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To monitor the reaction between Ce4+ ion and Cl– ion at the electron level, an electrochemical experiment was designed in this work. Herein, the intermediate and final products that may be produced during the redox reaction are directly tracked by using cyclic voltammetry, and the influences of Ce4+ ion concentration, temperature and F– ion on the reduction peak potential of Ce4+ ion were investigated. The results show that Ce4+ ion reacts with Cl– ion through an irreversible reaction without any intermediate products, and the rate-determining step of the reaction is diffusion during the electrode reaction. The effects of temperature (20–40 °C) and Ce4+ ion concentration (0.04–0.12 mol/L) on the reduction peak potential of Ce4+ ion can be ignored, but the higher the molar ratio of F– to Ce4+ (0–3 mol/mol), the more easily the reduction of Ce4+ ion to Ce3+ ion occurs. Additionally, the Ce4+ ions are preferentially reduced by thiourea when thiourea is added in the HCl solution, and thiourea inhibits the oxidation of Cl– ions to Cl2 by forming a complex with Cl– ions. This work provides a theoretical basis for the role of thiourea in inhibiting Cl2 production and offers a new way to find new reductants.

Ceria-zirconia mixed oxides (CZMO) is widely used in many important catalysis fields. However, pure CZMO is known to have poor thermal stability. In this paper, a strategy was proposed to design high thermal stability Ce0.475Zr0.475M0.05O2 (M=La, Y, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Er, Lu, and, Yb) oxide surface by using first-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulation and experiment method. Through the structure stability analysis at different temperatures, the surface energy γ as a function of Rion/Dave is identified as a quantitative structure descriptor for analyzing the doping effect of rare earth (RE) elements on the thermal stability of Ce0.475Zr0.475M0.05O2. By doping the suitable RE, the γ can be adjusted to the optimal range to enhance the thermal stability of Ce0.475Zr0.475M0.05O2. With this strategy, it can be predicted that the sequence of thermal stability improvement is Y > La > Gd > Nd > Pr > Pm > Sm > Eu > Tb > Er > Yb > Lu, which was further verified by our experiment results. After thermal treatment at 1100 °C for 10 h, the specific surface area (SSA) of aged Y-CZ and La-CZ samples can reach 21.34 m2/g and 19.51 m2/g, which is 63.02% and 49.04% higher than the CZMO sample without doping because the surface doping of Y and La is in favor of inhibiting the surface atoms thermal displacement. In a word, the strategy proposed in this work can be expected to provide a viable way for designing the highly efficient CZMO materials in extensive applications and promoting the usages of the high-abundance rare-earth elements Y and La.

Based on the new process named “Combination Method” for metallurgy and separation of Baotou mixed rare earth concentrate (BMREC), the aim of this paper is to clearly elucidate the phase change behavior of BMREC without additives during oxidative roasting at 450–800 °C. The results indicate that the bastnaesite in BMREC is decomposed at 450–550 °C, the weight loss is about 10.3 wt%, and the activation energy (E) is 144 kJ/mol. The bastnaesite in BMREC is decomposed into rare earth fluoride, rare earth oxides (La2O3, Ce7O12, Pr6O11 and Nd2O3), and CO2, particularly, with the increase of roasting temperature, bastnaesite in BMREC is more completely decomposed into LaF3, which causes a decrease in leaching rate of La during the HCl leaching process. Additionally, the maximum cerium oxidation efficiency reaches about 60 wt% when the roasting temperature is equal to or above 500 °C, and the oxidation reaction rate of cerium increases with the increasing roasting temperature.

In order to clarify the solvent extraction and separation behaviors of rare earths and impurity of Al during the extraction and enrichment of low-concentration leach solution of ion-adsorption rare earth ore, the extraction mechanism and separation behaviors of Nd3+ and Al3+ in the Nd2(SO4)3–Al2(SO4)3 mixed solution using P507 were studied in this work. The extraction of Nd3+ and Al3+ follows the cation exchange mechanism. With the increase of the equilibrium pH, βNd/Al in the extraction of the Nd2(SO4)3–Al2(SO4)3 mixed solution using P507 is always higher than that in the extraction of single Nd2(SO4)3 and Al2(SO4)3 solutions. It can be attributed to the fact that the extraction of Nd3+ using P507 is much faster than that of Al3+, and Al3+ is more prone to be hydrolyzed at lower pH. βNd/Al in the extraction of the Nd2(SO4)3–Al2(SO4)3 mixed solution decreases gradually with the increase of mixing time within the equilibrium pH range of 1.5–1.9. The extraction of Nd3+ using P507 is much faster than that of Al3+, but the stability of Al3+-loaded organic phase is better than that of Nd3+-loaded organic phase, thus Nd3+ in the Nd3+-loaded organic phase is gradually replaced by Al3+ in the aqueous phase with the increase of mixing time.

As the oxygen redox ability shows great effects on the catalytic performances of ceria-zirconia based materials, many strategies have been utilized to improve the oxygen storage capacity. Here in this study, we report a simple and facile approach to prepare a SO42–-modified La, Y-doped ceria-zirconia material (SO/CZLY-f) with high oxygen storage capacity. Due to the additional redox process between SO42− and S2−, oxygen storage capacity of SO/CZLY-f (745.3 μmol O2/g) is about 1.6 times higher than that of La, Y-doped ceria-zirconia material without SO42– modification. Moreover, the catalytic activities and stability of the corresponding Pd-only three-way catalyst were measured. Compared to that of Pd@CZLY-f, the operation window of CO, full conversion temperature of HC and NO over Pd@SO/CZLY-f are obviously widened and lowered, respectively. After aging treatment at 1100 °C for 4 h, the superiority of aged Pd-loading composite is still maintained.

The filtration efficiency deterioration over operating time due to exposure to particles, organic solvents and other factors is an obvious defect of electret filter, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Electrostatic enhanced method has been proposed as a promising way to improve the filtration efficiency and service time of electret filters without increasing the pressure drop. In this work, the effect of discharge electrode structure and operation mode of the electrostatic enhanced structure(EES) on the filtration efficiency of commercial pleated electret filters were studied firstly, then the EES was installed in a special designed prototype air purifier, two key indicators of air purifiers(clean air delivery rate (CADR) and cumulate clean mass (CCM)) were tested to evaluate the actual performance improvement of electret filters by the electrostatic enhanced method. It was found that the discharge electrode structure had significant influence on the filtration efficiency and multi-wire array electrode was more suitable for the discharge electrode to pleated filter to ground mesh structure used in this paper. The decayed electrostatic charges of pleated electret filter cannot be recharged again through the EES in actual operation condition. The filtration efficiency improvement of the test pleated electret filters was dominantly contributed by particle charging. The filter polarizing induced by the external electric field was helpful in increasing the filtration efficiency when the particles were charged while its effect on uncharged particles was almost negligible. Besides, the actual performance of the prototype air purifier indicated that the EES can alleviate the filtration efficiency deterioration of test electret filters and extend the service life of H11 and H13 filters by more than 3 and 1.5 times respectively according to the CCM test results.