High-Pressure Reverse Osmosis for Industrial Water Recycling: Permeate-Sided Pressure Drop as Performance-Limiting Factor

In the chemical industry large amounts of saline wastewater occur. Its disposal into rivers is a considerable burden to the ecosystem. To strive for a circular economy and enable a viable raw material recycling, energy-efficient concentration processes are requisite. High-pressure reverse osmosis meets this criterion, but its industrial application demands suitable membrane elements that withstand the exceptional operation conditions and provide sufficient performance. Hence, new requirements regarding the design of spiral-wound elements arise. To identify those, specific performance-limiting effects need a better understanding.     

Water vapor volatilization and oxidation induced surface cracking of environmental barrier coating systems: A numerical approach

A numerical model is developed for surface crack propagation in brittle ceramic coatings, aiming at the intrinsic failure of rare-earth silicate environmental barrier coating systems (EBCs) under combustion conditions in advanced gas turbines. The main features of progressive degradation of EBCs in such conditions are captured, including selective silica vaporization in the top coat due to exposure to water vapor, diffusion path-dependent bond coat oxidation, as well as crack propagation during cyclic thermal loading. In light of these features, user-defined subroutines are implemented in finite element analysis, where surface crack growth is simulated by node separation. Numerical results are validated by existing experimental data, in terms of monosilicate layer thickening, thermal oxide growth, and fracture behaviors. The experimentally observed quasi-linear oxidation in the early stage is also elucidated. Furthermore, it is suggested that surface crack undergoes rapid propagation in the late stage of extended thermal cycling in water vapor and leads to catastrophic failure, driven by both thermal mismatch and oxide growth stresses. The latter is identified as the dominant mechanism of penetration. Based on detailed analyses of failure mechanisms, the optimization strategy of EBCs composition is proposed, balancing the trade-off between mechanical compliance and erosion resistance.     

State-of-the-art technology: Recent investigations on laser-mediated synthesis of nanocomposites for environmental remediation

In both developing and industrialized/developed countries, various hazardous/toxic environmental pollutants are entering water bodies from organic and inorganic compounds (heavy metals and specifically dyes). The global population is growing whereas the accessibility of clean, potable and safe drinking water is decreasing, leading to world deterioration in human health and limitation of agricultural and/or economic development. Treatment of water/wastewater (mainly industrial water) via catalytic reduction/degradation of environmental pollutants is extremely critical and is a major concern/issue for public health. Light and/or laser ablation induced photocatalytic processes have attracted much attention during recent years for water treatment due to their good (photo)catalytic efficiencies in the reduction/degradation of organic/inorganic pollutants. Pulsed laser ablation (PLA) is a rather novel catalyst fabrication approach for the generation of nanostructures with special morphologies (nanoparticles (NPs), nanocrystals, nanocomposites, nanowires, etc.) and different compositions (metals, alloys, oxides, core-shell, etc.). Laser ablation in liquid (LAL) is generally considered a quickly growing approach for the synthesis and modification of nanomaterials for practical applications in diverse fields. LAL-synthesized nanomaterials have been identified as attractive nanocatalysts or valuable photocatalysts in (photo)catalytic reduction/degradation reactions. In this review, the laser ablation/irradiation strategies based on LAL are systematically described and the applications of LAL synthesized metal/metal oxide nanocatalysts with highly controlled nanostructures in the degradation/reduction of organic/inorganic water pollutants are highlighted along with their degradation/reduction mechanisms.     

Experimental investigation on the heat and water transfer enhancement in a membrane-based air-to-air humidifier at insulation condition

In the present study, a membrane-based air-to-air planar humidifier (MAPH) with baffle-blocked flow channels and a common MAPH are fabricated, tested and compared. These MAPHs are well thermal insulated from their surroundings. Polyoxymethylene (POM) plates with some unique properties such as large tensile and flexural strength, high chemical resistance and high stiffness are used to create channels at dry and humid sides of MAPHs. The obtained findings revealed that the higher heat and water transfer rates and smaller dew point approach temperature (DPAT) in entire tested flow rates occurs in baffle-blocked MAPH. To evaluate the MAPH performance with considering the pressure drop, a dimensionless parameter, performance evaluation criteria (PEC), is introduced. At flow rates less than 1 m³/h, PEC is less than 1, indicating a decline in MAPH performance with considering the pressure drop. In baffle-blocked MAPH using water trap in the inlet of dry side leads to the performance deterioration. Additionally, the increased relative humidity (RH) of humid side inlet causes an increase in DPAT, consequently, the performance deterioration.     

