China Science & Technology Forum

[JSCh]

Top research sites featured at Science Week
By Cheng Yingqi (China Daily) Updated: 2016-05-16 08:38

Two children maneuver a toy rabbit and a toy turtle, both controlled by brain wave devices, during a race in Beijing on Saturday at the 2016 Science and Technology Week.Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily
​

Displays covering 12 of China's biggest scientific facilities are being shown for the first time at this year's Science and Technology Week, which opened in Beijing on Saturday.

"We will display models, pictures and videos of 12 major large-scale science facilities, and the public will have a chance to talk to scientists who are using these large-scale science facilities to make breakthroughs," said Bao Xianhua, deputy director of the department of politics, regulation and supervision at the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The displays are held in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities in Beijing.

China started to construct a number of large-scale science facilities in the past two decades, such as the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope in Pingtang, Guizhou province, which will be the world's largest single-dish telescope. Others include the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope in Xinglong, Hebei province, which is expected to conduct a 5-year spectroscopic survey of 10 million Milky Way stars.

"The large-scale science facilities are an essential part of China's fundamental research, and are the foundation for technological innovation. As a result, it is necessary to let the public learn more about scientific frontiers by displaying these facilities," said Chang Jin, chief scientist of China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer satellite, which was launched in December to detect dark matter in space.

"Moreover, large-scale science facilities are very expensive. So we should explain to the public how we work with them through this face-to-face communication," he said.

Although the facilities' research - from subatomic particles to galaxies - may seem difficult for the public to understand, Chen Xuelei, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is confident of grabbing people's interest.

The week has been held 15 times since 2001, attracting more than 1.2 billion visitors.

 

[JSCh]

Public Release: 12-May-2016
Binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform -- pilots are no longer needed
Science China Press

Architecture of binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform. ©Science China Press

The left frames captured on-board and the reprojection result on the corresponding right frame. (a) and (c) the feature extraction results on images captured with left camera; (b) and (d) relative projection result on images captured with right camera. ©Science China Press​

VIDEO: A binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform. Binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform -- pilots are no longer needed | EurekAlert! Science News

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are invaluable in today's military and civilian initiatives. However, most unmanned systems are being designed to execute the long-running mission. Thus, it is necessary for UAVs returning to the base for refueling. Under this circumstance, autonomous aerial refueling (AAR) becomes an important capability for the future employment of UAVs. Vision based sensor and navigation system are widely used in AAR, while experiments are done for both probe-and-drogue refueling system and boom approach.

Researchers developed a platform aiming to realize the real-time simulation of AAR in air. An octocoptor serving as tanker UAV and a hexacoptor serving as receiver UAV in the platform. When the receiver arrives at the visual field of the cameras on the tanker (about 5 meters), the binocular vision system will operate to capture the maker on the receiver. The on-board next unit computing (NUC) processes the images and estimates the pose of the receiver. Then the visual information obtained from the vision system is transferred to the flight controller and boom controller to control the flight of the UAVs and the movement of the boom towards receptacle. Figure 1 shows the configuration of our binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform.

The binocular vision system consists of two primary procedures: feature extraction and pose estimation. The pixel coordinates of red markers painted on the receiver UAV are generated after feature extraction. The generated pixel coordinates are utilized in the pose estimation process. Pose estimation procedure is exploited to calculate the relation matrix between the binocular vision system and marker coordination system.

To verify the effectiveness of vision algorithm of the boom approach in AAR, researchers developed a mimical refueling boom system. After achieving the frame sequences of the marker on the receiver, the next unit computing (NUC) mounted onboard will conduct pose and position estimation. An arm microcontroller obtains the results, and figures out the control level to control steering engines. Refueling boom will point at the receptacle in the resolved pose and position, and implement connect in air. Figure 2 shows the experimental results of binocular algorithm

A series of out-door flight tests are conducted in various environments to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of this developed platform, strong and poor light conditions included. Considering the safety and easy observation, the flight height of the UAVs is about 10 meters. The experimental results verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the UAVs boom approach AAR platform.

###​

This research was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61425008, 61333004 and 61273054), and Aeronautical Foundation of China (Grant No. 2015ZA51013).

