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There is a strong inducement to develop new inorganic materials to substitute the current industrial pigments, which are known for their poor ultraviolet absorbent and low photoluminescence (PL) properties. The purpose of this paper is to invent a better rare-earth-based pigment material as a spectral modifier with good luminescence properties to enhance the spectral response for photovoltaic panel application.

Different phosphor samples made of nano-calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) with varied wt.% of the dopant Dysprosium doped calcium borophosphate (CBP/Dy) as (W0 – 0%, W1 – 3,85%, W2 – 7.41%, W3 –10.71% and W4 –13.79%) were prepared via the solid-state diffusion method at 600 °C for 6 h using a muffle furnace. The structural, morphological and luminescence properties of the CaCO₃:CBP/Dy powder samples were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and PL test.

The XRD, SEM and FTIR results verified the crystalline formation, morphological behaviour and vibration bonds of synthesized CBP/Dy-doped CaCO₃ powder samples. XRD pattern revealed that the synthesized powder samples exhibit crystalline structured materials, and SEM results showed irregular shape and porous-like structured morphologies. FTIR spectrum shows prominent bands at 712, 874 and 1,404 cm⁻¹, corresponding to asymmetric stretching vibrations of CO3²⁻ groups and out-of-plane bending. PL characterization of CBP/Dy-doped CaCO₃ (sample W) shows emission at 427 nm (λmax) under the excitation of 358 nm. The intensity of PL emission spectra drops due to the concentration quenching effect, while the maximum PL intensity is observed in the W3 phosphor powder system.

This phosphor powder is expected to find out the potential application such as a spectral modifier which is applied to match the energy of photons with solar cell bandgap to improve spectral absorption and lead to better efficiency.

The introduction of a nano-CaCO₃:CBP/Dy hybrid powder system with good luminescence properties to be used as spectral modifiers for solar cell application has been synthesized in the lab, which is a novel attempt.

The article aimed to use sourdough powder as a natural preservative against mould growth and a glycemic index reducer agent.

In this study, muffin production was carried out with sourdough powder addition at the rate of 0, 15 and 30%. To obtain the sourdough powder, sourdough was fermented by using Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactococcus lactis (previously isolated from spontaneous sourdough) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The specific volume, number of crumb pores and total pore area were not adversely affected by the addition of 15% or 30% sourdough powder (p > 0.05). The sourdough addition reduced the L* values of the muffin crust, while the b* value of the muffin crumb with 30% sourdough powder decreased compared to the control (p < 0.05). The addition of sourdough powder decreased eGI and RDS values and increased SDS content of samples (p < 0.05). In storage, the mould growth was observed in the control group and samples containing 15% sourdough powder on the 5th day, while the samples containing 30% sourdough powder were moulded on the 7th day. The sourdough powder increased the hardness and chewiness values of samples (p < 0.05), while it had no significant effect on springiness, cohesiveness and resilience (p > 0.05).

The sourdough powder provides a lower glycemic index and longer microbial shelf life that makes the product advantageous in consumer demand. This is the first time sourdough powder has been used to achieve this purpose.

Cement can be replaced to reduce the energy consumption and the environmental impact of cement. Also, foamed concrete can be used structurally in residential buildings to reduce weight and improve thermal insulation. To achieve these two goals, this paper aims to investigate the effect of basalt powder as a partial replacement of either cement or sand.

This paper investigates the effect of basalt powder as a partial replacement of either cement or sand on the mechanical properties of foamed concrete used to cast slabs. First, mechanical properties of foamed concrete are tested with and without replacement of basalt. Then, six slabs of different thicknesses and mixes are investigated. The thicknesses considered are 150- and 200-mm slabs. The three mixes used to construct these slabs are foamed concrete with no basalt powder, foamed concrete with replacement of 20% of cement by basalt powder and foamed concrete with replacement of 20% of sand by basalt powder. The flexural behavior of these slabs is investigated.

All the slabs failed in the commonly intended flexural mode. The results show that the basalt powder acted as a strong filler material in the foamed concrete mix based on mechanical properties and flexural behavior. The proposed foamed concrete slabs can be used structurally in residential buildings.

A natural waste material that can be used to promote energy efficiency and reduce emission is basalt. In this paper, basalt powder is suggested to be used due to its chemical composition that is similar to cement. Also, basalt powder is low in cost as it is waste, while basalt aggregate is prepared, and it is only used as filler in paved roads. Accordingly, basalt is partially used instead of cement to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide that results from the cement manufacturing. Also, it is used as a partial alternative to sand which can be considered as a new stronger source as filling material used in the production of concrete.

For metal additive manufacturing, metallic powders are usually produced by vacuum induction gas atomization (VIGA) through the breakup of liquid metal into tiny droplets by gas jets. VIGA is considered a cost-effective technique to prepare feedstock. In VIGA, the quality and the morphology of the produced particles are mainly controlled by the gas pressure used during powder production, keeping the setup configuration constant.

