A numerical study of parallel-plate and open-plate droplet transport in electrowetting-on-dielectrode (EWOD)

Electrowetting-induced microwater droplet transports in parallel-plate and open-plate electrowetting-on-dielectrode (EWOD) have been studied numerically. The governing equations for three-dimensional transient microfluidic flow are solved by a finite volume scheme with a two-step projection method on a fixed computational domain. The free surface of the droplet is tracked by the coupled level set and volume-of-fluid (CLSVOF) method with the surface tension force determined by the continuum surface force (CSF) model. The results of the numerical model have been validated with published experimental data and the physics of droplet transport have been investigated. A parametric study has been performed in which the effects of voltage amplitude, channel gap, and electrode size have been examined.     

Effect of a redox electrolyte in mixed solvents on the photovoltaic performance of a dye-sensitized solar cell

The effect of the iodide/triiodide redox electrolyte in various organic solvents on the photoelectrochemical properties of bis(tetrabutylammonium) cis-bis(thiocyanato)bis(4-carboxy-2,2′-bipyridine-4′-carboxylato)ruthenium(II)-sensitized nanocrystalline TiO₂ solar cells was studied. Solvents with large donor numbers dramatically enhanced the open-circuit voltage (V_oc), but usually reduced the short-circuit photocurrent density (J_sc). For a mixed solvent of tetrahydrofuran (THF) and acetonitrile, V_oc increased and the fill factor decreased with increasing THF concentration, but J_sc remained relatively constant. As the partial charge of the N or O atom of the solvent molecule increased, V_oc increased, but J_sc was unchanged up to a certain value of the partial charge (for THF, −0.46). For cells using 0.3 M 4-tert-butylpyridine and 20 vol% THF in the electrolyte, a short-circuit photocurrent density of 18.23 mA cm⁻², an open-circuit voltage of 0.73 V, a fill factor of 0.73, and an overall conversion efficiency of 9.74% were obtained.     

Simple indoline based donor–acceptor dye for high efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells

A simple metal-free donor–acceptor type sensitizer U01, bearing strong electron donor indoline-triphenylamine was synthesized for panchromatic sensitization of TiO₂ nanocrystalline film. Photovoltaic properties of U01 showed remarkably enhanced light harvesting due to the presence of strong electron donor and robust structure. The new U01 sensitized solar cell exhibited a photovoltaic performance: a short-circuit photocurrent density (J_sc) of 10.70 mA cm⁻², an open-circuit photovoltage (V_oc) of 0.758 V and a fill factor (FF) of 0.74, corresponding to an overall conversion efficiency of 6.01% under standard global AM 1.5 solar light condition. Our results suggest that indoline-triphenylamine based robust D–A molecular architecture is a highly promising class of panchromatic sensitizers for improvement of the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs).     

A case study and troubleshooting experience of safety power channel of instrumentation and control system of the BAEC TRIGA Research Reactor

Microsystem Technologies - Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission TRIGA Research Reactor (BTRR) is a MK II type nuclear research reactor with a maximum thermal output power of 3 MW. Nuclear...     

Real-Time Control System Adopted to Energy Storage for Smart Grid Low Wind Applications: A Part of Distributed Renewables in Smart City

In this paper, extensive efforts have been undertaken to design and develop a control system, which is incorporated with an energy storage device that can store energy from low-voltage renewable sources. The developed device acts as a storage element, which can be used to charge small-scale batteries, cellular devices, and other applications in remote places where the grid connection is not available. The circuit is developed using a case-by-case analysis. In order to solve the low output voltage problem, a bipolar junction transistor-metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (BJT-MOSFET) based switch control technology with the Arduino microcontroller has been implemented. The developed control system is extremely efficient in charging batteries through a supercapacitor for low-voltage sources. In this research, a small-scale 200-W portable vertical axis wind turbine is used at a wind speed of 3 m/s. The result shows the efficiency of the proposed system as compared with the conventional systems. The proposed system can be an important tool of the latest distributed energy generation technology which is an important part of a smart city. Lastly, the limitations and future scopes of the development of the control device are discussed for the future barrier. An important future scope identified is to integrate the Internet of Things based mobile interface for remote monitoring for any kind of pandemic situation like COVID-19. Now, it is high time to get our smart city concept aligned with the post COVID pandemic situation and get us prepared smartly for similar future occurrences.     

Proposal for dispersion compensating square-lattice photonic crystal fiber

A dispersion-compensating square-lattice photonic crystal fiber for broadband compensation which covers the S, C and L communication bands, i.e. wavelength ranging from 1 460 nm to 1 625 nm is proposed in this paper. Theoretically, it is shown a negative dispersion coefficient of about-595 ps/(nm·km) to-1 288 ps/(nm·km) over S to L bands and-975 ps/(nm·km) at the operating wavelength 1 550 nm. The relative dispersion slope is perfectly matched to that of conventional single-mode fiber of about 0.003 6 nm^-1. Besides the proposed photonic crystal fiber shows the large nonlinear coefficient of 61.88 W/km at the operating wavelength of 1 550 nm. Moreover, the variation of structural parameters is also studied and discussed here.     

Phenylhydrazinium Iodide for Surface Passivation and Defects Suppression in Perovskite Solar Cells

In recent years, hybrid perovskite solar cells (HPSCs) have received considerable research attention due to their impressive photovoltaic performance and low‐temperature solution processing capability. However, there remain challenges related to defect passivation and enhancing the charge carrier dynamics of the perovskites, to further increase the power conversion efficiency of HPSCs. In this work, the use of a novel material, phenylhydrazinium iodide (PHAI), as an additive in MAPbI₃ perovskite for defect minimization and enhancement of the charge carrier dynamics of inverted HPSCs is reported. Incorporation of the PHAI in perovskite precursor solution facilitates controlled crystallization, higher carrier lifetime, as well as less recombination. In addition, PHAI additive treated HPSCs exhibit lower density of filled trap states (10¹⁰ cm^?2) in perovskite grain boundaries, higher charge carrier mobility (≈11 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1 s), and enhanced power conversion efficiency (≈18%) that corresponds to a ≈20% improvement in comparison to the pristine devices.     

Dual iris matching for biometric identification

In this paper, a dual iris-based biometric identification system that increases the accuracy and the performance of a typical human iris recognition system is proposed. This system detects, isolates, and extracts the iris region from the eye images and maps the circular regions into rectangular polar coordinates according to the preset radial and angular resolutions. The phase responses, obtained from convolving the polar images with 1D log Gabor filter, are quantized to generate the binary iris templates which are compared using the hamming distance. Unlike the conventional method which examines a single eye, the proposed method takes images from both eyes simultaneously. Using it on CASIA Iris database V3, false positive rate and false negative rate were found to be 0 and 9.96 %, respectively, while the overall accuracy was 99.92 %.     

The Effect of Non-Equilibrium Condensation on Supersonic Air Flows over Rectangular Cavities

Numerical simulations have been carried out for a supersonic two-dimensional flow over open,rectangular cavi-ties(length-to-depth ratios are L/D=1.0 and 3.0)in order to investigate the effect of non-equilibrium condensa-tion of moist air on supersonic internal flows around the cavity for the flow Mach number 1.83 at the cavity en-trance.In the present computational investigation,a condensing flow was produced by an expansion of moist airin a Laval nozzle.The computational results showed that the upstream traveling compression waves becomeweaker than those without the condensation.Consequently,the weaker compression waves cannot excite theshear layer strongly and amplitudes of oscillation in the cavity became smaller than those without the condensa-tion.The occurrence of the non-equilibrium condensation in case of L/D=1.0 affected strongly the amplitude andfrequency of oscillation in the cavity compared with L/D=3.0.