A Raman investigation on the boron form occurring in salt lake brine during evaporation

Boron resources are abundant in Da Qaidam salt lake of Qaidamu Basin. It has been given great attention for the polyborate species present in brine. In this study, the Raman spectroscopy was applied to investigate the existing-form of boron in brine during evaporation. The prepared solutions of MgO·2B2O3-H2O, MgO·2B2O3-MgCl2 -H2O, and MgO·2B2O3-MgSO4-H2O was also evaporated and recorded to study the influence of boron concentration, pH, and electrolytes on the borate speciation in brine. The mononborates of B(OH)3 and B(OH)4- were found to be the only forms present in the original salt lake brine. Brine evaporation promotes the formation of polyborate anions B3O3(OH)4-, B5O6(OH)4-, and B6O7(OH)62- and also disappearance of the B(OH)4- ion in brine with boron concentration of more than 11 g/L in B2O3. The pentaborate ion of B5O6(OH)4- was sensitive to the solution pH and found to be appeared under the pH value of 8.0. While the hexaborate ion of B6O7(OH)62- was observed more dependent on the electrolyte of magnesium chloride due to its special properties, such as promoting boron accumulation, lowering solution pH, and also the strong af?nity for water molecules, which is beneficial to the polymerization of borate ions in brine. The interaction mechanisms among polyborate anions during evaporation had also been proposed.     

Tracking climate change in Central Asia through temperature and precipitation extremes

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Under the impacts of climate change and human activities, great uncertainties still exist in the response of climate extremes, especially in Central Asia (CA). In...     

Analog simulation of urban construction land supply and demand in Chang-Zhu-Tan Urban Agglomeration based on land intensive use

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Urban land intensive use is an important indicator in harmonizing the relationship between land supply and demand. The system dynamics (SD) can be used to...     

The effect of terrain factors on rice production: A case study in Hunan Province

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important staple crop of China, and its production is related to both natural condition and human activities. It is fundamental...     

Trends and risk evolution of drought disasters in Tibet Region,China

Journal of Geographical Sciences - The risk posed by natural disasters can be largely reflected by hazard and vulnerability. The analysis of long-term hazard series can reveal the mechanisms by...     

Spatial associations between NDVI and environmental factors in the Heihe River Basin

Journal of Geographical Sciences - The Heihe River Basin is located in the arid and semi-arid regions of Northwest China. Here, the terrestrial ecosystem is vulnerable, making it necessary to...     

How forest gaps shaped plant diversity along an elevational gradient in Wolong National Nature Reserve?

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Understanding the underlying ecological processes that control plant diversity within (α-diversity) and among (β-diversity) forest gaps is important for...     

Rural settlement spatial patterns and effects: Road traffic accessibility and geographic factors in Guangdong Province,China

Journal of Geographical Sciences - Based on land use classification data of remote sensing images, using kernel density, the minimal cumulative resistance model of road traffic accessibility, and a...     

Integration of nighttime light remote sensing images and taxi GPS tracking data for population surface enhancement

The population distribution grid at fine scales better reflects the distribution of residents and plays an important role in investigating urban systems. The recent years have witnessed a growing trend of applying the nighttime light data to the estimation of population at micro levels. However, using the nighttime light data alone to estimate population may cause the overestimation problem due to excessively high light radiance in specific types of areas such as commercial zones and transportation hubs. In dealing with this issue, this study used taxi trajectory data that delineate people’s movements, and explored the utility of integrating the nighttime light and taxi trajectory data in the estimation of population in Shanghai at the spatial resolution of 500 m. First, the initial population distribution grid was generated based on the NPP-VIIRS nighttime light data. Then, a calibration grid was created with taxi trajectory data, whereby the initial population grid was optimized. The accuracy of the resultant population grid was assessed by comparing it with the refined survey data. The result indicates that the final population distribution grid performed better than the initial population grid, which reflects the effectiveness of the proposed calibration process.     

Novel Hybrid Integration Approach of Bagging-Based Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Function for Groundwater Potential Analysis

Natural Resources Research - Groundwater is a vital water source in the rural and urban areas of developing and developed nations. In this study, a novel hybrid integration approach of...