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Failure Analysis of Batteries Using Synchrotron-based Hard X-ray Microtomography
Published on: August 26, 2015
Mechanism insights into bio-floc bound water transformation based on synchrotron X-ray computed microtomography and
Boran Wu1, Meng Zhou2, Xiaohu Dai3
1State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, CO, 80401, USA.
Abstract:
This study visually tracked the micro-spatial water distribution in bio-flocs of waste activated sludge through in situ synchrotron X-ray computed microtomography. Primarily, the two fractions of bound water, the vicinal water adhering to the surface of organic compositions and the interstitial water mechanically trapped in the net-like structure of bio-flocs, were proposed based on the cross-section imaging results. Furthermore, the determinants on bound water occurrences were explored in terms of viscoelastic acoustic responses of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). The joint roles of hydrophilic substance removal, EPS aggregation compaction and colloidal instability of sludge flocs in bound water reduction were confirmed by the strong correlations (Pearson correlation coefficient, Rp > 0.95, p-value<0.04) among protein levels of EPS, EPS viscosity and bound water contents. Accordingly, providing adhering sites for vicinal water and forming bio-flocs with high viscosity for trapping interstitial water were proposed to be the contributions of EPS on bound water occurrences.
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