Concentration fluctuation caused by reaction-diffusion coupling near catalytic active sites

The coupling of reaction and diffusion between neighboring active sites in the catalyst pore leads to the spatiotemporal fluctuation in component concentration, which is very important to catalyst performance and hence its optimal design. Molecular dynamics simulation with hard-sphere and pseudo-particle modeling has previously revealed the non-stochastic concentration fluctuation of the reactant/product near isolated active site due to such coupling, using a simple model reaction of A → B in 2D pores. The topic is further developed in this work by studying the concentration fluctuation due to such coupling between neighboring active sites in 3D pores. Two 3D pore models containing an isolated active site and two adjacent active sites were constructed, respectively. For the isolated site, the concentration fluctuation intensifies for larger pores, but the product yield decreases, and for a given pore size, the product yield reaches a peak at a certain reactant concentration. For two neighboring sites, their distance (d) is found to have little effect on the reaction, but significant to the diffusion. For the same reaction competing at both sites, larger d leads to more efficient diffusion and better overall performance. However, for sequential reactions at the two sites, higher overall performance presents at a smaller d. The results should be helpful to the catalyst design and reaction control in the relevant processes.     

Recent insights in synthesis and energy storage applications of porous carbon derived from biomass waste: A review

In the last few decades, global warming, environmental pollution, and an energy shortage of fossil fuel may cause a severe economic crisis and health threats. Storage, conversion, and application of regenerable and dispersive energy would be a promising solution to release this crisis. The development of porous carbon materials from regenerated biomass are competent methods to store energy with high performance and limited environmental damages. In this regard, bio-carbon with abundant surface functional groups and an easily tunable three-dimensional porous structure may be a potential candidate as a sustainable and green carbon material. Up to now, although some literature has screened the biomass source, reaction temperature, and activator dosage during thermochemical synthesis, a comprehensive evaluation and a detailed discussion of the relationship between raw materials, preparation methods, and the structural and chemical properties of carbon materials are still lacking. Hence, in this review, we first assess the recent advancements in carbonization and activation process of biomass with different compositions and the activity performance in various energy storage applications including supercapacitors, lithium-ion batteries, and hydrogen storage, highlighting the mechanisms and open questions in current energy society. After that, the connections between preparation methods and porous carbon properties including specific surface area, pore volume, and surface chemistry are reviewed in detail. Importantly, we discuss the relationship between the pore structure of prepared porous carbon with surface functional groups, and the energy storage performance in various energy storage fields for different biomass sources and thermal conversion methods. Finally, the conclusion and prospective are concluded to give an outlook for the development of biomass carbon materials, and energy storage applications technologies. This review demonstrates significant potentials for energy applications of biomass materials, and it is expected to inspire new discoveries to promote practical applications of biomass materials in more energy storage and conversion fields.     

Optimization and efficiency analysis of methanol SOFC-PEMFC hybrid system

In order to improve the power generation efficiency of fuel cell systems employing liquid fuels, a hybrid system consisting of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is proposed. Utilize the high temperature heat generated by SOFC to reform as much methanol as possible to improve the overall energy efficiency of the system. When SOFC has a stable output of 100 kW, the amount of hydrogen after reforming is changed by changing the methanol flow rate. Three hybrid systems are proposed to compare and select the best system process suitable for different situations. The results show that the combined combustion system has the highest power generation, which can reach 350 kW and the total electrical efficiency is 57%. When the power of the tail gas preheating system is 160 kW, the electrical efficiency can reach 75%. The PEM water preheating system has the most balanced performance, with the electric power of 300 kW and the efficiency of 66%.     

Metal-organic framework-based CO2 capture: from precise material design to high-efficiency membranes

A low-carbon economy calls for CO₂ capture technologies. Membrane separations represent an energy-efficient and environment-friendly process compared with distillations and solvent absorptions. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as a novel type of porous materials, are being generated at a rapid and growing pace, which provide more opportunities for high-efficiency CO₂ capture. In this review, we illustrate a conceptional framework from material design and membrane separation application for CO₂ capture, and emphasize two importance themes, namely (i) design and modification of CO₂-philic MOF materials that targets secondary building units, pore structure, topology and hybridization and (ii) construction of crack-free membranes through chemical epitaxy growth of active building blocks, interfacial assembly, ultrathin two-dimensional nanosheet assembly and mixed-matrix integration strategies, which would give rise to the most promising membrane performances for CO₂ capture, and be expected to overcome the bottleneck of permeability-selectivity limitations.     

Investigation of surficial and interfacial properties of BaCo0.4Fe0.4Zr0.1Y0.1O3-δ cathode directly on yttria-stabilized zirconia electrolyte for solid oxide fuel cell

The cobalt/iron-containing perovskites are the most promising cathodes for the intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC). However, these cathodes are generally not directly applied on the currently available commercial yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte due to the issues of over-firing, harmful reaction and thermal incompatibility. BaCo_0.4Fe_0.4Zr_0.1Y_0.1O_3-δ (BCFZY) which contains both zirconium and yttrium ions can theoretically be more compatible with the YSZ electrolyte. This paper focuses on the surficial and interfacial properties of BCFZY directly prepared with YSZ under different conditions. The surface of BCFZY by the glycine-nitrate process (GNP) can form the nanoparticles in contrast to that by solid-state reaction (SSR). The peak power density of the cell with BCFZY-GNP cathode directly on YSZ electrolyte can reach 1250 mW cm⁻² at 750 °C, which is hardly achieved on the reported traditional cobalt/iron-containing cathodes. It is proved that BCFZY-GNP cathode fired at 900 °C can show more distinct nanoparticles with extensive specific surface area and better BCFZY|YSZ interface, which can promote both oxygen exchange and ion incorporation processes.     

Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries: Fundamentals and Applications

Electrochemical energy storage systems are considered as one of the most viable solutions to realize large-scale utilization of renewable energy. Among the various electrochemical energy storage systems, flow batteries have increasingly attracted global attention due to their flexible structural design, high efficiencies, long operating life cycle, and independently tunable power and energy storage capacity. Although promising, a number of challenges including the high cost of flow battery materials hinder the broad market penetration of flow battery technology. Polymer electrolyte membrane, as a key component in flow batteries providing pathways for charge carriers transport and preventing electrolytes crossover, takes over 25% of the entire cost of the battery system. Apparently, the membrane not only plays pivotal roles in the operation characteristics of a flow battery, but also largely influences the financial cost of the battery system. To provide insights and better understanding of membranes towards enhancing their performance and cost-effectiveness, we therefore present recent advances and research outcomes on the development of polymer electrolyte membranes as well as their applications in flow batteries, particularly all-vanadium redox flow batteries. Various aspects of polymer electrolyte membranes including functional requirements, characterization methods, materials screening and preparation strategies, transport mechanisms, and commercialization progress are presented. Finally, perspectives for future trends on research and development of polymer electrolyte membranes with relevance to flow batteries are highlighted.     

Reference Point Based Multi-Objective Optimization of Reservoir Operation: a Comparison of Three Algorithms

Traditional multi-objective evolutionary algorithms treat each objective equally and search randomly in all solution spaces without using preference information. This might reduce the search efficiency and quality of solutions preferred by decision makers, especially when solving problems with complicated properties or many objectives. Three reference point based algorithms which adopt preference information in optimization progress, e.g., R-NSGA-II, r-NSGA-II and g-NSGA-II, have been shown to be effective in finding more preferred solutions in theoretical test problems. However, more efforts are needed to test their effectiveness in real-world problems. This study conducts a comparison of the above three algorithms with a standard algorithm NSGA-II on a reservoir operation problem to demonstrate their performance in improving the search efficiency and quality of preferred solutions. Under the same calculation times of the objective functions, Pareto optimal solutions of the four algorithms are used in the empirical comparison in terms of the approximation to the preferred solutions. Three performance indicators are then adopted for further comparison. Results show that R-NSGA-II and r-NSGA-II can improve the search efficiency and quality of preferred solutions. The convergence and diversity of their solutions in the concerned region are better than NSGA-II, and the closeness degree to the reference point can be increased by 42.8%, and moreover the number of preferred solutions can be increased by more than 3 times when part of objectives are preferred. By contrast, g-NSGA-II shows worse performance. This study exhibits the performance of three reference point based algorithms and provides insights in algorithm selection for multi-objective reservoir optimization problems.

     

Scalable Production of Wearable Solid-State Li-Ion Capacitors from N-Doped Hierarchical Carbon

Smart and wearable electronics have aroused substantial demand for flexible portable power sources, but it remains a large challenge to realize scalable production of wearable batteries/supercapacitors with high electrochemical performance and remarkable flexibility simultaneously. Here, a scalable approach is developed to prepare wearable solid-state lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) with superior performance enabled by synergetic engineering from materials to device architecture. Nitrogen-doped hierarchical carbon (HC) composed of 1D carbon nanofibers welded with 2D carbon nanosheets is synthesized via a unique self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) technique, which exhibits superior electrochemical performance. Subsequently, inspired by origami, here, wave-shaped LIC punch-cells based on the above materials are designed by employing a compatible and scalable post-imprint technology. Finite elemental analysis (FEA) confirms that the bending stress of the punch-cell can be offset effectively, benefiting from the wave architecture. The wearable solid-state LIC punch-cell exhibits large energy density, long cyclic stability, and superior flexibility. This study demonstrates great promise for scalable fabrication of wearable energy-storage systems.     

船体结构冰载荷反演方法及试验验证

冰载荷是影响船舶冰区航行期间结构安全的重要环境载荷。船舶的冰压监测通常采用应变传感器，合理地布放传感器是识别冰载荷的基础。通过对比船体外板结构试验中的冲击载荷和不同测试方案下的应变信号，确定了最佳应变传感器布放方案；采用Green核函数方法建立了船体外板结构应变冲击载荷间的响应关系，并对采集信号在噪声影响下反演的不适定性进行了分析；采用Tikhonov正则化方法克服了载荷反演过程中出现的数值不稳定问题；最后将试验中的响应用到载荷识别分析中，反演的载荷可以较为准确地反映冲击载荷的时域特征并且载荷识别精度良好。     

Fabrication of improved flexural strength C/SiC composites via LA-CVI method using optimized spacing of mass transfer channels

The traditional chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) method still faces massive challenge in improving the densification owing to its unavoidable bottleneck effect. Herein, laser assisted-chemical vapor infiltration (LA-CVI) was introduced to fabricate C/SiC composites with mass transfer channels. As a result, the densities of the C/SiC composites were improved due to the dense band formed during the LA-CVI process. Also, with different spacing of mass transfer channels, C/SiC composites exhibited enhanced degree of densification varying from 2.10 to 2.23 g/cm³. When the spacing of channels was 3 mm, the maximum value of flexural strength reached 528 ± 12 MPa. Additionally, micro-CT and finite element analysis were empolyed to investigate dense band and density gradient in detail. The results show that C/SiC composites prepared via LA-CVI method with suitable spacing of channels had improved density and great flexural strength. The proposed method provides a novel route for the preparation of ceramic matrix composites with high density.