A smart garbage sorting robot was launched in Hangzhou, E China’s Zhejiang. Supported by visual learning and navigational positioning techs, the robot can work for 8hrs straight, pick up and sort 17.5kg of garbage with an identification accuracy rate of 98% on recyclable trash. The China-bashers are really sour about this device as the garbage in the Whitehouse is about to be sorted out.
China Telecom launched its commercial standalone (SA) deployment of 5G networks on Saturday, taking the lead globally.
Chinese private rocket firm Galactic Energy successfully launched a carrier rocket and put a satellite into orbit on Saturday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the first orbital launch by a privately funded Chinese firm since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic.
The launch marked the second successful attempt by a Chinese private rocket firm since July 2019 following two failed launches in 2018 and early 2019. Saturday’s launch shows China’s private commercial space sector is becoming technologically mature and increasingly capable of handling satellite launch missions even during the pandemic, analysts said.
Named Ceres-1, the self-developed carrier rocket sent an Apocalypse-11 satellite to the 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), and Galactic Energy became the first Chinese private firm to reach that altitude.
The world’s first 6G experiment satellite was one of the three Chinese satellites successfully launched into orbit. It will verify the Tera Hertz communication technology in space, a breakthrough in space communication.
The “UESTC” satellite (Star Era-12), the first 6G test satellite in the world and first one named after the university since its establishment, was successfully lifted off at Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center and entered the scheduled orbit on the morning of Nov. 6. The satellite, developed jointly by Chengdu Guoxing Aerospace Technology and Beijing MinoSpace Technology, will be used in a pilot testing program to trial 6G technology in space. According to Yicai Media Group, 6G is more than 100 times faster than 5G – enables seamless transmission, longer distances, faster speeds, and smaller power output from space to land-based communication devices. 6G technology is still in the beginning stages, but Friday’s launch appears to show China has moved ahead of the US in space-based testing. Many hurdles are still expected with the technology as testing will start near term.
China successfully sent Yaogan-30 07 group satellites into planned orbit on Monday midnight. The satellites will mainly be used for electromagnetic environment detection and related technological tests.
At the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, China successfully launched the Gaofen 13 satellite with the Long March 3B launch vehicle, and the satellite smoothly entered into its predetermined orbit.
Gaofen 13 is a high-orbit optical remote sensing satellite mainly used in such fields as land census, crop estimation, environmental management, meteorological early warning and forecasting, comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation, and can provide information services for national economic development. Gaofen satellites are ideal for civilian use due to its vast coverage and high resolution observation capability, but they could also be used for military purposes during extreme times, just like satellites from other countries
The mission was the 349th flight of the Long March series of launch vehicles.
The first 25MW dual-fuel gas turbine generator by CNOOC and CSSC has been approved, becoming China’s first with independent intellectual property rights, breaking the monopoly of foreign gas turbines in domestic offshore oil and gas exploitation.
9-16-20 was a historical day in the development of internal combustion engines as China-based automaker Weichai Group 潍柴动力 officially launched the world’s first commercial vehicle diesel engine with a brake thermal efficiency (BTE) above 50%.
During a launch ceremony held in China earlier today, Germany’s TÜV SÜD and the China Automotive Technology and Research Center—the country’s national internal combustion engine testing organization—awarded Weichai certificates for BTE of 50.26%. The engine was jointly unveiled by Ling Wen, vice governor of Shandong Province and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Tan Xuguang, chairman of Shandong Heavy Industry Group and Weichai Group.
Since the development of the first diesel engine in 1897, the engine’s brake thermal efficiency increased from 26% to 46%, where it remained until now, according to Weichai. To further improve the diesel engine BTE, Weichai drew on its 70 years of experience in the internal combustion engine R&D. For the past 10 years, the company invested $4.4 billion USD in diesel engine development.
Since 2015, Weichai’s special technical research team has conducted a large number of simulations and bench tests to improve the efficiency of its engines, eventually leading to this historic breakthrough, the company said. Weichai credits the high brake thermal efficiency rate to five proprietary technologies: advanced fields synergy combustion technology, harmonious design technology, exhaust energy distribution technology, subzone lubrication technology, and WISE control technology:
Weichai’s fields synergy combustion technology optimizes the design of the air passage, fuel injection, combustion chamber profile and other systems to make the relationship between the velocity field and concentration field in the combustion chamber more harmonious, increasing combustion speed by 30%.
