Sichao Hou

Northeastern University | NEU · Department of Chemical Engineering

The effect of Mg2+ on hydrothermal formation of α-CaSO4•0.5H2O whiskers with high aspect ratios was investigated in this paper. α-CaSO4•0.5H2O whiskers with a preferential growth along c-axis and an average aspect ratio up to 370 were synthesized using hydrothermal treatment of CaSO4•2H2O precursor in the presence of 1.97×10-3 mol•L-1 MgCl2. The pr...

The supersaturation-induced hydrothermal formation of α-CaSO4•0.5H2O whiskers from CaSO4•2H2O precursor at 115-150oC was investigated in this paper. The experimental results indicated that the conversion processes were carried out via the dissolution-precipitation and homogeneous nucleation routes and connected with the critical supersaturation (ab...

We report a novel room temperature methanol sensor comprised of gold nanoparticles covalently attached to the surface of conducting copolymer films. The copolymer films are synthesized by oxidative chemical vapor deposition (oCVD), allowing substrate-independent deposition, good polymer conductivity and stability. Two different oCVD copolymers are...

Herein, ultralong α‐CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers with an average length above 500 µm and aspect ratios of 200–500 are hydrothermally produced employing trace amount (0.06 mg L⁻¹) of cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) as the morphology modifier. The hydrothermal formation mechanisms of α‐CaSO4·0.5H2O involving the initial nucleation of bassanite nanocrystals/n...

The choice of a suitable adsorbate/adsorbent pair is critical for an adsorption cooling cycle. The surface characteristics and thermo-physical properties of the adsorbent, and the adsorption rate of adsorbate are key parameters in making the choice. Through literature review, it is found that there are disagreements among the experimental measureme...

This study establishes an image-based approach to determine the thermal conductivity of a metal material as a function of temperature using isotherm movement. The thermal conductivity within a range of temperature can be derived from a combined experimental and theoretical study based on Wiedemann-Franz law. A cubic relation between heating time an...

Commonly used thermal analysis tools such as calorimeter and thermal conductivity meter are separated instruments and limited by low throughput, where only one sample is examined each time. This work reports an infrared based optical calorimetry with its theoretical foundation, which is able to provide an integrated solution to characterize thermal...

Soil contamination with organic compounds can lead to the loss of farmable and habitable lands and cause long-term human and animal exposure to toxins. This paper reports a new laser based method for in situ soil decontamination at high efficiency, in which a focused excimer laser is used to remove organic contaminants from soil through burning by...

Actuators based on phase change materials (paraffin) can simultaneously produce large stroke length and large force due to thermal expansion, but the low thermal conductivity of paraffin requires high power input and long actuation time. The graphene oxide (GO) doped paraffin dynamic actuator addresses the key challenges in the design of thermal ph...

In this paper, the influence of alkyl trimethyl ammonium bromides (CnH2n+1(CH3)3NBr, n = 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, abbreviated as ATAB) on the formation of alpha calcium sulfate hemihydrate (α-CaSO4·0.5H2O) whiskers under a hydrothermal condition (135 °C, 3.0 h) was analyzed. Specifically, it focuses on cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (C16H33(CH3)3NBr,...

An all-optical decoder was developed for remote rapid readout of the thermal barcode made of solid-to-liquid phase change materials (PCMs). An infrared source was used to heat up barcode; a thermal imager (IR camera) was used to collect thermal images continuously while the barcode was heating up or cooling down. Thermal barcodes consisting of four...

Nanomaterials have shown tremendous potentials to impact the broad field of biological sensing. Nanomaterials, with extremely small sizes and appropriate surface modifications, allow intimate interaction with target biomolecules. [...]

The influence of NH4Cl on hydrothermal formation of CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers from CaSO4·2H2O precursor at 135°C was investigated in this paper. Compared with the blank experiment, the presence of 3 × 10−2 mol·L−1 NH4Cl led to the increase of the lengths of the whiskers from 50 to 160 μm to 150 to 300 μm and the decrease of the diameters from 1.0 to 1....

A facile additive-free solution method has been developed to fabricate ZnO star-like assemblies, nanosheet-based microspheres and nanorod assemblies by rapid dilution of zinc-bearing alkaline solution with water at 60 °C. The shape of the nanoscale building blocks of the hierarchical structures depends on the supersaturations, which can be adjusted...

The influence of the activity of calcium sulfate dihydrate (CaSO4·2H2O) on the hydrothermal formation of CaSO4·0.5H2O whiskers was investigated in this paper, using commercial CaSO4·2H2O as the raw material. The experimental results indicated that the activity of CaSO4·2H2O was improved after calcination of the commercial CaSO4·2H2O at 150°C for 6....