Effects of CeO2 Content on Friction and Wear Properties of SiCp/Al-Si Composite Prepared by Powder Metallurgy

SiCp/Al-Si composites with different CeO2 contents were prepared by a powder metallurgy method. The effect of CeO2 content on mechanical properties, friction and wear properties of the composites was studied. The results show that with the increase in CeO2 content from 0 to 1.8 wt%, the density, hardness, friction coefficient of the composites first increases and then decreases, the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and wear rate of the composites first decreases and then increases. When the content of CeO2 was 0.6 wt%, the density and hardness of the composite reached the maximum value of 98.54% and 113.7 HBW, respectively, the CTE of the composite reached the minimum value of 11.1 × 10−6 K−1, the friction coefficient and wear rate of the composite reached the maximum value of 0.32 and the minimum value of 1.02 mg/m, respectively. CeO2 has little effect on the wear mechanism of composites, and the wear mechanism of composites with different CeO2 content is mainly abrasive wear under the load of 550 N. Compared with the content of CeO2, load has a great influence on the wear properties of the composites. The wear mechanism of the composites is mainly oxidation wear and abrasive wear under low load. With the increase in load, the wear degree of abrasive particles is aggravated, and adhesive wear occurs under higher load

Effects of CeO2 on the Si Precipitation Mechanism of SiCp/Al-Si Composite Prepared by Powder Metallurgy

SiCp/Al-Si composites with different CeO2 contents were prepared by a powder metallurgy method. The effect of CeO2 content on the microstructure of the composites was studied. The mechanism of CeO2 on the precipitation of Si during sintering was analyzed by theoretical calculations. The results show that the appropriate amount of CeO2 can significantly refine the size of precipitated Si particles in the composite and increase the number of Si particles. With the increase of CeO2 content from 0 to 0.6 wt%, the number of Si particles precipitated in the composites increases gradually, and the average particle size of Si particles decreases gradually. When the CeO2 content is 0.6 wt%, the number of Si particles precipitated in the composites reaches the maximum, and the average particle size reaches the minimum. However, with the increase of CeO2 content from 0.6 wt% to 1.8 wt%, the number of Si particles precipitated in the composites began to decrease, and the average size of Si particles gradually increased. CeO2 can be used as heterogeneous nucleation substrate of precipitated Si, and the nucleation rate of precipitated Si on a CeO2 substrate is higher than that on an aluminum substrate. The proper addition of CeO2 can improve the nucleation efficiency of precipitated Si, thus increasing the amount and refining the size of precipitated Si

Single Vesicle Assaying of SNARE-Synaptotagmin-Driven Fusion Reveals Fast and Slow Modes of Both Docking and Fusion and Intrasample Heterogeneity

Lipid mixing between vesicles functionalized with SNAREs and the cytosolic C2AB domain of synaptotagmin-1 recapitulates the basic Ca2+ dependence of neuronal exocytosis. However, in the conventional ensemble lipid mixing assays it is not possible to discriminate whether Ca2+ accelerates the docking or the fusion of vesicles. Here we report a fluorescence microscopy-based assay to monitor SNARE-mediated docking and fusion of individual vesicle pairs. In situ measurement of the concentration of diffusing particles allowed us to quantify docking rates by a maximum-likelihood approach. This analysis showed that C2AB and Ca2+ accelerate vesicle-vesicle docking with more than two orders of magnitude. Comparison of the measured docking rates with ensemble lipid mixing kinetics, however, suggests that in most cases bilayer fusion remains the rate-limiting step. Our single vesicle results show that only ∼60% of the vesicles dock and only ∼6% of docked vesicles fuse. Lipid mixing on single vesicles was fast (tmix < 1 s) while an ensemble assay revealed two slow mixing processes with tmix ∼ 1 min and tmix ∼ 20 min. The presence of several distinct docking and fusion pathways cannot be rationalized at this stage but may be related to intrasample heterogeneities, presumably in the form of lipid and/or protein composition

A structural analysis of M protein in coronavirus assembly and morphology

The M protein of coronavirus plays a central role in virus assembly, turning cellular membranes into workshops where virus and host factors come together to make new virus particles. We investigated how M structure and organization is related to virus shape and size using cryo-electron microscopy, tomography and statistical analysis. We present evidence that suggests M can adopt two conformations and that membrane curvature is regulated by one M conformer. Elongated M protein is associated with rigidity, clusters of spikes and a relatively narrow range of membrane curvature. In contrast, compact M protein is associated with flexibility and low spike density. Analysis of several types of virus-like particles and virions revealed that S protein, N protein and genomic RNA each help to regulate virion size and variation, presumably through interactions with M. These findings provide insight into how M protein functions to promote virus assembly

A Fluorescence-Based Technique to Construct Size Distributions from Single-Object Measurements: Application to the Extrusion of Lipid Vesicles

We report a novel approach to quantitatively determine complete size distributions of surface-bound objects using fluorescence microscopy. We measure the integrated intensity of single particles and relate it to their size by taking into account the object geometry and the illumination profile of the microscope, here a confocal laser scanning microscope. Polydisperse (as well as monodisperse) size distributions containing objects both below and above the optical resolution of the microscope are recorded and analyzed. The data is collected online within minutes, which allows the user to correlate the size of an object with the response from any given fluorescence-based biochemical assay. We measured the mean diameter of extruded fluorescently labeled lipid vesicles using the proposed method, dynamic light scattering, and cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. The three techniques were in excellent agreement, measuring the same values within 7–9%. Furthermore we demonstrated here, for the first time that we know of, the ability to determine the full size distribution of polydisperse samples of nonextruded lipid vesicles. Knowledge of the vesicle size distribution before and after extrusion allowed us to propose an empirical model to account for the effect of extrusion on the complete size distribution of vesicle samples