Single copper sites dispersed on hierarchically porous carbon for improving oxygen reduction reaction towards zinc-air battery

The demand for high-performance non-precious-metal electrocatalysts to replace the noble metal-based catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)is intensively increasing.Herein,single-atomic copper sites supported on N-doped three-dimensional hierarchically porous carbon catalyst(Cu₁/NC)was prepared by coordination pyrolysis strategy.Remarkably,the Cu₁/NC-900 catalyst not only exhibits excellent ORR performance with a half-wave potential of 0.894 V(vs.RHE)in alkaline media,outperforming those of commercial Pt/C(0.851 V)and Cu nanoparticles anchored on N-doped porous carbon(CuNPs/NC-900),but also demonstrates high stability and methanol tolerance.Moreover,the Cu₁/NC-900 based Zn-air battery exhibits higher power density,rechargeability and cyclic stability than the one based on Pt/C.Both experimental and theoretical investigations demonstrated that the excellent performance of the as-obtained Cu₁/NC-900 could be attributed to the synergistic effect between copper coordinated by three N atoms active sites and the neighbouring carbon defect,resulting in elevated Cu d-band centers of Cu atoms and facilitating intermediate desorption for ORR process.This study may lead towards the development of highly efficient non-noble metal catalysts for applications in electrochemical energy conversion.     

Physicochemical characteristics,antioxidant capacity and thermodynamic properties of purple-fleshed potatos dried by radio frequency energy

Abstract

The impacts of using radio frequency (RF) energy to dry purple-fleshed potatoes were investigated and compared to infrared radiation (IR) and microwave (MW) drying techniques. The gelatinization rate, color, flavor, morphological, and structural characteristics, thermodynamic properties, as well as antioxidant capacity were examined. The results indicated that the drying time of RF (70?min) and MW (21?min) were shorter than IR (105?min). The gelatinization ratio of MW, RF, and IR were 94.4?±?2.0, 88.3?±?1.4, and 64.5?±?1.1%, respectively. The degree of crystallization of purple-fleshed potato powder decreased with all three drying methods. RF-dried potatoes were able to retain higher polyphenols (loss rate: 4.3%), total anthocyanin (3.7%), and total flavonoid content (35.1%), whereas IR showed the lowest retention. The content of polyphenols also decreased significantly. Furthermore, after RF heating, the scavenging of free radicals was higher compared to MW and IR.     

Development of mobile miniature natural gas liquefiers

With increasing consumption of natural gas (NG), small NG reservoirs, such as coalbed methane and oil field associated gas, have recently drawn significant attention. Owing to their special characteristics (e.g., scattered distribution and small output), small-scale NG liquefiers are highly required. Similarly, the mixed refrigerant cycle (MRC) is suitable for small-scale liquefaction systems due to its moderate complexity and power consumption. In consideration of the above, this paper reviews the development of mobile miniature NG liquefiers in Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), China. To effectively liquefy the scattered NG and overcome the drawbacks of existing technologies, three main improvements, i.e., low-pressure MRC process driven by oil-lubricated screw compressor, compact cold box with the new designed heat exchangers, and standardized equipment manufacturing and integrated process technology have been made. The development pattern of “rapid cluster application and flexible liquefaction center” has been eventually proposed. The small-scale NG liquefier developed by TIPC has reached a minimum liquefaction power consumption of about 0.35 kW·h/Nm³. It is suitable to exploit small remote gas reserves which can also be used in boil-off gas reliquefaction and distributed peak-shaving of pipe networks.     

A distributed energy system integrating SOFC-MGT with mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemical hydrogen fuel production

Solar thermochemical hydrogen production with energy level upgraded from solar thermal to chemical energy shows great potential. By integrating mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemistry and solid oxide fuel cells, in this paper, a new distributed energy system combining power, cooling, and heating is proposed and analyzed from thermodynamic, energy and exergy viewpoints. Different from the high temperature solar thermochemistry (above 1073.15 K), the mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemistry utilizes concentrated solar thermal (473.15–573.15 K) to drive methanol decomposition reaction, reducing irreversible heat collection loss. The produced hydrogen-rich fuel is converted into power through solid oxide fuel cells and micro gas turbines successively, realizing the cascaded utilization of fuel and solar energy. Numerical simulation is conducted to investigate the system thermodynamic performances under design and off-design conditions. Promising results reveal that solar-to-hydrogen and net solar-to-electricity efficiencies reach 66.26% and 40.93%, respectively. With the solar thermochemical conversion and hydrogen-rich fuel cascade utilization, the system exergy and overall energy efficiencies reach 59.76% and 80.74%, respectively. This research may provide a pathway for efficient hydrogen-rich fuel production and power generation.     

