Quantifying the force between mercury and mica across an ionic liquid using white light interferometry

Interference Effect of Experimental Parameters on the Mercury Removal Mechanism of Biomass Char under an Oxy-Fuel Atmosphere

In this paper, the effect of temperature, adsorption bed height, and initial mercury concentration under oxy-fuel combustion on mercury adsorption by 1% NH₄Cl-modified biomass char was studied. Modification enriched the pore structure of biomass char and increased the number of surface functional groups. Higher temperature would lead to the destruction of van der Waals and reduce the adsorption efficiency, while the change of adsorption bed height had no obvious effect. Adsorption thermodynamics shows that the mercury removal process is a spontaneous exothermic process. The increase of initial mercury concentration would increase the driving force of mercury diffusion to the surface and improve the adsorption capacity. Meanwhile, three kinetic models including the intraparticle diffusion model, pseudo-first-order model, and pseudo-second-order model were applied to explore the internal mechanism of mercury adsorption by biomass char. The results showed that the pseudo-first-order model and pseudo-second-order model could accurately describe the adsorption process, which meant that the progress of external mass transfer played an important role in the adsorption of mercury while chemical adsorption should not be ignored. The intraparticle diffusion model indicated that internal diffusion was not the only step to control the entire adsorption process and did not have an inhibition on mercury removal. Higher initial mercury concentration would promote the external mass transfer progress and chemical adsorption progress. In addition, higher temperature inhibited the external mass transfer, which was not conducive to the adsorption of mercury.

Phase-error-compensation-based surface recovery algorithm using spectrum selection for white light interferometry

White light interferometry is a well-established surface recovery technique. In this paper, a white light signal processing algorithm based on phase error compensation using spectrum selection is proposed. The derived nonlinear phase distribution from the correlogram is modeled as the combination of random errors and systemic deviations. By developing a new, to the best of our knowledge, recovery algorithm, the phase noise can be separated from the linear map and significantly attenuated. Based on the proposed algorithm, the spectrum features of white light LEDs and halogen lamps are investigated in detail. The inner products defined by three selected points are employed to generate a coefficient to evaluate the linearity of an unwrapped phase map within a certain spectrum region. The optimal spectrum range corresponding to the best measurement performance can then be located where the coefficient approximates 1 and the spectrum energy stays relatively high. The simulations are carried out under different levels of SNR and scan step noises, which show that the new method can effectively reduce additional disturbance from the recovered topography. In experiments, the system with the proposed method is first calibrated by a step height standard (VLSI, 182.7±2.0nm) with the repeatability of 0.44 nm. A silicon wafer and three roughness standards are also tested to further verify the robustness of the new method.

Density functional theory of confined ionic liquids: the influence of power-law attractions on molecule distributions and surface forces

Interaction energies and density profiles for two model ionic liquids, [C₄mim⁺][BF₄⁻] and [C₄mim⁺][TFSI⁻], confined between charged planar walls are studied within a density functional theory framework. The results of these simulations are also compared with results assuming a simpler linear hexamer–monomer, cation–anion system. We focus attention on the effect on the atom site distributions and the surface forces of an additional, specific attractive potential between oppositely charged molecules. We consider both short- and long-ranged attractive potentials in order to span the degree to which the ionic counterions associate. Independent of its strength, we interpret the results found with the short-ranged potential to be a manifestation of limited molecular association. In contrast, depending on its strength, the results found with the long-ranged potential suggest a much stronger and possibly longer ranged associations of ionic groups. Both potentials are found to influence the behavior of the surface force at small separations, while the long-ranged attractive potential has the greater influence of the two on the long-ranged behavior of the surface force.

Interaction energies and density profiles for two model ionic liquids, [C₄mim⁺][BF₄⁻] and [C₄mim⁺][TFSI⁻], confined between charged planar walls are studied within a density functional theory framework.