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Converter blown limestone powder steelmaking process has the advantages of energy saving and high efficiency to meet the needs of low carbon metallurgy. Based on a thermogravimetric-differential thermal analyzer, the effect of high CO2 partial pressure on the pyrolysis behavior of limestone at steelmaking temperatures was investigated at 20 °C/min, 30 °C/min, and 40 °C/min, the kinetic parameters of limestone pyrolysis were calculated by the improved double extrapolation method.

The high P content in steel slag limits its recycling during the smelting process, and the P can be effectively removed from the steel slag by gasification dephosphorization. In this experiments, the effects of temperature, basicity, and FeO for gasification dephosphorization rate are studied through thermodynamic calculations. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS) analysis that microscopic morphology of slag before and after reduction. In addition, a model is established to describe the phosphorus migration behavior of gasification dephosphorization process.

The coke reduction gasification dephosphorization experiments were conducted on converter slag with FeO contents of 15 %, 20 %, 30 % and 35 %, respectively. Thermodynamic calculations , Scanning Electron Eicroscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS) showed that the actual reduction Gibbs free energy of P2O5 was less than that of FeO for the coke reduction converter slag product of P2, and the reactive driving force of P2O5 was greater under high FeO conditions. With the increase of FeO content, the gasification dephosphorization rate showed a trend of increasing first and then decreasing. After gasification dephosphorization, the presence of the Fe phase will adsorb more P elements, so the high FeO content is beneficial to increase the P2O5 activity, which is conducive to the gasification dephosphorization reaction.

Heat stress limits wheat production and trehalose can improve stress tolerance. How trehalose affects wheat respiration is unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of exogenous trehalose on the respiration of wheat seedlings during heat stress and the subsequent recovery period. Trehalose pretreatment significantly increased the expression of the alternative oxidase genes AOX1a and AOX1c under heat stress, indicating that trehalose pretreatment increased the capacity of the alternative respiration pathway (AP) in response to heat stress. Trehalose pretreatment also enhanced the activity of the malate-oxaloacetate (Mal-OAA) shuttle and ameliorated the decrease in photosynthetic activity caused by heat stress. However, when the AP was inhibited by salicylhydroxamic acid under heat stress, both Mal-OAA shuttle activity and photosynthetic efficiency were substantially reduced in the control and trehalose pretreatment groups. In addition, trehalose pretreatment helped to maintain inner mitochondrial respiratory activity and the activity of Complex II during heat stress, particularly the coupling of oxidative phosphorylation with the Complex II electron transport chain, thereby mitigating heat-related damage to the cytochrome pathway (CP). Taken together, these results suggest that exogenous trehalose enhanced the AP and reduced damage to the CP under heat stress in wheat seedlings, thus maintaining cellular energy metabolism. Up-regulation of the AP by trehalose pretreatment may improve the heat tolerance of wheat seedlings by dissipating excess reducing equivalents transported through the Mal-OAA shuttle, thereby protecting photosynthetic performance.

A new adsorbent modified from orange peel (OP) was successfully synthesized by ethylenediamine crosslinking method to remove Cr(VI) from wastewater. The modified orange peel powder (MOPP) was investigated in a batch adsorption system, including both equilibrium adsorption isotherms and kinetics. Effects of several factors, including adsorbent dose, initial pH and Cr(VI) concentration were studied. The data indicated that the pH was not an essential factor that affected the adsorption process, it has a wide pH range from 4 to 10, and high adsorbent dose and lower Cr(VI) concentration could increase the Cr(VI) removal efficiency. Equilibrium data were analysed using the Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models and found to be well represented by the Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum capacity (qmax) obtained from Langmuir model was 52.08 mg/g at pH 6.0. The kinetics of adsorption followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation. The results suggest that MOPP is an inexpensive and efficient adsorbent for removing Cr(VI) from aqueous solution.

