Clean Grain Boundary Found in C14/Body-Center-Cubic Multi-Phase Metal Hydride Alloys
The grain boundaries of three Laves phase-related body-center-cubic (bcc) solid-solution, metal hydride (MH) alloys with different phase abundances were closely examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and more importantly, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) techniques. By using EBSD, we were able to identify the alignment of the crystallographic orientations of the three major phases in the alloys (C14, bcc, and B2 structures). This finding confirms the presence of crystallographically sharp interfaces between neighboring phases, which is a basic assumption for synergetic effects in a multi-phase MH system.
Effects of Vanadium/Nickel Contents in Laves Phase-Related Body-Centered-Cubic Solid Solution Metal Hydride Alloys
Structural, gaseous phase hydrogen storage, and electrochemical properties of a series of annealed (900 °C for 12 h) Laves phase-related body-centered-cubic (BCC) solid solution metal hydride (MH) alloys with vanadium/nickel (V/Ni) contents ranging from 44/18.5 to 28/34.5 were studied. As the average Ni-content increases, C14 phase evolves into the C15 phase and a new σ-VNi phase emerges; lattice constants in BCC, C14, and TiNi phase all decrease; the main plateau pressure increases; both gaseous phase and electrochemical hydrogen storage capacities decrease; the pressure-concentration-temperature (PCT) absorption/desorption hysteresis decreases; both high-rate dischargeability (HRD) and bulk hydrogen diffusivity increase and then decrease; and the surface reaction current decreases. There is a capacity-rate tradeoff with the change in V/Ni content. Alloys with relatively lower Ni-content show higher capacities but inferior high-rate performance compared to commercially available AB5 MH alloy. Increasing the Ni-content in this BCC-based multi-phase alloy can improve the high-rate capability over AB5 alloy but with lower discharge capacities. The inferior surface reaction current in these alloys, compared to AB5, may be due to the smaller surface area, not the total volume, of the Ni clusters embedded in the surface oxide layer of the activated alloys.
Letting Women in? Gender Mainstreaming in Regional Policies
Gender mainstreaming has over the last ten years become the dominant strategy of integrating gender issues in public policy. This article presents regional policy as a broad and increasingly important policy field to study, and analyses gender mainstreaming in this policy field in the Norwegian and the Swedish contexts. How do problem representations surrounding “gender equality” and “gender mainstreaming” produce meanings of gender as well as construct possibilities for change? The article shows that, despite some differences between the two countries, gender mainstreaming in regional policy can to a large extent be read as meaning “women”. Women are in this context given a narrow subject position and are constructed as lacking what it takes to produce sustainable regional growth. The concluding discussion highlights the relations between the implementation of gender mainstreaming and neo‐liberal political trends.