Initial and residual trapping of hydrogen and nitrogen in Fontainebleau sandstone using nuclear magnetic resonance core flooding

Hydrogen is among a few promising energy carriers of the future mainly due to its zero-emission combustion nature. It also plays an important role in the transition from fossil fuel to renewable. Hydrogen technology is relatively immature and serious knowledge gaps do exist in its production, transport, storage, and utilization. Although the economical generation of hydrogen to the scale required for such transition is still the biggest technical and environmental challenge, unlocking the large-scale but safe storage is similarly important. It is difficult to store hydrogen in solid and liquid states and storing it in the gaseous phase requires a huge volume which is just available in subsurface porous media. Sandstone is the most abundant and favourable medium for such storage as carbonate rock might not be suitable due to potential geochemical reactions.It is well established in the literature that interaction of the host rock-fluid and injected gas plays a crucial role in fluid flow, residual trapping, withdrawal, and more generally storing capacity. Such data for the hydrogen system is extremely rare and are generally limited to contact angle measurements, while being not representative of the reality of rock-brine-hydrogen interaction(s). Therefore, we have conducted, for the first time, a series of core flooding experiments using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to monitor hydrogen (H₂) and Nitrogen (N₂) gas saturations during the drainage and imbibition stages under pressure and temperature that represent shallow reservoirs. To avoid any geochemical reaction during the test, we selected a clean sandstone core plug of 99.8% quartz (Fontainebleau with a gas porosity of 9.7% and a permeability of 190 mD).Results show significantly low initial and residual H₂ saturations in comparison with N₂, regardless of whether the injection flow rate or capillary number were the same or not. For instance, when the same injection flow rate was used, H₂ saturation during primary drainage was 4% and it was <2% after imbibition. On other hand, N₂ saturation during the primary drainage was 26% and it was 17% after imbibition. However, when the same capillary number of H₂ was utilised for the N₂ experiment, the N₂ saturation values were ～15% for initial gas saturation and 8% for residual gas saturation. Our results promisingly support the idea of hydrogen underground storage; however, we should emphasise that more sandstone rocks of different clay mineralogy should be investigated before reaching a conclusive outcome.     

Enhanced oxygen evolution reaction kinetics through biochar-based nickel-iron phosphides nanocages in water electrolysis for hydrogen production

Highly-efficient and stable non-noble metal electrocatalysts for overcoming the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is urgent for water electrolysis. Biomass-derived biochar has been considered as promising carbon material because of its advantages such as low-cost, renewable, simple preparation, rich structure, and easy to obtain heteroatom by in-situ doping. Herein, Ni₂P–Fe₂P bimetallic phosphide spherical nanocages encapsulated in N/P-doped pine needles biochar is prepared via a simple two-step pyrolysis method. Benefiting from the maximum synergistic effects of bimetallic phosphide and biochar, high conductivity of biochar encapsulation, highly exposed active sites of Ni₂P–Fe₂P spherical nanocages, rapid mass transfer in porous channels with large specific surface area, and the promotion in adsorption of reaction intermediates by high-level heteroatom doping, the (Ni_0.75Fe_0.25)₂P@NP/C demonstrates excellent OER activity with an overpotential of 250 mV and a Tafel slope of 48 mV/dec at 10 mA/cm² in 1 M KOH. Also it exhibits a long-term durability in 10 h electrolysis and its activity even improves during the electrocatalytic process. The present work provides a favorable strategy for the inexpensive synthesis of biochar-based transition metal electrocatalysts toward OER, and improves the water electrolysis for hydrogen production.     

Application of robust machine learning methods to modeling hydrogen solubility in hydrocarbon fuels