Structural,morphological, dielectric and magnetic properties of Zn-Zr co-doping yttrium iron garnet

In this study, yttrium iron garnet co-doped with Zn and Zr atoms with a chemical formula Y₃Zn_xZr_xFe_(5−2x)O₁₂ (x = 0.0-0.3) has been successfully prepared by the solid-state reaction method. The effects of doping concentration on the microstructure, crystal structure, magnetic properties, and dielectric properties of Y₃Zn_xZr_xFe_(5−2x)O₁₂ were investigated. The microstructure analysis indicates that co-doping of YIG with Zn and Zr can effectively reduce the grain size of the ceramic. The crystal structure results reveal that the doping concentration of Zn–Zr has substantial influence on the lattice parameters of YIG, such as, increases the lattice constant, crystal cell size, and interplanar spacing. However, the second phase of ZrO₂ appears once x ≥ 0.15. Additionally, the dielectric properties of YIG ferrite can be regulated using this Zn–Zr co-doping method. Zn–Zr co-doping can improve the dielectric stability and reduce the dielectric loss at high temperature. The magnetization measurement shows that the saturation magnetization is stabilized at x < 0.15, and the magnetic loss is decreased with the increase in the doping concentration. Overall, the findings show that the ceramic with x = 0.1 exhibits better properties included high saturation magnetization (24.607 emu/g), low magnetic loss (0.0025 @ 1 MHz), and relatively low dielectric loss (496 @ 400°C).     

Cross-Layer Optimization of Dynamic Packet Assignment for Video Transmission Over IEEE 802.11e Networks

Video transmission over IEEE 802.11e wireless networks still shows poor performance for large bandwidth demand and frequently changed environments. Thus, several enhancements of IEEE 802.11e were proposed. On the other hand, big frames and simultaneous sending of adjacent frames always cause packet dropping for buffer overflow. In the past, we proposed an IEEE 802.11e enhancement named DFAA and a content aware mechanism to solve the above problems. The motivation of this paper is to find a proper way to integrate these two mechanisms. A DFAA enhancement (DFAA-E) is proposed to make up the insufficiency of content aware mechanism. Experiments results show that the combination of DFAA-E and content aware mechanism improves the video decoded quality greatly. And its performance can be further enhanced by selecting the suitable settings of certain parameters.     

基于儒可夫斯基变换的涡轮钻具叶片设计及性能分析

为提高涡轮钻具叶片使用性能和创新叶片设计理论,提出了基于儒可夫斯基保角变换法与经典水力翼型相结合的涡轮钻具叶片设计新方法,以?127涡轮钻具叶片为研究对象,运用搭建的涡轮钻具叶型参数化设计平台和自主设计的涡轮钻具性能测试台架,完成了5种翼型的造型设计,研究了5种叶片流场性能,开展了设计叶片的性能测试实验,对比分析了设计叶片与塔里木油田某型在役?127涡轮叶片的实际效能。实验及仿真结果表明,基于新方法设计的NACA-0012翼型加厚叶片在600 r/min转速及15 L/s流量的设计工况下,其单级扭矩达5.83 N·m,较相同条件下某在役?127涡轮的单级扭矩提高约6.4%,级效率提高约1.16%,整体性能有了实质提升。     

Coexistence of three ferroelectric phases and enhanced piezoelectric properties in BaTiO3–CaHfO3 lead-free ceramics

Perovskite ferroelectrics possess the fascinating piezoelectric properties near a morphotropic phase boundary, attributing to a low energy barrier that the results in structural instability and easy polarization rotation. In this work, a new lead-free system of (1-x)BaTiO₃-xCaHfO₃ was designed, and characterized by a coexistence of ferroelectric rhombohedral-orthorhombic-tetragonal (R-O-T) phases. With the increase amount of CaHfO₃ (x), a stable coexistence region of three ferroelectric phases (R-O-T) exists at 0.06 ≤ x ≤ 0.08. Both large piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃～400 pC/N), inverse piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃^*～547 pm/V) and planar electromechanical coupling factor (k_p～58.2%) can be achieved for the composition with x = 0.08 near the coexistence of three ferroelectric phases. Our results show that the materials with the composition located at a region where the three ferroelectric R-O-T phases coexist would have the lowest energy barrier and thus greatly promote the polarization rotation, resulting in a strong piezoelectric response.