Published by: State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy | Edited by: Bi Haoyang

WUST News — The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) has announced the selection results for its 2025 Bilingual Science Communication Project. A research paper by Professor Li Yawei's team from the State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy at Wuhan University of Science and Technology (WUST), titled “Microstructural Evolution of Andalusite at Elevated Temperature and Its Potassium Vapor Attack Resistance Behavior” has been successfully selected. The findings have now been published bilingually (Chinese-English) on the platform “Innovation China”, significantly enhancing the global visibility of WUST's scientific achievements.

The selected paper was originally published in the Chinese core journal Bulletin of the Chinese Ceramic Society. It systematically investigates the mullitization process and microstructural evolution of andalusite—a key raw material for aluminosilicate refractories—under high-temperature treatment, revealing the intrinsic relationship between its mullitization degree and resistance to potassium vapor corrosion. The study found that an appropriate heat treatment forms a composite layer of mullite and high-silica glass phase, which effectively blocks alkali corrosion pathways and significantly improves the material's alkali resistance. This offers important guidance for designing and producing high-performance refractory materials.

The Bilingual Science Communication Project is a key initiative launched by CAST to implement the national strategy of building world-class scientific journals and enhancing the international influence and discourse power of China's sci-tech journals. The project selects outstanding papers from high-quality domestic sci-tech journals and provides accurate bilingual translation of long abstracts or structured papers. By establishing international dissemination channels and making them openly available to global researchers, it effectively promotes Chinese scientific achievements, facilitates high-level international academic exchange, and supports the high-quality development of China's sci-tech journals.

This selection reflects international recognition of WUST's research outputs in materials science and marks a positive step in the university's efforts to globalize academic achievements and serve national scientific and cultural development. It also contributes to WUST's “Double First-Class” initiative and the national sci-tech innovation drive. (State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy)