precipitation, the results indicate that the atmospheric attenuation of L-band at incidence angle of 42.5° should be a positive bias, and when rain rate rise up to 50 mm/h, the brightness temperature increases are close to 0.6 K and 0.8 K for horizontally and vertically polarized brightness temperature, respectively. Thus, in the case of heavy precipitation, the current absorption and emission model is not accurate enough to correct atmospheric effect, and a radiative transfer model which considers the effect of radiation scattering should be used.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a green biopolymer suitable for heavy metal ion removal from aqueous solution due to its nano-porous microstructure. Polyethyleneimine-bacterial cellulose (PEI-BC) was prepared by reductive amination of dialdehyde BC with polyethyleneimine. The capacity of PEI-BC in Cu(II) and Pb(II) adsorption from aqueous solution was investigated. The adsorption kinetics could be well expressed by pseudo-second-order model and the adsorption isotherm data were well fitted with Freundlich model. Adsorption processes of Cu(II) and Pb(II) by PEI-BC reached equilibrium very rapid in 30 and 60min, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity of PEI-BC on Cu(II) and Pb(II) was found to be 148 and 141mg/g, respectively, which was higher than that of unmodified BC and other modified BC reported. PEI-BC also showed good reusability in the adsorption of Cu(II) and Pb(II). This study demonstrates that polyethyleneimine modification makes BC a potential bioadsorbent for heavy metal ion removal in waste water.

Currently, global sea surface salinity (SSS) can be retrieved by the satellite microwave radiometer onboard the satellite, such as the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity(SMOS) and the Aqurius. SMOS is an Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission from the European Space Agency(ESA). It was launched at a sun-synchronous orbit in 2009 and one of the payloads is called MIRAS(Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis), which is the first interferometric microwave radiometer designed for observing SSS at L-band(1.41 GHz).The foundation of the salinity retrieval by microwave radiometer is that the sea surface radiance at L-band has the most suitable sensitivity with the variation of the salinity. It is well known that the sensitivity of brightness temperatures(TB) to SSS depends on the sea surface temperature (SST), but the quantitative impact of the SST on the satellite retrieval of the SSS is still poorly known. In this study, we investigate the impact of the SST on the accuracy of salinity retrieval from the SMOS. First of all, The dielectric constant model proposed by Klein and Swift has been used to estimate the vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperatures(TV and TH) of a smooth sea water surface at L-band and derive the derivatives of TV and TH as a function of SSS to show the relative sensitivity at 45° incident angle. Then, we use the GAM(generalized additive model) method to evaluate the association between the satellite-measured brightness temperature and in-situ SSS at different SST. Moreover, the satellite-derived SSS from the SMOS is validated using the ARGO data to assess the RMSE(root mean squared error). We compare the SMOS SSS and ARGO SSS over two regions of Pacific ocean far from land and ice under different SST. The RMSE of retrieved SSS at different SST have been estimated. Our results showed that SST is one of the most significant factors affecting the accuracy of SSS retrieval. The satellite-measured brightness temperature has a higher sensitivity with SSS variation and better accuracy of SSS retrieval at higher SST. For the most open oceans where surface salinity is typically greater than 32 psu, the sensitivity is around 0.2-0.25 K/psu for both vertical polarization and horizontal polarization when SST is 5°C,and the TB is more sensitive to the SSS for vertical polarization than horizontal polarization with the increase of SST. When SST increases to 30°C, the sensitivity is around 0.8 K/psu for vertical polarization which is about 40% larger than it of the horizontal polarization. In addition, the result of GAM model indicates that satellite-measured brightness temperature has better correlation with in-situ SSS at higher SST. The mean absolute error of the SMOS-derived SSS is around 0.9 psu when SST is 15°C, and decreases to 0.4 psu when the SST is 30°C.