News on China's scientific and technological development.

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A proprietary gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe system developed by China Institute of Metrology recently passed an expert panel check organized by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The Institute has worked on the gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe since 2007, and rolled out China's first proprietary gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe system.

Researchers proposed a new strategy to work on both high-precision pressure control and temperature control, in a bid to achieve the high precision repetition of the temperature stemmed from a gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe system, noticeably enhanced temperature uniformity and the stability of technical indicators.

At a dynamic pressure of 111250Pa, the thermometer well of gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe produces a vertical temperature uniformity and stability up to ± 0.16mK and ± 0.21mK respectively, an international leading level.

Before this, the highest temperature uniformity and stability a gas-controlled sodium heat-pipe could reach was secured by the Italian Institute of Metrology at ± 0.5mK.

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A wearable assistive robot, jointly developed by the CAS Institute of Intelligent Machines, Institute of Solid Physics, and Anhui Traditional Chinese Medicine School to help the disabled and elder persons, recently passed an acceptance check.

The robot is designed to be worn on arms, waist, and legs, assisting an elder, or a disabled person with some motion capability to walk or to use their hands like a normal person.

Researchers made a range of innovative designs, including hip joint empowering mechanism, sensor-based human motion intention capture, and man-machine balance in the movement.

They also developed the patented designs and processes, including hypothetical compliance control, mechanical design of robotic exoskeleton, motion information acquisition, and fall prediction, among others.

The robot has been proved effective assisting the disabled or elderly people to take care of themselves, or work independently, reducing the burdens on both family and society.

Meanwhile, the findings derived from the project will find broad applications in human biomechanics, heavy physical work, health care, manufacturing, and entertainment.

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A multi-nozzle opposed coal slurry gasification technology, jointly developed by East China University of Science and Technology, Yanzhou Mining Group, and China Tianchen Chemical Engineering, recently passed an on-site check. The technology has been put into industrial application for a long and continuous operation.

The proprietary technology, enjoying numerous merits, including safe performance, low operating cost, and scale production, has found application at 72 gasifiers in 25 domestic or overseas plants. Of them, the gasifier having a daily feeding capacity up to 2,000 tons of coal or above accounted for 39 in number.

5 gasifiers at Jiangsu Linggu and Shenhua Ningmei have been running smoothly since the application. In 2008, the technology developer issued a technology licensing to Valero Energy in the United States, the first instance that China transfers its scale coal gasification technology to a developed country.

In a full load operation, the device registered a gasification performance exceeding the check indicators. Comparing with the coal slurry gasification technologies from other domestic or overseas developers, the multi-nozzle technology enjoys an enhanced gasification, a raised carbon conversion rate, and advanced technical indicators.

For example, comparing with the imported technology also applied at Shenhua Ningmei, the novel technology raised effective gas composition by 3.1%, with a reduced oxygen consumption by 11.4%, a declined coal consumption by 2.1%, and a carbon conversion rate up to 99.2%.

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DONG Shuwen, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences vice-president, told reporters that China has mastered the key technologies that can be used to make a proprietary seismic prospecting and electromagnetic detection system, including magnetic core materials and low-frequency weak signal detection, along with an induction wideband magnetic sensor prototype that enjoys a performance similar to an overseas product.

The special project, staged to develop the proprietary UAV aeromagnetic detection system, has landed major phase results for low magnetic unmanned aerial vehicle making, high reliability automatic navigation system, helium optical pumping air magnetometer, and superconducting aviation magnetometer data pre-processing system.

The project, in collaboration with other partners, has rolled out China’s first 10,000-meter continental scientific drilling rig enjoying an internationally advanced capability.

The rig will be delivered to the Daqing Oilfield at the end of the month, for a joint international continental scientific drilling program (ICDP), where a scientific drilling, jointly financed by China Geological Survey Bureau and the National Deep Exploration Program, will be conducted at two sites in the Songliao Basin, to a planned depth up to 6600 m.

