A series of novel superabsorbent composites of poly(acrylic acid)/semicoke were prepared by polymerization of acrylic acid using ammonium persulphate as initiator, N,N’-methylenebisacrylamide as crosslinker and semicoke which was the by-product of coal carbonizing as the inorganic components. FTIR and SEM analysis indicated that the superabsorbent composites had been successfully polymerized and the semicoke participated into the construction of 3D polymeric network. Meanwhile, the effects of initiator, crosslinker, semicoke, neutralization degree as well as the pH value were investigated, and the results showed that superabsorbent composites containing 10% of semicoke possessed the maximum water absorbency of 584 g/g in distilled water and 75 g/g in 0.9 % NaCl solution. The superabsorbent composites kept the high water absorbency within a wide pH range of 4-11, and still exhibited better re-swelling capability even after seven times. The superabsorbent composite with the excellent performance is a potential water-retaining agent used in the agriculture.

In order to understand the hot deformation behavior of novel Cu/Al laminated composites, isothermal hot compression tests were conducted by Gleeble-1500D thermo-mechanical simulator. And the effect of bonding interface, deformation temperature and strain rate on the deformation behavior was analyzed. Results show that under the interface constraint effect, soft Al layer trends to flow synchronously with hard Cu layer. And further microstructure examinations indicate the cooperative deformation capability of Cu/Al composites increases with increasing stain rate and decreasing deformation temperature. Strain hardening exponent, calculated based on the true stress-true strain data, also proves the effect of deformation temperature and strain rate on the cooperative deformation behavior. Meanwhile, unique composites structure allows the Al matrix to exhibit the characteristic of dynamic recrystallization during the hot deformation process. Lastly, strain compensated Arrhenius-type constitutive equation was employed to describe the coupling effect of temperature, strain rate and strain on the flow stress.

Eco-friendly betanin/clay minerals hybrid materials with good stability were synthesized combining natural betanin molecules extracted from beetroot with 2:1 type palygorskite (Pal) and 1:1 type halloysite (Hal), respectively. It was found that the adsorption, grinding and heating treatment played a key role to enhance the interaction between betanin and clay minerals during preparation process, which favored improving the thermal stability and solvent resistance of natural betanin. The L* and a* values of the betanin/Pal and betanin/Hal hybrid materials were 64.94 and 14.96, 62.55 and 15.48, respectively, indicating that betanin/Hal exhibited the better color performance. The structural characterizations confirmed that betanin was mainly adsorbed on the outer surface of Pal or Hal through hydrogen-bond interaction, and part of them also were entered into the inner surface of Hal via electrostatic interaction. Therefore, Hal preferred to improve the color properties, heating stability and solvent resistance of natural betanin due to its structural features compared with Pal.

Hot deformation at elevated temperature is essential to densify the particle reinforced Aluminum matrix composites (AMCs) and improve their performance. However, hot deformation behavior of the AMCs is sensitive to the variation of hot processing parameters. In this paper, optimal processing parameters of the dual-scale SiCp/A356 composites was determined to explore the control strategy of the microstructure. Hot compression tests were conducted at the temperature ranging from 460 to 520℃ under strain rates from 0.01 to 5 s−1. Constitutive equation and processing maps were presented to determine the hot processing parameters. Microstructure evolution of the dual-scale SiCp/A356 composites was analyzed. The strain rate of 0.62 ~ 5s-1 and deformation temperature of 495 ~ 518℃ is suitable for the hot processing. The number of DRX grains in the “safe” domains is larger and the dislocation density is lower compared to those of instability domains. DRX particles mainly occurred around SiC particles. The presence of SiC particles can promote effectively the DRX nucleation, which result in that the dynamic softening mechanism of the dual-scale SiCp/A356 composites is dominated DRX.