A major challenge in chemical engineering is the separation and purification of materials, especially of rare earth compounds. It has been reported that a dielectrophoretic (DEP) apparatus can be used for separating rare earth oxides. The DEP capture of REOs on screen electrode was observed with microscope. The concentration of ROEs was determined using a nephelometer and ICP-OES before and after injection into the DEP apparatus. The results show that three types of REOs, La2O3, CeO2 and Dy2O3, generate nDEP in the DEP capture apparatus. There are two factors: voltage and suspension concentration, that affect the capture rate. The capture rate increases as voltage rises within certain limits. The capture rate also increases with increase in the original suspension concentration. Different REOs show marked differences in the DEP capture conditions. Consequently, factors such as voltage and flow rate can be controlled to achieve separation of different REOs.

Hydrogen zeolite was modified with CeO2 by impregnation - filtration - heat treatment. Hydrogen-zeolite samples before and after modification were characterized by XRD and SEM. The catalytic efficiency of modified hydrogen-zeolite was investigated. Such modification conditions were explored: as the CeO2 percentage, calcination temperature, calcination time, impregnation temperature. The results show that the optimal CeO2 percentage is 0.5%, calcination temperature is 600°C, calcination time is 2h, impregnation temperature is 75°C. The aspirin yield reaches 78.3% under the optimal conditions, compared with that (64.8%) catalyzed by sulfuric acid and that (70.4%) catalyzed by unmodified zeolite. XRD, SEM characterizations show that Ce ions can be doped into the zeolite framework. And the modification makes the zeolite particle size become smaller, which is reduced to 50.5nm from 56.76nm. A high efficient and eco-enviromently catalyst was got by modification.

In this paper, silica microspheres and several novel μm scale DEP (dielectrophoresis) micro electrode array chips were prepared. A DEP experimental system was assembled to investigate the the DEP response of silica microspheres and micrometer particles. The effects of pattern of electrodes and frequency of AC field on the manipulation of silica microspheres were analyzed. The results showed that silica microspheres were manipulated by negative DEP (nDEP) in all types of electrodes, the position of silica microspheres in the electrodes changed when the frequency was changed and the phenomenon of nDEP was more obvious at higher frequency. A gas sensor was fabricated by dielectrophoretically assembling SiO2micrometer particles. The sensor showed good response to SO2and NH3gas. The measurement results confirmed DEP could be a quicker method for constructing gas sensor.

This paper presents a device to investigate dielectrophoresis (DEP) effects through different patterns of the electrodes. Pattern of electrodes, DEP time and voltage have been described to research the manipulation of particles by dielectrophoresis. The TiO2sample droplet was dropped onto several electrode pairs using a micro-dropper. We succeeded in manipulating TiO2particles along the electric field and deposited them across the gaps between two electrodes by modulating different factors. SEM images were used to confirm the patterns of different electrodes.