See the article: Duan H B, Li H, Luo Q N, Zhang C, Li C, Li P and Deng Y M. "A Binocular Vision-based UAVs Autonomous Aerial Refueling Platform". SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences http://link.springer.com/article/10.


​

Binocular vision-based UAVs autonomous aerial refueling platform -- pilots are no longer needed | EurekAlert! Science News

 

[JSCh]

Fossils prove complex life emerged 1.56 billion years ago
2016-05-18 13:18 Ecns.cn Editor:Yao Lan

Zhu Maoyan, a member of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, talks about the multicellular organism fossil, May 18, 2016. The fossils were unearthed in the 1.56 billion-year-old Gaoyuzhuang Formation in North China’s Hebei province and considered to be the oldest multicellular organism fossil ever found in the world. According to Zhu, these fossils are “compelling evidence for the early evolution of organisms large enough to be visible with the naked eye. This totally renews current knowledge on the early history of life.” (Photo provided by Zhu Maoyan)

​

Life forms 'went large' a billion years ago - BBC News
By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
17 May 2016

Image copyright Maoyan Zhu ​

Life was already organising itself into large communities of cells more than a billion years ago, according to evidence from China.

The centimetre-scale life forms were preserved in mudstones from the Yanshan area in the country's north and are dated to 1.56 billion years ago.

Fossils big enough to be seen by the naked eye became common between 635 and 541 million years ago.

But the latest specimens are more than twice that age.

The findings by a Chinese-American team of researchers appear in the journal Nature Communications.

The mysterious organisms from the Gaoyuzhuang rock formation appear to belong to the branch of life known as the eukaryotes, which today includes everything from single-celled amoebae to plants, fungi and animals.

The sea-dwelling life forms probably lived on the shelf areas of ancient oceans and bear a superficial resemblance to algae. They also appear to have used photosynthesis, the process by which plants, some bacteria and other simple organisms convert sunlight into chemical energy.

Prof Andrew Knoll, from Harvard University, a co-author of the paper, said the organism represented by the Chinese fossils was "large but I doubt that it was complicated - an important distinction".

He told me: "You're a good example of a complex multi-cellular organism because you have 250 cell types, dozens of tissues, different organ systems.

"On the other hand if you go to the beach you will find seaweeds that consist of a sheet of cells that are almost all identical. Most of them can either photosynthesise or be used for reproduction."

The team, including Prof Knoll and Shixing Zhu from the China Geological Survey in Tianjin, found that life in this ancient period had already developed a variety of forms.

Of 53 separate specimens, 26 (49%) were linear in shape, 16 (30%) were wedge-shaped, eight (15%) were tongue-shaped and three (6%) were oblong-shaped.

The marine organisms measured up to 30cm in length and up to 8cm wide. Some of the specimens revealed fine structure: a closely-packed arrangement of individual cells measuring about 10 micrometres long - which is the same as the width of cotton fibre.

Go big or go home
Examples of multi-cellular life dating back more than a billion-and-a-half years have been described before. They include Horodyskia, which was shaped like a strings of beads, and Grypania, a coiled, ribbon-like organism.

But the diversity of forms and the size of the fossils from Yanshan mark them out.

The researchers say the fossils are unlikely to be of agglomerations of bacteria known as microbial mats, and instead are probably early examples of eukaryotic organisms.

If so, the organisms suggest multi-cellularity was a feature of marine life a billion years before the so-called Cambrian explosion, a rapid evolutionary event that began 542 million years ago and resulted in the divergence of major animal groups.

Some scientists partly attribute this evolutionary flowering to a rise in oxygen levels, although the causes are the matter of continuing debate.

The findings also suggest that the preceding era, characterised by lower oxygen levels and sometimes referred to as the "boring billion", may have been misjudged.

Prof Knoll told BBC News: "It looks like the leap from single cells to simple multi-cellularity is easy - in relative terms. It was done many times (over the course of evolution) and this really cements the case that it was done early in the history of eukaryotes.

