Guobin Zhang

Dust storms bring a large quantity of dust aerosols from arid and semi-arid regions of the Earth. However, real-time dust concentration data for dust storms in arid regions, important for wind erosion studies, are still limited. Here, temporal variation of airborne dust concentrations in the Mogao Grottoes, Northwest China, during the monitoring pe...

The dynamic process of dust emission from gobi is a largely un-solved scientific question while it is essential for minimizing the dust hazards. In this study, field wind tunnel experiments have been performed to reveal the processes of dust emission from gobi on the top of the Mogao Grottoes. We found that the dust content of gobi is the dominant...

The aim of this paper is to study the influence of atmospheric humidity and temperature on the mural paintings in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang by measuring the weight of a simulated mural block. Under open conditions, the daily changes in the atmospheric humidity and temperature have an apparent effect on the water content of these murals. There...

A hierarchically porous zeolite Beta has been designed via a facile combined surfactant-assisted hydrothermal treatment and subsequent alkali etching approach. High contents of the Cu and Mn species were then highly dispersed into the as-synthesized hierarchically porous zeolite Beta. The prepared composite catalyst exhibits highly active, stable a...

The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in China was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1987 and is famous for its cultural relics. Water is the most active factor that harms the relics in the caves as it damages the grotto murals and painted sculptures. Thus, determining the water sources and driving forces of water movement is a key issue for p...

The aeolian processes of erosion, transport and deposition are threatening the Mogao Grottoes, a world culture heritage site. A field wind tunnel experiment was conducted atop the Mogao Grottoes using weighing sensors to quantify aeolian processes over protective gravel beds. Results reveal that aeolian erosion and deposition over gravel beds are b...

A useful and interesting unconventional phenomenon of Pd nanoparticle formation, i.e., significantly inhibited particle growth at elevated temperatures, has been observed for the first time by growing Pd nanoparticles on a type of nonreactor, amino group-functionalized hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (amino-HMSNs). Such an unconventional eff...

Nitrogen-doped microporous carbons were fabricated by a simple chemical activation strategy in which chitosan and K2CO3 were employed as the precursor and activation agent, respectively. The textural and chemical properties of the porous carbons could be easily tuned by changing the ratio of K2CO3/chitosan and activation temperature. Due to their l...

A novel template-free approach, the controlled thermal decomposition of single-phase Fe–Mn binary oxalate, was proposed and used to synthesize mesoporous Fe–Mn binary oxide, which possessed homogeneous worm-like mesopores (4–5 nm) and high surface areas above 200 m2/g. The catalyst was efficient in the catalytic removal of low-concentration NO at r...

Dual-mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolite with highly b axis oriented large mesopores was synthesized by using nonionic copolymer F127 and cationic surfactant CTAB as co-templates. The product contains two types of mesopores-smaller wormlike ones of 3.3 nm in size and highly oriented larger ones of 30-50 nm in diameter along the b axis-and both of them interpe...

A novel porous CuOx/CeO2 co-loaded ZrO2–TiO2 (ZT) nanocomposite with tunable pore structure and high surface area was prepared by a simple surfactant-free solvothermal method. The pore structure could be well controlled by adjusting the ratio of ethanol to H2O during the solvothermal process. Both copper oxides and ceria species could be homogeneou...

Under an extremely arid condition, a PVC greenhouse was built on the top of Mogao Grottoes in gobi area. The results of 235-day constant extraction of condensed water on the greenhouse film and soil water content showed that 2.1 g/(m 2 ⋅d) groundwater moved up and exported into the soil, and a phreatic water evaporation existed in the extreme dry a...

A new monomer, vinyltriallylsilane (CB3), having functionnal groups with different hydrosilylation reactivity was designed and synthesized by allylation reaction from vinyltrichlorosilane. Then, photocrosslinkable hyperbranched poly(siloxysilane) with terminal allyl groups was prepared via hydrosilylation reaction of vinyltriallylsilane (CB3) and d...

Two novel degradable hyperbranched polycarbosilazanes were synthesized via hydrosilylation reaction and well characterized by FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, 29Si-NMR and size exclusion chromatogram-multi- angle laser light scattering (SEC-MALLS) technology. First, two monomers, bis(N,N-bis(dimethylvinylsilyl)amino)-methylsilane (AB4M) as well as (N,N-bis(...

UV-curable hyperbranched polysiloxanes were synthesized via hydrolysis of γ-methacryloxypropyltriraethyloxysilane (A-174) by controlling the amount of water. Macromolecular structures of the polymers obtained were characterized and confirmed by FT-IR, 1H-NMR spectra and multi-angle laser light scattering technology (MALLS). The results indicated th...

The cyclodextrin (CD) molecule, a host for a variety of smaller molecular guests, and hyperbranched polymers both possess molecule cavities in their molecular architectures. If the hyperbranched poly(β-cyclodextrin)s are established using modified β-CD molecules as monomers, their molecular inclusion capabilities for smaller molecular guests may be...

Of the vast amount of MV cables in the UK, the majority was installed in 1950psilas and 1960psilas. With a design life 60-70 years, age induced degradation and failure of the UK MV systems is becoming increasingly prominent in the minds of plant owners and operators. In this paper, the authors discuss the business case for on-line PD monitoring vs....

For many years identification of incipient Partial Discharge (PD) faults in power cables has been made through off-line investigation techniques. The periodic monitoring of power cables resulted in unexpected failures, with consequent financial penalties for the utilities. More recently, in an effort to allow continuous asset management of the medi...

Detection and diagnosis of partial discharge (PD) activity has been widely adopted in electrical plant condition monitoring. Analysis and detection of PD in practical applications is often hampered by noise in the signal. Recent research has shown that the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is effective in extracting PD pulses from severe noise. One...

The most important indicator of the health of electrical plant items is the condition of their insulation for which partial discharge (PD) test or monitoring has been widely recognized as one of the best tools. The strategic importance of plant in the transmission network, and its high replacement and refurbishment cost, has categorized research an...

This paper presents the application of a new methodology, the Rough Set (RS) theory, for data mining or knowledge acquisition in an on-line cable condition monitoring system. The attractiveness of the RS theory is that it allows automated generation of knowledge models of clear semantics which offer explanations of the inferences performed when use...

The synthesis, characterization, and structure regulation of hyperbranched polycarbosiloxane with dendritic boron cores were realized in this paper. First, dendritic boron core was synthesized via hydroboration with borane dimethylsulfide and bis(allyloxy)dimethylsilane. Then, the hyperbranched polycarbosiloxanes with dendritic boron cores were syn...

A novel ultraviolet-curable polyorganosilazane ceramic precursor was synthesized via ammonolysis from modified chorosilane, which had been synthesized by alcoholysis of trichloro(methyl)silane and 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate. The polyorganosilazane was well characterized by using Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H nuclear magnetic res...

In order to enhance the reactivity of the silyl-containing ceramic precursor, a hyperbranched silyl-containing polymer with low viscosity and plenty of terminal vinyl-groups was prepared. A novel AB4 type monomer, bis(N, N-diallylamino)methylsilane, was synthesized first by aminolysis of MeHSiCl2 and then was polymerized via hydrosilylation reactio...