In VIGA process for metallic additive manufacturing feedstock preparation, the quality and morphology of the powder particles are mainly controlled by the gas pressure used during powder production.

In this study, Inconel-625 feedstock was produced using a supersonic nozzle in a close-coupled gas atomization apparatus. Powder size distribution (PSD) was studied by varying the gas pressure.

The nonmonotonic but deterministic relationships were observed between gas pressure and PSD. It was found that the maximum 15–45 µm percentage PSD, equivalent to 84%, was achieved at 29 bar Argon gas pressure, which is suitable for the LPBF process. Following on, the produced powder particles were used to print tensile test specimens via LPBF along XY- and ZX-orientations by using laser power = 475 W, laser scanning speed = 800 mm/s, powder layer thickness = 50 µm and hatch distance = 100 µm. The yield and tensile strengths were 9.45% and 13% higher than the ZX direction, while the samples printed in ZX direction resulted in 26.79% more elongation compared to XY-orientation.

Powder lubrication is widely used in industrial production, but most of the research that analyze the wear process and speculate on the wear mechanism of the tested specimens lacks reliability, and it is difficult to reveal the essence of the friction and wear process. The purpose of this paper is using the optical in situ observation method to observe the condition of the powder lubrication layer in real time and dynamically, and directly obtain the morphology change of the specimen during the whole wear process, which is helpful to the establishment of new tribological basic theories such as friction and wear mechanism and lubrication theory.

Mechanical model of powder lubrication is established considering asperity and powder layer, and the influence of adhesion effect on load and friction force is analyzed. The finite difference method is used to solve the above physical model, and the influence of the adhesion effect on load and friction force is analyzed. The total load and friction of the friction pair are composed of two parts: fluid and asperity. Based on the optical in situ observation method to build a test platform. The interface of the adhesion stage was observed by SEM.

When the film thickness ratio is less than 1, the local damage and diffusion of the powder layer are basically completed and the adhesion stage is entered. At this time, the asperity is not fully loaded, the powder layer is loaded by 50%, the asperity is less loaded, the deformation is small and the possibility of plastic flow is reduced. However, in the adhesion stage, the friction force is basically generated between asperity, and the friction force ratio of the asperity is 80%. Heavy load and surface roughness of the specimen are the necessary conditions for the powder adhesion period.

In this paper, the failure process of the powder layer at the friction interface with different roughness and load is studied based on the optical in situ observation method. Second, the contact surface with the micro-convex body and powder layer is simulated, and the influence of adhesion effect on the mechanical properties of the real contact surface in the process of powder lubrication is analyzed, thus providing theoretical guidance for mechanical processing, workpiece operation and lubrication design.

Mechanical model considering asperities and powder layer powder lubrication was established to analyze the influence of the adhesion effect on load and friction. Based on the optical in situ observation method to build a test platform. The tests found that the failure process of the powder lubricating layer includes five stages: powder complete stage, local failure stage, local failure diffusion stage, powder adhesion stage and complete failure stage.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2022-0322/

The aim of this study was to produce an enriched honey powder with active compounds coming from bee pollen and investigate the effects of bee pollen addition as a carrier material on honey powder.

The effects of bee pollen addition as carrier material in corporation with gum arabic at different ratios (25, 50 and 75% of total carrier material amount) on vacuum-dried honey-bee pollen powder were investigated.

The bee pollen concentration raise in the mixture increased the particle size, total phenolic, flavonoid and sugar contents and antioxidant activity, whereas decreased the Hauser ratio and Carr index values, hygroscopicity and solubility of enriched honey powder samples. The honey powder samples had passable and poor flow properties and very hygroscopic (>20%) structure because of the high sugar content. The phenolic and flavonoid contents of honey powder samples with bee pollen changed between 1531.59 and 3796.00 mg GAE/kg and 424.05–1203.10 mg QE/kg, respectively, and these values were much higher than the control sample. On the basis of linear correlation analysis, there was a very high positive correlation between total phenolic, flavonoid and antioxidant activity, while there was a very high negative correlation between these parameters and solubility.

The study evaluated that enriching of honey powders with pollen, which is a product of both plant and bee origin, rather than enriching with different plant and animal sources has an innovative approach. Additionally, the usage of bee pollen as a carrier agent in food drying has not been previously reported in any study.

In binder jetting, the interaction between the liquid binder droplets and the powder particles defines the shape of the printed primitives. The purpose of this study is to explore the interaction of the relative size of powder particles and binder droplets and the subsequent effects on macro-scale part properties.