"There are a couple of cases where we know the genomes of both unicellular (single-celled) organisms and their closest multi-cellular relatives. When the jump is from a single cell to simple multi-cellularity, there's very little difference in the gene content of the organism. That's a small leap forward.

"The difference when you go from simple multi-cellularity to complex multi-cellularity, however, is large. The tree of life suggests that has happened only rarely."

However, the team was not able to link the fossils with any other known group of eukaryotes - living or extinct.

 

[bobsm]

ARM Tapes Out Next-Gen 64-Bit Artemis Mobile Chip On 10nm TSMC FinFET Process

ARM's Artemis 10nm FinFET Test Chip
ARM has been working closely with TSMC – the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – for a number of years now. Over the last six years or so especially, ARM and TSMC have collaborated to ensure that the latter’s cutting-edge process technologies work well the former’s processor IP. So, with every generation since 2010, the companies have built ARM’s most advanced processor cores on TSMC’s most advanced emerging process nodes.

The collaboration successfully began with a test chip produced at 28nm, but today ARM is announcing the successful tape-out of a test chip featuring next-generation, premium 64-Bit ARM v8-A mobile processor cores, codenamed Artemis, and manufactured using TSMC’s upcoming 10nm FinFET process technology.

image: http://hothardware.com/ContentImages/Article/2465/content/small_10nm-arm-chip-plots.jpg



The device produced through the collaboration is a relatively simple silicon qualification test chip structure (in comparison to an actual commercial product), which gives ARM the ability to assess what the process can do with an advanced core and also provide feedback to the foundry on things like the device performance, metal stacks, and design rules. Doing this allows the company to do performance and power analysis benchmark testing and validation on 10nm FinFET silicon, before finalized designs are put into production.



ARM Artemis Test Chip Block Diagram
The test chip features what ARM calls an Artemis cluster. It’s essentially a quad-core processor with power management IP, a single-shader Mali graphics core, AMBA AXI interconnect, and test ROMs connected to a second cluster by an asynchronous bridge that features the memory subsystem, which is stacked with a Cortex M core that handles control logic, some timers, SRAM, and external IO.




The slide above compares a fully optimized A72-based SoC produced at 16nm to an early test sample of the Artemis test chip produced with the 10nm FinFET process, and the frequencies weren’t that far off -- the delta is only around 10 - 12%. Power characteristics, however, show much improvement. Leakage was down around 10%, but dynamic power dropped by approximately 50%. ARM and TSMC expect to tweak and turn the knobs to further improve frequency scaling and performance and ultimately settle in at about a 30% power improvement, but with increased overall performance.

Compared to 16nm FinFET+, at nominal voltage, the 10nm test chip offered a 12% performance improvement in a similar power envelope. In overdrive mode (Vod, the second annotated bullet) the test chip offered an approximate 11% performance improvement with similar power. And in super-overdrive mode (Vsod), the Artemis test chip offered similar performance, but at 30% lower power.

The 10nm FinFET Artemis test chip actually taped out all the way back in late December 2015. And ARM got working silicon back for testing and qualification a few weeks back. SoCs for premium mobile devices next-generation cores produced on the 10nm process node are expected to arrive later in the second half of this year.

http://hothardware.com/reviews/arm-tapes-out-next-gen-mobile-artemis-tsmc-10nm-test-chip

 

[bobsm]

Beyond Hyperloop: Chinese scientists board ‘vacuum train’ for possible military projects

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 18 May, 2016, 12:09pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 18 May, 2016, 11:56pm

Stephen Chen

China’s scientists are looking to develop military applications for experimental technology behind an ultra high-speed “vacuum” transport system, according to a researcher involved in one of the projects.

The technology under development would involve loading passengers into pods and projecting them through vacuum tubes at high speeds.

The researcher said some of the work being done in China and the US was funded by the military as the technology might have defence applications.

A US team developing the technology carried out a test in the Nevada desert earlier this month.

A basic prototype “hyperloop” vehicle was fired along an open-air track and reached 187 km/h just 1.1 seconds after launch.

The American inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk pitched the idea three years ago to develop the technology. His aim is to reach 1,000 km/h, which would allow people to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about 30 minutes.

One centre researching the technology in China is State Key Laboratory of Traction Power at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu (成都) in Sichuan (四川) province.