In this study, the adsorption performance of rice wine lees on reactive brilliant red (X-3B) was studied. Five aspects of SEM, FTIR characterization of rice wine lees, initial X-3B pH, rice wine lees dosage and initial dye concentration were studied. The characterization of rice wine lees indicated that it was a good adsorbent due to its larger specific surface area. And the experiment results showed that pH had a great influence on the adsorption effect of rice wine lees, and the adsorption performance decreased with the increase of pH. At the same time, the removal rate of reactive brilliant red X-3B increased with the increase of the dosage of rice wine lees and decreased with the increase of initial concentration of dyes. In the meanwhile, the experimental data were fitted to find that the adsorption of Reactive Brilliant Red X-3B by rice wine lees followed the Langmuir isotherm model. The adsorption kinetics was consistent with the intraparticle diffusion model and the maximum adsorption capacity was 12.376 mg/g.

Traditionally, optical vortices (OVs) were generated with diffractive optical elements (DOEs) such as spiral phase plate (SPP), fork grating, spatial light modulator (SLM), and liquid crystal display (LCD). Here, a method was proposed for generating OVs by employing all-dielectric polarization-insensitive metasurfaces with cylinder arrays, which have high transmission efficiency. The polarization insensitivity of the metasurfaces was illustrated with the incidence of two pairs of orthogonal polarization, both the phase and transmission efficiency were consistent for the cylinder unit cell, and similar OVs were generated with the cylinder array. The topological charges of the generated OVs can be adjusted through the design of the metasurfaces. OVs with additional characteristics as vector beams, focused beams and Bessel beams were further generated. This work has potential applications in beam shaping, optical tweezers, and optical communication.

We investigate the extreme X-ray variability of a z = 1.608 active galactic nucleus in the 7 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (XID 403), which showed two significant X-ray brightening events. In the first event, XID 403 brightened by a factor of >2.5 in ≲6.1 rest-frame days in the observed-frame 0.5–5 keV band. The event lasted for ≈5.0–7.3 days, and then XID 403 dimmed by a factor of >6.0 in ≲6.1 days. After ≈1.1–2.5 yr in the rest frame (including long observational gaps), it brightened again, with the 0.5–5 keV flux increasing by a factor of >12.6. The second event lasted over 251 days, and the source remained bright until the end of the 7 Ms exposure. The spectrum is a steep power law (photon index Γ = 2.8 ± 0.3) without obscuration during the second outburst, and the rest-frame 2–10 keV luminosity reaches ${1.5}_{-0.5}^{+0.8}\times {10}^{43}\,\mathrm{erg}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}$ ; there is no significant spectral evolution within this epoch. The infrared-to-UV spectral energy distribution of XID 403 is dominated by the host galaxy. There is no significant optical/UV variability and R -band (rest-frame ≈2500 Å) brightening contemporaneous with the X-ray brightening. The extreme X-ray variability is likely due to two X-ray unveiling events, where the line of sight to the corona is no longer shielded by high-density gas clumps in a small-scale dust-free absorber. XID 403 is probably a high-redshift analog of local narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, and the X-ray absorber is a powerful accretion disk wind. On the other hand, we cannot exclude the possibility that XID 403 is an unusual candidate for tidal disruption events.

In this paper, magnetically tunable random lasing from a polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) in a capillary was achieved by means of doping with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). We experimentally explored the effects of the concentration of MNPs and the amplitude and direction of the magnetic field on the emission properties of random lasing, such as threshold, envelope of the emission spectrum, and intensities. The related mechanism was also investigated theoretically. Experimental results also showed that weakly tuned effects appeared from the sample with a polymer or pure liquid crystal (LC) doped with MNPs in comparison with PDLCs. Our research would provide an additional way to achieve tunable compact LC-based lasers.

