Li Kongzhai

The mean first passage time of a three-level atomic optical bistable system subjected to noise

The transient properties of a three-level atomic optical bistable system in the presence of multiplicative and additive noises are investigated. The explicit expressions of the mean first-passage time (MFPT) of the transition from the high intracavity intensity state to the low one are obtained by numerical computations. The impacts of the intensities of the multiplicative noise DM and the additive noise DA, the intensity of correlation between two noises λ, and the intensity of the incident light y on the MFPT are discussed, respectively. Our results show: (i) for the case of no correlation between two noises (λ = 0.0), the increase in DM and DA can lead to an increase in the probability of the transition to the low intracavity intensity state, while the increase in y can lead to a retardation of the transition; and (ii) for the case of correlation between two noises (λ = 0.0), the increase in λ can cause an increase in the probability of the transition, and the increase in DA can cause a retardation of the transition firstly and then an increase in the probability of the transition, i.e., the noise-enhanced stability is observed for the case of correlation between two noises.

Thermodynamics on Sulfur Migration in CaSO 4 Oxygen Carrier Reduction by CO

CaSO4 is an attractive oxygen carrier for chemical looping combustion(CLC) because of its high oxygen capacity and low price. The utilization of a CaSO4 oxygen carrier suffers the problems of sulfur release, and deactivation caused by sulfur loss. With respect to the fact that partial sulfur release could be recaptured and then recycled to CaSO4 by CaO sorbent, the mixture of CaSO4-CaO can be treated as an oxygen carrier. Thermodynamics of CaSO4 and CaSO4-CaO reduction by CO have been investigated in this study. The sulfur migrations, including the sulfur migration from CaSO4 to gas phase, mutual transformation of sulfur-derived gases and sulfur migration from gas phase to solid phase, were focused and elucidated. The results show that the releases of S2, S8, COS and CS2 from CaSO4 oxygen carrier are spontaneous, while SO2 can be released at high reaction temperatures above 884 °C. SO2 is the major emission source of sulfur at low CO/CaSO4 molar ratios, and COS is the major part of the byproducts as soon as the ratio exceeds 4 at 900 °C. Under CO atmosphere, all the sulfur-derived gases, SO2, S2, S8 and CS2, involved are thermodynamically favored to be converted into COS substance, and are spontaneously absorbed and solidified by CaO additive just into CaS species, which may be recycled to CaSO4 as oxygen carrier in the air reactor. But high reaction temperatures and high CO2 concentrations are adverse to sulfur capture.