One of the team, Professor Zhao Chunfa, said he was not impressed with the trial in the US.

“On a straight rail several kilometres long we can accelerate to over 1,000km/h without much difficulty using existing technology,” he said.

Zhao is a senior scientist developing a high-speed train operating in a vacuum. It will use magnetic levitation, or “maglev” technology, to raise the vehicle above a track and reduce friction.

Construction of an experimental track is at the planning stage, according to the website of the Superconductivity and New Energy Research and Development Centre at the university.

Numerous research teams are developing the technology in China and some of the projects have not been disclosed to the public due to their military sensitivity, according to Zhao. “The situation is similar in the US. A major drive for the research comes from military demand,” Zhao said.

The PLA is interested in vacuum train technology for several reasons, according to Zhao. Launching a missile from a vacuum tube, for instance, could reduce its fuel consumption by 60 per cent to 70 per cent, he said. That meant a missile could fly much further or carry more warheads.

Zhao said vacuum train technology could also be used to launch fighter jets on aircraft carriers.

Some research teams were also conducting experiments to send small military satellites into orbit from a vacuum tube, he said.

Another area under intensive research is to combine the vacuum tube with a railgun.

A railgun uses electromagnetic forces to destroy a target with high energy particles and vacuum train technology may make it easier to accelerate projectiles to extremely high speeds, according to a Chinese researcher in the field.

China and the US are taking different approaches to develop the technology, according to Zhao.

Most Chinese researchers used maglev systems to lift the vehicle into the air to avoid physical contact with the rail, which would generate enormous friction and heat at high speed.

The maglev approach is less popular in the US, according to Zhao.

The hyperloop capsules proposed by Musk levitate on pressurised air generated by compressors under the vehicles. The capsules were driven forward by powerful magnetic fields generated by linear induction motors along the track, he said.

Maglev technology was more expensive, while pressurised air was more difficult to control, but both technologies needed to overcome a long list of challenges before finding an application in the real world, Zhao said.

For instance, a lot of heat would be generated by the vacuum train during high-speed travel, but the energy would have no way to dissipate in a vacuum.

“Imagine sitting in an oven flying at 1,000km/h, but no wind. It won’t be very comfortable,” Zhao said.

“But what we think is impossible today may be feasible in 20 or 30 years’ time. China is neck and neck with the US in this race.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/poli...perloop-chinese-scientists-board-vacuum-train

 

[JSCh]

Scientist finds possible cure for baldness through genetic repair
(Chinadaily.com.cn) 08:15, May 20, 2016

Han Chunyu (sitting) introduces his scientific finding to journalists from China Youth Daily. [Photo/Weibo]​

A Chinese scientist has discovered a genome-editing technique that has the potential to help bald men regain their hair.

"With this technique, middle-aged men with bald heads can probably regain their hair through genetic repair," Han Chunyu, an associate professor from Hebei University of Science and Technology in north China's Hebei province, told China Youth Daily.

"Although the science is currently futuristic," he added.

The technique that the 42-year-old has found has been named NgAgo, a DNA-guided genome editing, which is an unusual finding in comparison with the mainstream RNA-guided genome editing.

Besides the discussions about Han's finding at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, experts said the finding's potential, which has received attention all across the world after being published in Nature Biotechnology on May 2, is expected to surpass the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, which is recognized as a favorite for the upcoming Nobel Prize.

CRISPR-Cas9 technology, the trendiest technology nowadays, helped its discoverers win the Breakthrough Prize in Life Science- a deluxe Nobel Prize-in 2015. And in 2015 the team won the Citation Laureates, a list of candidates considered likely to win the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

Instead of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Han's NgAgo finding reportedly has more advantages, and one of them is that it does not cause cancer unlike CRISPR-Cas9 technology that could cause the disease.

"Han's finding breaks the patent monopoly of foreign genome editing technique, and shows its own advantages," said Li Wei, a researcher at Institute of Zoology at Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The revolutionary finding was hard won by Han's five-member team at a laboratory in Hebei University of Science and Technology.

To cut costs he and his team had to use discarded beverage bottles in the laboratory and struggled under a debt of more than 300,000 yuan ($45,870).