Detection of the loose particles is urgently required in the spacecraft production processes. PIND (particle impact noise detection) is the most commonly used method for the detection of loose particles in the aerospace electronic components. However, when the mass of loose particles is smaller than 0.01 mg, the weak signals are difficult to be detected accurately. In this paper, the aperiodic stochastic resonance (ASR) is firstly used to detect weak signals of loose particles. The loose particle signal is simulated by the oscillation attenuation signal. The influences of structure parameters on the potential height and detection performance of ASR are studied by a numerical iteration method. The cross-correlation coefficient C1 between input and output is chosen as a criterion for whether there is an existing a particle or not. Through normalization, the loose particle signal-labeled high frequency of 135 kHz is converted into the low-frequency band, which can be detected by the ASR method. According to the algorithm, weak signals covered by noise could be detected. The experimental results show that the detection accuracy is 66.7%. This algorithm improves the detection range of weak loose particle signals effectively.

Multilayered combination of protective structures is an important means of effectively weakening the explosive shockwave. On this basis, a “rigid-flexible-rigid” three-layer sealed structure was proposed in this paper and two models for the sealed structure were designed. Meanwhile, internal explosion tests of the two models were conducted. One model used foam concrete as the energy absorbing material and the other used dense sand. The comparisons between the test results and the computed results obtained from the formulae were made, and the test results agreed well with the computed results. Test results showed that both models had favorable energy-dissipating capacity, and the model that used foam concrete as the energy absorbing material had a superior energy-dissipating capacity.

We demonstrate an optically reconfigurable grating with enhanced transmission of TE-polarized waves in the terahertz (THz) waveband. This kind of grating is realized by projecting a grating image onto a thin Si wafer with a digital micromirror device (DMD). The enhanced transmission is caused by a resonance of the electromagnetic fields between the photoexcited strips. The position of the transmission peak shifts with the variation of the period and duty cycle of the photoinduced grating, which can be readily controlled by the DMD. Furthermore, a flattened Gaussian model was applied to describe the distribution of the photoexcited free carriers in the Si wafer, and the simulated transmittance spectra are shown to be in good agreement with the experimental results. In future, the photoexcited carriers could also be used to produce THz diffractive elements with reconfigurable functionality.

The rogue wave solutions are discussed for an inhomogeneous fifth-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which describes the dynamics of a site-dependent Heisenberg ferromagnetic spin chain. Using the Darboux matrix, the generalized Darboux transformation is constructed and a recursive formula is derived. Based on the transformation, the first-order to the third-order rogue wave solutions are obtained. Then, the nonlinear dynamics of the first-order to the third-order rogue waves are studied on the basis of some free parameters. Several new structures of the rogue waves are found using numerical simulation. The conclusions will be a supportive tool to study the rogue waves better.

A new type of composite concrete which can be called corundum-rubble concrete (CRC) was presented to improve the resistance of protective structure to the projectile impact. Comparative experiments were conducted between CRC and reinforced concrete, and a modified Taylor model was proposed to predict the penetration depth of CRC targets. Experimental results show that CRC is much higher than reinforced concrete in both strength and hardness and shows excellent resistance to the 0.125 m-diameter projectile impact. Theoretical analyses demonstrated that the modified Taylor model’s predicted results were in good agreement with the measured values.

Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases (HSDHs) catalyze the oxidation/reduction of hydroxyl/keto groups of steroids with high regio- or stereoselectivity, playing an essential role in producing optically pure chemicals. In this work, a novel approach was developed to simultaneously improve the stability and activity of 7β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (7β-HSDH) by combining B-factor analysis and computer-aided prediction. Several advantageous mutants were identified, and the most promising variant, S51Y/P202Y, exhibited 2.3-fold improvements in catalytic activity, 3.3-fold in half-life at 40°C, and 4.7-fold in catalytic efficiency ( k cat /K m ), respectively. Structural modeling analysis showed that the shortened reversible oxidation reaction catalytic distance and the strengthened residue interactions compared to the wild type were attributed to the improved stability and activity of the obtained mutants. To synthesize ursodeoxycholic acid cost-effectively by mutant S51Y/P202Y, a NAD-kinase was employed to facilitate the substitution of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP + ) with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD + ) in the whole-cell catalysis system. The substrate 7-ketolithocholic acid (100 mM) was converted completely in 0.5 h, achieving a space-time yield of 1,887.3 g L -1 d -1 . This work provided a general target-oriented strategy for obtaining stable and highly active dehydrogenase for efficient biosynthesis., Importance: Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases have emerged as indispensable tools in the synthesis of steroids, bile acids, and other steroid derivatives for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. In this study, a novel approach was developed to simultaneously improve the stability and activity of a hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase by combining B-factor analysis and computer-aided prediction. This semi-rational method was demonstrated to be highly effective for enzyme engineering. In addition, NAD kinase was introduced to convert NAD + to NADP + for effective coenzyme regeneration in the whole-cell multienzyme-catalyzed system. This strategy reduces the significant economic costs associated with externally supplemented cofactors in NADP-dependent biosynthetic pathways., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Pichia pastoris ( P. pastoris ) is one of the most popular cell factories for expressing exogenous proteins and producing useful chemicals. The alcohol oxidase 1 promoter (P AOX1 ) is the most commonly used strong promoter in P. pastoris and has the characteristic of biphasic expression. However, the inducer for P AOX1 , methanol, has toxicity and poses risks in industrial settings. In the present study, analyzing transcriptomic data of cells collected at different stages of growth found that the formate dehydrogenase (FDH) gene ranked 4960th in relative expression among 5032 genes during the early logarithmic growth phase but rose to the 10th and 1st during the middle and late logarithmic growth phases, respectively, displaying a strict biphasic expression characteristic. The unique transcriptional regulatory profile of the FDH gene prompted us to investigate the properties of its promoter (P FDH800 ). Under single-copy conditions, when a green fluorescent protein variant was used as the expression target, the P FDH800 achieved 119% and 69% of the activity of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase promoter and P AOX1 , respectively. After increasing the copy number of the expression cassette in the strain to approximately four copies, the expression level of GFPuv driven by P FDH800 increased to approximately 2.5 times that of the strain containing GFPuv driven by a single copy of P AOX1 . Our P FDH800 -based expression system exhibited precise biphasic expression, ease of construction, minimal impact on normal cellular metabolism, and high strength. Therefore, it has the potential to serve as a new expression system to replace the P AOX1 promoter.IMPORTANCEThe alcohol oxidase 1 promoter (PAOX1) expression system has the characteristics of biphasic expression and high expression levels, making it the most widely used promoter in the yeast Pichia pastoris . However, PAOX1 requires methanol induction, which can be toxic and poses a fire hazard in large quantities. Our research has found that the activity of PFDH800 is closely related to the growth state of cells and can achieve biphasic expression without the need for an inducer. Compared to other reported non-methanol-induced biphasic expression systems, the system based on the PFDH800 offers several advantages, including high expression levels, simple construction, minimal impact on cellular metabolism, no need for an inducer, and the ability to fine-tune expression., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Importance: The adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) regeneration system can significantly reduce the cost of many biocatalytic processes. Numerous studies have endeavored to utilize the ATP regeneration system based on Cytophaga hutchinsonii PPK ( Ch PPK). However, the wild-type Ch PPK enzyme possesses limitations such as low enzymatic activity, poor stability, and limited substrate tolerance, impeding its application in catalytic reactions. To enhance the performance of Ch PPK, we employed a semi-rational design approach to obtain the variant Ch PPK/A79G/S106C/I108F/L285P. The enzymatic kinetic parameters and the catalytic performance in the synthesis of nicotinamide mononucleotide demonstrated that the variant Ch PPK/A79G/S106C/I108F/L285P exhibited superior enzymatic properties than the wild-type enzyme. All data indicated that our engineered ATP regeneration system holds inherent potential for implementation in biocatalytic processes., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.