The project has also established an integrated platform made up of three-dimensional geological target models, working on both imported and self-developed systems, in an attempt to keep abreast with its overseas counterparts.

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The State Oceanic Administration No. 2 Institute of Oceanography and Zhejiang Taihe Shipping have recently kicked off the joint construction of a 4,000-ton ocean-going research vessel in Wenzhou.

The vessel is an integrated platform for multi-disciplinary applications, assisted by multiple functions and diverse technical means, desirable for interdisciplinary deep-sea marine investigations of ocean dynamic environment, geological environment, ecology environment, and deep-sea extreme environment.

Enjoying an integrated marine environment observation, detection, sampling, and on-site analysis capability, the vessel will become a moving platform for deep-sea and marine scientific research and high-tech R&D laboratory.

The vessel will be equipped with two sets of full-time steering oar electric propulsion system, a dynamic positioning system, and an integrated navigation positioning system, allowing a displacement of 4,400 tons, and an endurance of 12,000 nautical miles.

The boat is also equipped with a dry laboratory, a wet laboratory, and a data processing center, along with a range of world-class survey equipment, including deep-water multi-beam system, single beam 10,000-meter depth sounder, and split beam system, and advanced deck operation equipment, such as varieties of winches with different capabilities.

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Microvast ultrafast charge station for electric buses begins operation in Chongqing

Microvast ultrafast charge station for electric buses begins operation in Chongqing
28 June 2012

The first commercial, ultrafast charge, electric vehicle charging station has begun operations in Chongqing, China. The 3,200 kW, 2,065 m2 charging station—jointly developed by Microvast and the China State Grid—includes six 400 kW individual chargers; each charger fills a bus battery in 5 to 10 minutes.

Commercial operation of this charge station is an important milestone for Microvast and the China State Grid’s joint development plan under which Microvast will introduce a new business model for EV deployment. Under the new business model, ultrafast charging stations will be financed, built and operated by utility companies much like gas stations are owned by oil companies today.

The ultrafast charge station is located at the Chongqing International Airport New Development Zone and is utilized by a fleet of more than 30 full electric transit buses and additional plug-in hybrid electric buses. The buses carry passengers from nearby high technology manufacturing areas to residential areas on 20 mile route and are powered by ultrafast charge Microvast LpTO batteries manufactured by Microvast Power Systems Co., Ltd., a Microvast subsidiary.

The International Airport Charging Station is the first of multiple planned charging stations scheduled for Chongqing as part of the cities investment plan to develop an advanced electric public transport system with more than 1,000 ultrafast charge EV buses.

The Chongqing Fast Charge Technology is an important piece of Microvast’s innovative CCT (Clean City Transit) Solution. Our technology, evaluated and demonstrated over the last year in six prototype buses, is now ready for commercial operation in Chongqing. The prototype buses have each driven more than 25,000 miles and we are confident in their continued performance. By operating this new fast charge station, more and more people will take advantage of our green technology and move towards zero emissions.
—Wu Yang, President and CEO of Microvast

HT eBus Power Systems Co., Ltd. has delivered 125 buses so far this year, and will produce up to 1,000 BEV and PHEV buses for Chongqing, equipped with Microvast’s fast charging technology.

Founded in 2006, Microvast, Inc. is a completely vertically integrated advanced power and technology company.

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XUE Qikun and CHEN Xi of Tsinghua University, and MA Xucun of CAS Institute of Physics have confirmed the electron-pairing mechanism in an iron selenide (FeSe) based superconductor, with the help of novel material preparation techniques.

The finding laid a solid ground for understanding the superconducting mechanism of iron based superconductors.

In the study, Chinese scientists rolled out high quality iron-selenide superconductor single crystal film, using the molecular beam epitaxy technique. The new technique allows scientists to control the chemical composition of the thin film to an atomic level.