"The most important quality of a scientist nowadays is the profitless craze for science," Han said about the finding that took him and his team years of hard work.

Genome editing technique has been selected as one of the 10 ground-breaking techniques in 2016 by MIT Technology Review.

 

[JSCh]

IEE Develops China's First 24 T All-superconducting Magnet | Chinese Academy of Sciences
May 19, 2016

A 24 T all-superconducting magnet operating at 4.2 K, consisting of a 9 T YBCO high temperature superconducting (HTS) insert coil and 15 T low temperature superconducting (LTS) coils, has been developed by Prof. WANG Qiuliang’s Group at the Institute of Electrical Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences, which makes China the fourth country in the world achieve a center field above 24 T in the all-superconducting magnet, and the other three are United States, Japan, and Korea.

Compared with BSCCO HTS insert coils, REBCO coils have higher upper critical field, critical current and operating stability, which means that the REBCO coils can obtain a center magnetic field above 24 T. At present, only three groups in the world could meet the goal, namely National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in United States, High Field Laboratory for Superconducting Materials in Tohoku University at Japan, and SUNAM Co. Ltd in Korea.

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Prof. WANG’s group adopted the grading coil design method to increase the safety margins of the magnet, and also manufactured superconducting joint with excellent performance with specially designed devices. The YBCO insert coil can generate a center magnetic field of 1.62 T at 77 K with an operating current of 32 A, and at generate 9 T central magnetic field under 15 T background LTS coils at 4.2 K, at an operating current of 167 A. The maximum magnetic field obtained is 24.3 T.

The achievement of a 24 T all-superconducting magnet represents that China takes a leading position in construction of all-superconducting magnet with extremely-high field, and has accumulated sophisticated experiences and techniques in the field of high field superconducting magnets. It supplies good references to manufacture Ghz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) magnets and large-scale scientific facilities with extremely-high magnetic field in the near future.

 

[JSCh]

Xinhua Insight: Homegrown technology shines at Beijing tech expo
Source: Xinhua 2016-05-21 14:45:41

BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Private cars and public buses may no longer have to battle for precious road space in congested cities, thanks to one Chinese company.

A model of a Transit Elevated Bus (TEB) debuted at the 19th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo this week, one of many homegrown inventions on display. The passenger compartment of this futuristic public bus rises far above other vehicles on the road, allowing cars to pass underneath.

TEB is a purely domestic invention, said Song Youzhou, TEB's chief engineer, and it has already attracted interest from governments in France, Brazil, India and Indonesia looking to incorporate the vehicles into public transit systems.

Chinese companies and research institutions are reasserting their growing might in cutting-edge technology at the expo.

The expo has been held each year in Beijing since 1998. It was initially designed to expose China to advanced technology from around the world.

In its early years, foreign companies were the stars of the show.

"Foreign companies' booths got the best locations inside the hall, with all the special effects -- the lights and things to draw the attention of attendees," said Wang Ping, a Chinese journalist who has been covering the expo since 1999. "At that time, Chinese companies' booths were modest at best."

Yet that has changed over the years, as China ramps up spending in research and development and views indigenous innovation as a crucial source of sustainable growth.

Research spending has risen to 2.1 percent of GDP, with annual R&D expenditures growing more than 20 percent over the past two decades. However, the number still lags behind the 2.8 percent typically found in advanced economies such as the United States, Germany and Japan.

China aims to elevate its R&D spending as a share of GDP to 2.8 percent by 2030. The target is part of a broader plan to catapult the country into the ranks of the world's leading innovative economies, with many of its industries climbing to the upper end of the global value chain, according to a master plan on boosting innovation-based growth released Thursday by China's cabinet.

According to a study of the top 1,000 companies in terms of research spending by Strategy&, the consulting arm of accounting firm PwC, research spending has been growing faster in China than any other major economy since 2007.

That kind of aggressive R&D input has spawned many homegrown innovations worthy of the spotlight at expos such as CHITEC.

Domestic companies and research institutions now hold a commanding presence at CHITEC.