The effects of different particle size distribution (5–25 µm and 15–45 µm) of stainless steel 316 L powders and droplet sizes (10 and 30 pL) on part density, shrinkage, mechanical strength, pore morphology and distribution are investigated. Experimental samples were fabricated in two different layer thicknesses (50 and 100 µm).

While 15–45 µm samples demonstrated higher green density (53.10 ± 0.25%) than 5–25 µm samples (50.31 ± 1.06%), higher sintered densities were achieved in 5–25 µm samples (70.60 ± 6.18%) compared to 15–45 µm samples (65.23 ± 3.24%). Samples of 5–25 µm also demonstrated superior ultimate tensile strength (94.66 ± 25.92 MPa) compared to 15–45 µm samples (39.34 ± 7.33 MPa). Droplet size effects were found to be negligible on both green and sintered densities; however, specimens printed with 10-pL droplets had higher ultimate tensile strength (79.70 ± 42.31 MPa) compared to those made from 30-pL droplets (54.29 ± 23.35 MPa).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper details the first report of the combined effects of different particle size distribution with different binder droplet sizes on the part macro-scale properties. The results can inform appropriate process parameters to achieve desired final part properties.

This study aims to describe the effects of capillary forces or action, viscosity, gravity and inertia via the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The study also includes distribution of the binder droplet over the powder bed after interacting from different heights.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has revolutionized many industries. Binder jetting (BJT) is a powder-based AM method that enables the production of complex components for a wide range of applications. The pre-densification interaction of binder and powder is vital among various parameters that can affect the BJT performance. In this study, BJT process is studied for the binder interaction with the powder bed of SS316L. The effect of the droplet-powder distance is thoroughly analysed. Two different droplet heights are considered, namely, h1 (zero) and h2 (9.89 mm).

The capillary and inertial effects are predominant, as the distance affects these parameters significantly. The binder spreading and penetration depth onto the powder bed is influenced directly by the distance of the binder droplet. The former increases with an increase in latter. The binder distribution over the powder bed, whether uniform or not, is studied by the stream traces. The penetration depth of the binder was also observed along the cross-section of the powder bed through the same.

In this work, the authors have developed a more accurate representative discrete element method of the powder bed and CFD analysis of binder droplet spreading and penetration inside the powder bed using Flow-3D. Moreover, the importance of the splashing due to the binder’s droplet height is observed. If splashing occurs, it will produce distortion in the powder, resulting in a void in the final part.

Orange peel formation remains to be understood clearly because it is difficult to directly observe a laser-sintered process in a partcake. Therefore, this study aims to provide insight into the orange peel formation mechanism through the nondestructive observation of laser-sintered specimens and their surrounding powders.

This study observed polyamide 12 powder in the vicinity of a laser-sintered specimen via X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning. The specimen for nondestructive observation was 3D modeled in a hollow box using 3D CAD software. The boxes built using a laser-sintering system contained unsintered surrounding powder and sintered specimens. The box contents were preserved even after the boxes were removed from the partcake. After X-ray CT scanning, the authors broke the boxes and evaluated the unevenness formed on the specimen surface (i.e. the orange peel evaluation).

Voids (not those in sintered parts) generated in the powder in the vicinity of the specimen triggered the orange peel formation. Voids were less likely to form in the build with a 178.5° powder bed than in the build with a 173.5° powder bed. Similarly, the increment in laser energy density effectively suppressed void formation, although there was a tradeoff with overmelting. Thin-walled parts avoided void growth and made the orange peel less noticeable.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to observe and understand the relationship between voids generated in the powder in the vicinity of sintered parts and orange peel formation.

dding dopants to a powder bed could be a cost-effective method for spatially varying the material properties in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) or for evaluating new materials and processing relationships. However, these additions may impact the selection of processing parameters. Furthermore, these impacts may be different when depositing nanoparticles into the powder bed than when the same composition is incorporated into the powder particles as by ball milling of powders or mixing similarly sized powders. This study aims to measure the changes in the single bead characteristics with laser power, laser scan speed, laser spot size and quantity of zirconia nanoparticle dopant added to SS 316 L powder.

A zirconia slurry was inkjet-printed into a single layer of 316 SS powder and dried. Single bead experiments were conducted on the composite powder. The line type (continuous vs balling) and the melt pool geometry were compared at various levels of zirconia doping.

The balling regime expands dramatically with the zirconia dopant to both higher and lower energy density values indicating the presence of multiple physical mechanisms that influence the resulting melt track morphology. However, the energy density required for continuous tracks was not impacted as significantly by zirconia addition. These results suggest that the addition of dopants may alter the process parameter ranges suitable for the fabrication of high-quality parts.

This work provides new insight into the potential impact of material doping on the ranges of energy density values that form continuous lines in single bead tests. It also illustrates a potential method for spatially varying material composition for process development or even part optimization in powder bed fusion without producing a mixed powder that cannot be recycled.