Having accurate information about the hydrogen solubility in hydrocarbon fuels and feedstocks is very important in petroleum refineries and coal processing plants. In the present work, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), multi-layer perceptron (MLP) trained with Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm, adaptive boosting support vector regression (AdaBoost?SVR), and a memory-efficient gradient boosting tree system on adaptive compact distributions (LiteMORT) as four novel machine learning methods were used for estimating the hydrogen solubility in hydrocarbon fuels. To achieve this goal, a database containing 445 experimental data of hydrogen solubilities in 17 various hydrocarbon fuels/feedstocks was collected in wide-spread ranges of operating pressures and temperatures. These hydrocarbon fuels include petroleum fractions, refinery products, coal liquids, bitumen, and shale oil. Input parameters of the models are temperature and pressure along with density at 20 °C, molecular weight, and weight percentage of carbon (C) and hydrogen (H) of hydrocarbon fuels. XGBoost showed the highest accuracy compared to the other models with an overall mean absolute percent relative error of 1.41% and coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.9998. Also, seven equations of state (EOSs) were used to predict hydrogen solubilities in hydrocarbon fuels. The 2- and 3-parameter Soave-Redlich-Kwong EOS rendered the best estimates for hydrogen solubilities among the EOSs. Moreover, sensitivity analysis indicated that pressure owns the highest influence on hydrogen solubilities in hydrocarbon fuels and then temperature and hydrogen weight percent of the hydrocarbon fuels are ranked, respectively. Finally, Leverage approach results exhibited that the XGBoost model could be well trusted to estimate the hydrogen solubility in hydrocarbon fuels.     

Hydrangea like composite catalysts of ultrathin Mo2S3 nanosheets assembled on N,S-dual-doped graphitic biocarbon spheres with highly electrocatalytic activity for HER

Water electrolysis is the most clean and high-efficiency technology for production of hydrogen, an ultimate clean energy in future. Highly efficient non-noble electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are desirable for large scale production of hydrogen by water electrolysis. Especially, exposing as many active sites as possible is a vital way to improve activities of the catalysts. Herein, a series of new hydrangea like composite catalysts of ultrathin Mo₂S₃ nanosheets assembled uprightly and interlacedly on N, S-dual-doped graphitic biocarbon spheres were facilely prepared. The unique structure endowed the catalysts highly exposed edge active sites and prominently high activities for HER. Especially, the optimized catalyst Mo₂S₃/NSCS-50 exhibited as low as 106 mV of overpotential at 10 mA/cm² (denoted as ?₁₀). The catalyst also showed low Tafel slope of 53 mV/dec, low electron transfer resistance of 34 Ω and high stability evidenced by the result that the current density only attenuated 11.7% after 10 h i-t test. The catalyst has shown broad prospect for commercial application in water electrolysis.     

Enhanced hydrogen production from water splitting by Sn-doped ZnO/BiOCl photocatalysts and Eosin Y sensitization

The construction of semiconductor heterojunction for photocatalytic H₂ production from water splitting is an efficient and environment-friendly technology. In this work, ZnO/BiOCl (ZBC) and Sn-doped ZnO/BiOCl (ZBC-S) photocatalysts with Z-scheme heterojunction were successfully prepared by simple hydrothermal method. The photocatalytic H₂ evolution from water splitting by the as-prepared photocatalysts was investigated. The formation of ZnO/BiOCl heterojunction reduces the recombination probability of the photogenerated carriers. The impurity levels originated from Sn doping reduce the band gap width of ZnO and BiOCl to some extent, thereby enhancing the light absorption ability. The ZBC-S composite exhibits the best photocatalytic activity. In addition, the photocatalytic efficiency of H₂ production was improved by sensitization with Eosin Y (EY) dye. The H₂ production rate under simulated sunlight reaches 4146.77 μmol g^?1 h^?1, which is 27 times higher than that of pure ZnO. Finally, the Z-scheme electron transfer route in ZnO/BiOCl heterojunction was determined, and the photocatalytic H₂ production mechanism of EY sensitized ZBC-S was proposed.     

Layered double (Ni,Fe) hydroxide grown on nickel foam and modified by nickel carbonyl powder and carbon black as an efficient electrode for water splitting

Developing novel oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts is vital for water splitting. Here, carbon black (CB) and nickel carbonyl powder (NCP) are used as components, and the nonionic surfactant polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) is used as a shape-controlled capping agent to easily prepare layered double (Ni, Fe) hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) electrodes. Scanning electron microscopy observation and X-ray photoelectron spectra analysis show that the Fe²⁺-doped layered double hydroxide is grown in situ on nickel foam (NF). CB (XC-72) and NCP further improve the electrical conductivity. At 10 mA?cm^?2, the overpotentials of the OER and HER are 203 mV and 83 mV, respectively, in 1 M KOH. Only 1.48 V is needed when both electrodes are applied for water splitting, and it has a stability of more than 100 h. This work can be used as a medium to elevate the OER and HER performance of NiFe-LDH-based catalysts.