Some participating companies have been quite frank about not having the best technology compared to their global peers. Yet their focus is on looking for a market for their "good enough" technology to help businesses move up the industrial chain.

Pressured by rising labor costs and increasingly harsh environmental penalties, Chinese companies have been forced to strive for greener and more efficient production.

China's labor costs rose 183 percent between 2005 and 2013, the highest among major upper-middle-income countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Thailand and South Africa, data compiled by China International Capital Corporation (CICC) showed.

Meanwhile, growing environmental constraints and China's commitment to cutting emissions mean companies will have to foot the bill for technology upgrades and cleaner, pricier alternative energy.

An increasingly choosy consumer class at home also adds to the urgency for Chinese companies to upgrade in order to stay relevant.

A study of domestic firms by CICC found that companies in sectors such as computers, electronics, machinery and equipment reported the most aggressive research spending among all firms listed.

Such spending is positively correlated with a company's earnings, the CICC said, based on analysis of the financial reports of listed companies.

If Huawei were a public company, its research spending of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 would have been the world's 16th largest, above peers Cisco, ranked 18th at 6.3 billion, and Apple, ranked 19th at 6 billion, according to data compiled by Strategy& and CICC.

China's booming cross-border merger and acquisition activities are also increasingly driven by the need to adopt cutting edge technology to sharpen global competitiveness.

Cross-border deals in China hit 60 billion dollars last year and surpassed 90 billion in the first quarter of this year, according to financial research firm Factset. The increase was mostly driven by technology deals, which registered an annual compounded growth rate of 45 percent over the past five years and whose share of China's total cross-border deals more than doubled to 30 percent in the same period.

 

[JSCh]

Breakthrough on gas separation technologies
Source: Xinhua 2016-05-21 18:46:21

HANGZHOU, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Scientists from China, Ireland and the United States have used a new process to separate ethylene from a gas mixture at much lower cost.

Ethylene, a major raw material for plastic, rubber and paint production, must be separated from acetylene, a byproduct, in order to manufacture these products.

The new separation process is considered a breakthrough, as the amount of acetylene absorbed is 5.7 times as much as the current technique, Professor Xing Huabin, a member of the research team from Zhejiang University, said Friday.

Xing said the technique will help companies separate purer ethylene while lowering costs because of the new energy-saving separation process.

The research, jointly conducted by Zhejiang University, University of Limerick of Ireland and other institutions from the United States, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia, was published in the journal Science on Thursday.

Referees of the journal said the work has set a new "benchmark" for separation of the two chemicals, calling the purification capacity "exceptional."

+++++###+++++​

Right size + Right chemistry = Right stuff for plastics manufacturing | EurekAlert! Science News

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Ethylene (on left in gray) is usually contaminated with acetylene (blue), which can ruin the process that creates the polyethylene used in most plastic. SIFSIX metal-organic frameworks (center) can capture the acetylene efficiently, leaving pure ethylene (right).
Credit: Zhou / NIST​

Plastic manufacturing is an energy-intensive process. Now, research performed in part at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has revealed a way to reduce the energy demand in one key step of plastic manufacturing by using a class of materials that can filter impurities more efficiently than the conventional manufacturing process.

The findings, published in the journal Science, show that materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can effectively remove the contaminant acetylene from ethylene, the material from which much of the world's plastic is made. The research suggests that filtering out acetylene using MOFs would produce ethylene at the high purity that industry demands while sidestepping the current need to convert acetylene to ethylene via a costly catalytic process.

The chemical name for the plastic you see every day - from water bottles and grocery bags to household appliances - is polyethylene, a pliable material made by stringing together long chains of a simpler molecule called ethylene. Worldwide demand for plastic makes ethylene the most widely produced organic compound in the world, with well over 100 million tons of it manufactured each year, largely by refining crude oil.

Newly made ethylene is not pure enough to become plastic because the refinement process also creates a substantial amount of acetylene, which can ruin the catalysts that enable ethylene molecules to be strung together. The conventional industrial solution is to convert this undesirable acetylene into ethylene as well, but this step requires the use of palladium, an expensive and rare metal, as a catalyst and consumes a significant amount of energy.