Meanwhile, scientists measured the film using scanning tunnelingmicroscopy and spectroscopy, so as to obtain a spatial resolution and a high-energy resolution at atomic level. The finding was published in the recent issue of Science.

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A high-speed thrust bearing test rig, developed by Dongfang Electrical Machinery Corporation, was recently put into operation in Deyang City, Sichuan Province.

It took more than one year for the developers to work out China’s first high-speed thrust bearing test rig featured with a maximum speed of 750 rpm, a maximum load capacity up to 2,000 tons, a maximum test outer diameter of 2,800mm, and a drag motor power at 4,500 kW.

The drive system is made up of an AC motor and a high frequency component. An all-digital flexible control system is employed for both test and control.

The test platform is able to simulate the work of a 6000-ton turbine generator’s thrust bearing model and the full-scale bi-directional thrust bearing operation of a pump-storage unit, accommodating the needs of testing giant facilities.

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Hebei Semiconductor Research Institute and Harbin Institute of Technology researchers have made the first report in mainland China of high-performance high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) using indium aluminum nitride (InAlN) barriers on gallium nitride (GaN) buffer layers [Liu Bo et al, J. Semicond., vol32, p124003, 2011]. The team sees their work as strengthening the case for InAlN-based technology as a potential successor of aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN) HEMTs for microwave and millimeter-wave power applications

Growth of high-quality InAlN has only recently become available. Potential advantages of InAlN over the more traditional AlGaN include lattice matching with GaN with In-content of ~17% and high spontaneous polarization that creates high charge carrier densities in the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) that forms at InAlN/GaN interfaces. These properties allow the gate–channel distance to be reduced, improving electrostatic control of current flow through the device.

Usually AlGaN/GaN HEMT channel–gate distances are 25nm. The Hebei/Harbin InAlN/AlN/GaN devices had almost half that at 13nm. For example, the new devices had peak transconductance of 286mS/mm at gate potential of –3V. With sub-100nm gate lengths, the researchers expect to achieve transconductances of more than 400mS/mm, along with low output conductance and high gain at mm-wave frequencies.

lthough the Hebei/Harbin InAlN/AlN/GaN device had modest frequency performance with extrinsic fT cut-off of 34GHz and fmax maximum oscillation of 40GHz at a gate potential –4V and a drain bias of 8V, researchers based in Switzerland have recently achieved 205GHz cut-off with 55nm gate length and 3nm InAlN barrier layer.

Power measurements of Hebei/Harbin device subjected to a drain voltage of 24V in a load-pull system at 10GHz gave output power density of 4.69W/mm, linear gain of 11.8dB, and peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 48%. The power density figure compares with AlGaN/GaN device performance of 41.4W/mm at 4GHz and 3.65W/mm at 18GHz.

The maximum drain current density for the Hebei/Harbin device was 1.56A/mm at a gate potential of +2V, a value “to our knowledge beyond the highest drain current density of any AlGaN/GaN HEMT structure, especially for samples fabricated on sapphire substrates,” the researchers add. Higher current densities are expected from improved thermal management and reduced trap densities...

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SUN Zhengwen, deputy head of CAS Xinjiang Observatory recently told reporters that the 110-meter radio telescope project, the largest of its kind in the world jointly staged by the Xinjiang Autonomous Region and the Chinese Academy of Sciences is proceeding smoothly.

The collaborators have chosen the Banjiegou Shihezi Village in Qitai County, Changji Prefecture, Xinjiang as the preliminary site. Researchers are currently working on a feasibility study for the site.

SUN said the 110-m radio telescope, designed to reach an internationally advanced level, can be employed to conduct high-precision pulsar observational study, thanks to its large enough diameter.

The telescope will eventually be used to understand compact objects, detect gravitational waves, and probe black holes, boosting China’s capability of astronomical observation and theoretical astronomy, and accommodating China’s needs in deep space probe, defense, and national economic development.

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