Harmonious design technology enables the diesel engine body’s to withstand high peak firing pressure (PFP), which greatly limits combustion improvement, by about 60%. The technology also strengthens the engine’s overall structure.
The company’s exhaust energy distribution technology, developed in response to the increased difficulty of emission control caused by improved combustion, pioneered reconstruction of the exhaust system design. The technology adapts to the demand for exhaust gas recirculation while ensuring the efficiency of turbines, meeting regulations and standards, and achieving 1% increase in brake thermal efficiency.
Subzone lubrication technology, developed based on the different characteristics of the friction pairs of the system, uses several friction reduction technologies to reduce the overall friction by 20%.
WISE control technology takes advantage of Weichai’s self-developed ECU by developing a series of more precise control predictive models, making every part of the diesel engine more efficient.
Weichai’s achievement is a historical moment in the development of internal combustion engines, the company said. Several diesel engine experts including Bosch, AVL, FEV, SAE, China Machinery Industry Federation, China Internal Combustion Engine Industry Association, and China-SAE congratulated Weichai on this breakthrough and praised the company for setting a new benchmark for the diesel engine BTE.
The Weichai 50% BTE engine has a 13 L displacement, is rated at 560 hp at 1900 rpm, and utilizes a 2500 bar fuel injection system. The engine meets China VI/Euro VI emission requirements. Increasing brake thermal efficiency from 46 to 50% reduces diesel fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 8%.
Weichai said it has received strong support from Bosch Group and other global suppliers and R&D consulting firms in the development of this program. Weichai’s future plans include partnering with more global companies to move toward a goal of 55% thermal efficiency, Chairman Tan Xuguang announced during today’s ceremony.
Until now, a 50% BTE has been only commercially available in large, low-speed, two-stroke marine diesel engines.
An international team led by Chinese researchers has used gene-editing technology to produce “Pig 3.0” prototypes, a leap forward for life-saving organ transplants from animals to humans.
In a recent paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers from China and the United States reported the successful production of pigs whose organs are more compatible with the human immune system and are free of active porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV).
Globally, there is a huge gap between the number of people who need organ transplants and the number of organs available, said Yang Luhan, a corresponding author of the research as well as co-founder and chief executive officer of Qihan Biotech.
It has long been hoped that the challenge could be alleviated through animal organ transplants — a concept known as xenotransplantation.
The Pig 3.0 immunological and blood-coagulation compatibility with the human immune system was enhanced and PERV was eradicated. Engineered pigs also exhibit normal physiology and fertility.
In 2017, Yang and her team produced the first batch of live pigs free of PERV, setting the stage for xenotransplantation. In 2018, Pig 2.0 was born, addressing concerns about pig-to-human immunocompatibility.
Pigs have been especially promising candidates due to their similar size and physiology to humans. But one of the biggest safety concerns has been the fact that most mammals, including pigs, contain repetitive, latent retrovirus fragments in their genomes — present in all their living cells — that are harmless to their native hosts but can lead to disease in other species.
Yang said they are now testing organ function and safety in primate preclinical studies.
James F. Markmann, chief of the Division of Transplant Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and a co-author of the study, said that Pig 3.0 demonstrates critical progress toward what could be a truly transformational option for millions of patients.
The paper was also authored by researchers from Harvard University, China’s Zhejiang University, Yunnan Agricultural University, Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company eGenesis.
Yang told Xinhua that the transplant gap, cancer and COVID-19 are global issues. She noted that her team hopes to maintain close contact with outstanding scientists, doctors and regulatory agencies around the world, so as to create globally recognized products.
Yang said the study is only the first step toward xenotransplantation. The functional compatibility of organs between species remains a challenge for researchers. Whether transplanted porcine organs can function as fully as original human organs in maintaining hormone secretion and metabolic balance remains to be seen.
The researchers are currently testing if the primates that have undergone pig kidney transplants are able to maintain their bodies’ hydro-salinity balances.
Xenotransplantation also faces challenges in ethics and supervision, Yang noted. “How can we balance animal ethics with organ supply? How can we supervise and guide research institutes in the development of related technologies in an active and responsible way? There are questions that need to be answered.”
She noted that regulations, ethics guidelines and public awareness usually come after technology has advanced. Researchers should think about these questions and share their logic, to truly promote the technology so that it can change society.