The research team, which includes scientists from the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) and five universities from around the world, found that a family of MOF materials called SIFSIX, discovered in the 1990s, might provide a better alternative for removing the acetylene. MOFs are porous crystals that under a microscope look a bit like a building under construction - lots of girders with space in between. The SIFSIX group gets its name from some of its girders, which are formed from silicon (Si) and six atoms of fluorine (F6).

The team found that when they passed ethylene through the MOFs, the fluorine attracted and captured most of the acetylene contaminant, letting the now-purified ethylene to pass unhindered. Varying the size of the pores by changing the length of the girders allowed the MOFs to filter ethylene-containing acetylene in concentrations of anywhere from 1 percent to 50 percent, which are typical in industry.

The SIFSIX MOFs set records among adsorbent materials for both selectivity (the ability to attract the acetylene only while allowing the ethylene to pass) and adsorption capacity. According to the research team, the results show that the SIFSIX group offers a viable alternative to standard industrial practice.

"They reduced the amount of acetylene in ethylene down to less than 2 parts per million (ppm), which is lower than the 5 ppm that polyethylene manufacturing requires," said NIST materials scientist Wei Zhou. "SIFSIX MOFs are easy to produce, safe to use, and can be reused over and over again. They also have the advantage of being stable, which is not true of all MOFs."

###​

The MOFs were created and investigated in great detail by researchers based at China's Zhejiang University (by Huabin Xing), Ireland's University of Limerick, (Michael Zaworotko) and the University of Texas - San Antonio in the U.S. UT-San Antonio's Banglin Chen sensed the significance of SIFSIX MOFs for this application, and organized and led the team. The NIST portion of the work, which involved computer modeling of the MOFs and neutron diffraction experiments, clarified the mechanism by which the SIFSIX MOFs captured the acetylene. Scientists from the Netherlands' University of Amsterdam and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology also contributed.

###
​

Journal Reference: "Pore chemistry and size control in hybrid porous materials for acetylene capture from ethylene" Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf2458​

 

[bobsm]

China to roll out mature 5G standards by 2020
(Xinhua)Updated: 2016-05-21 08:50

ZTE's stand at a technology expo in Beijing, Sept 22, 2015. [Photo/VCG]

NANJING - China is developing 5G technology and expects to debut mature 5G standards by 2020, according to a senior mobile communications expert.

"China has always attached great importance to participating in the formulation ofinternational standards, and will hopefully play a leading and central role in making 5Gstandards," You Xiaohu, head of the Nanjing-based National Mobile CommunicationsResearch Laboratory, told Xinhua on Thursday.

China started research on 5G technology in 2013, and will probably complete a first version of its 5G standards by 2018, You said, adding the standards will become more mature overtime.

5G technology will raise network speeds by 1,000 times and bring virtual reality, holographic images and other new experiences to people's lives, You said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2016-05/21/content_25399432.htm

 

[JSCh]

China's Science Revolution
by Rebecca Morelle
23 May 2016

China is super-sizing science. ​

From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space - China’s scientific ambitions are immense.

Just a few decades ago the nation barely featured in the world science rankings. Now, in terms of research spending and the number of scientific papers published, it stands only behind the US.

But despite this rapid progress, China faces a number of challenges.

Here are five key science projects that illustrate its enormous strengths, as well as some of its weaknesses, and may help answer the question whether China can become a global leader in research.

Full story here -> BBC News - China’s Science Revolution

 

[JSCh]

Chinese scientists resolve supramolecular structure in photosynthesis
(People's Daily Online) 14:01, May 23, 2016

​

Research team members Liu Zhenfeng, Li Mei and Zhang Xinzheng (from left to right) hold the sample of the super membrane protein in the sample preparation lab of the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on May 20. (Photo/Xinhua)​

A research team from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made a breakthrough in the study of photosynthesis. They are the first to resolve the high-resolution, three-dimensional structure of the super complex in the photosynthesis of spinach. The study has been published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

This new finding will shine light on many problems relating to energy, food and the environment. In recent years, structural biological research on the photosynthesis of cyanobacteria, algae and other advanced plants has made a great deal of progress. However, structural research on the photosystem II protein complex has lagged behind. The super complex structure was also one of the biggest remaining unknowns in photosynthesis research.

After years of effort, the research team managed to solve the three-dimensional structure by using single-particle, cryo-electronic microscopy technology.

 

[JSCh]

China-made heavy-duty transporter comes off the assembly line
(People's Daily Online) 14:12, May 24, 2016

A 1,000-ton transporter comes off the assembly line in Hubei on May 22.(Photo/people.cn)​

A 1,000-ton transporter, which is 23 meters long, 10 meters wide, and features 32 wheel suspensions and 128 tires, came off the assembly line in Hubei on May 22. The production of this new transporter is a testament to China’s mastery of the advanced technology required for producing heavy platform trucks.

The producer, Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Company, has delivered over 320 heavy-duty transporters to 28 countries and regions in the past 10 years, with carrying capacity ranging from 35 tons to 900 tons. These transporters have been used for bridge construction, shipbuilding and repair, equipment manufacturing, aerospace aviation and more.

The heavy-duty transporter is currently the world’s largest platform truck. The total number of such transporters in the world is less than five. Only Germany and China are able to produce them.

The transporter will be delivered to its client at the end of May. It will be used for shipbuilding.

 

[JSCh]

Flexible lithium-air batteries could power next-generation wearable electronics
By Ella Xiong
May. 24, 2016 , 11:30 AM

If you buy what the tech literati is selling these days, glucose-sensing armbands, heart-monitoring patches, and other wearable electronics will be the next wave of consumer electronic devices. But inventing these devices is only half the battle. Researchers must also come up with flexible, stretchable batteries to power them. Battery researchers have taken a few stabs at it. But most such batteries to date don’t produce much juice.

Now, researchers have engineered a next-generation battery technology, known as lithium-air batteries, into flexible and bendable cablelike cells. The new devices still have a ways to go before they’re ready for market. But someday flexible lithium-air batteries could power everything from clothing packed with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to roll-up tablets and prosthetic hands.


Full Story -> Flexible lithium-air batteries could power next-generation wearable electronics | Science | AAAS

 

[bobsm]

AIAA awards Chinese scientist its top prize

Updated: 2016-05-26 11:42
By Jin Dan(chinadaily.com.cn)

Jiang Zonglin introduces the R&D of shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel to the media press in 2012. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

A world-leading aerospace society has awarded its top prize on ground testing to a Chinese scientist for the first time, demonstrating China's great strides in the field, academic journal Acta Aerodynamica Sinica reported recently.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) presented the Ground Testing Award 2016 to Jiang Zonglin, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led China's R&D in the JF12 shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel.

Jiang was the first Asian scholar to get the Ground Testing Award, first established in 1975.

The Award is presented to the individual with outstanding achievements in flight simulation, space simulation, propulsion testing, aerodynamic testing, or other ground testing associated with aeronautics and astronautics, according to AIAA’s website.

Jiang was awarded for "skillful leadership in conceiving, developing and successful commissioning of the world's largest shock tunnel capable of true hypersonic flight simulation".

In May 2012, China opened the JF12 shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel. Known internationally as the "Hyper Dragon", JF12 is the largest of its kind in the world that can replicate flying conditions between Mach 5 and Mach 9.

The wind tunnel overcame the scientific hurdle that has thwarted global scientists and engineers for about six decades. According to Chinese Academy of Sciences, JF12 is a 265-metre long tunnel that can replicate flying conditions at an altitude of 25 to 50 km.

As wind tunnel is the basic research that decides how advanced aircraft may be developed, Jiang's achievement is a new scientific breakthrough in China's aeronautics and astronautics industry, the academic journal said.

Created in 1963 by the merger of the two great aerospace societies of the day, the American Rocket Society and the Institute of the Aerospace Sciences(AIAA) is the world's largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession.

The Ground Testing Award is presented annually at the AIAA Aviation and Aeronautics Forum with the nomination deadline by October 1 of the previous year.

Panorama of JF12 shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel at Chinese national key laboratory Qian Xuesen Engineering Science Experiment Base in Huairou district, Beijing, July 26, 2013. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-05/26/content_25476137.htm