Hydrogen storage in destabilized chemical systems

We describe approaches for modifying the thermodynamics and kinetics of hydrogen sorption reactions in light-metal hydrides. Thermodynamic destabilization is achieved using additives that form new compounds during dehydrogenation. This lowers the enthalpy and increases the equilibrium pressure. We review current research in this area, emphasizing destabilization reactions involving LiBH₄. We also describe the use of nano-engineering approaches for reducing diffusion distances and increasing surface area, thereby increasing the hydrogen exchange rate. We focus on improving reaction rates by incorporating metal hydrides into nanoporous scaffolds.     

Effect of surface modification of metal hydride electrode on performance of MH/Ni batteries

A novel method was applied to the surface modification of the metal hydride(MH)electrode of MH/Ni batteries.Both sides of the electrode were plated with a thin silver film about 0.1μm thick using vacuum evaporation plating technology,and the effect of the electrode on the performance of MH/Ni batteries was examined.It is found that the surface modification can enhance the electrode conductivity and decrease the battery ohimic resistance.After surface modification,the discharge capacity at 5C(7.5A)is increased by 212 mA.h and the discharge voltage is increased by 0.11 V,the resistance of the batteries is also decreased by 32%.The batteries with modified electrode exhibit satisfactory durability.The remaining capacity of the modified batteries is 89%of the initial capacity even after 500 cycles.The inner pressure of the batteries during overcharging is lowered and the charging efficiency of the batteries is improved.     

Supervised Distance Preserving Projections: Applications in the quantitative analysis of diesel fuels and light cycle oils from NIR spectra

In this work, we discuss a recently proposed approach for supervised dimensionality reduction, the Supervised Distance Preserving Projection (SDPP) and, we investigate its applicability to monitoring material's properties from spectroscopic observations. Motivated by continuity preservation, the SDPP is a linear projection method where the proximity relations between points in the low-dimensional subspace mimic the proximity relations between points in the response space. Such a projection facilitates the design of efficient regression models and it may also uncover useful information for visualisation. An experimental evaluation is conducted to show the performance of the SDPP and compare it with a number of state-of-the-art approaches for unsupervised and supervised dimensionality reduction. The regression step after projection is performed using computationally light models with low maintenance cost like Multiple Linear Regression and Locally Linear Regression with k-NN neighbourhoods. For the evaluation, a benchmark and a full-scale calibration problem are discussed. The case studies pertain the estimation of a number of chemico-physical properties in diesel fuels and in light cycle oils, starting from near-infrared spectra. Based on the experimental results, we found that the SDPP leads to parsimonious projections that can be used to design light and yet accurate estimation models.     

Maximizing biogas production from the anaerobic digestion

This paper presents an optimal control law policy for maximizing biogas production of anaerobic digesters. In particular, using a simple model of the anaerobic digestion process, we derive a control law to maximize the biogas production over a period T using the dilution rate as the control variable. Depending on initial conditions and constraints on the actuator (the dilution rate D(·)), the search for a solution to the optimal control problem reveals very different levels of difficulty. In the present paper, we consider that there are no severe constraints on the actuator. In particular, the interval in which the input flow rate lives includes the value which allows the biogas to be maximized at equilibrium. For this case, we solve the optimal control problem using classical tools of differential equations analysis. Numerical simulations illustrate the robustness of the control law with respect to several parameters, notably with respect to initial conditions. We use these results to show that the heuristic control law proposed by Steyer et al., 1999 [20] is optimal in a certain sense. The optimal trajectories are then compared with those given by a purely numerical optimal control solver (i.e. the “BOCOP” toolkit) which is an open-source toolbox for solving optimal control problems. When the exact analytical solution to the optimal control problem cannot be found, we suggest that such numerical tool can be used to intuiter optimal solutions.     

Analysis of thermo-mechanical wear problems for reciprocal punch sliding

The relative sliding motion of two elastic bodies in contact induces wear process and contact shape evolution. In the case of a punch sliding on a substrate the transient process tends to a steady state for which the fixed contact stress and strain distribution develops in the contact zone. This state usually corresponds to a minimum of the wear dissipation power. The optimality conditions of the wear dissipation functional provide the contact stress distribution and the wear rate compatible with the rigid body punch motion. The present paper is aimed to extend the previous analyses [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] of steady state conditions to cases of periodic sliding of punch, assuming cyclic steady state conditions for both mechanical and thermal fields.     

改进混合蛙跳算法在蔬菜总黄酮软测量中的应用

针对蔬菜总黄酮化学物提取过程复杂、非线性和生物参数难以在线测量等特点,提出了基于改进混合蛙跳算法优化最小二乘支持向量机的蔬菜总黄酮软测量模型。该模型对标准混合蛙跳算法进行改进,采用反向学习的种群初始化策略,确保个体分布的均匀性;并根据群体适应度方差大小,动态调整变异概率,使算法避免陷入局部最优;最后采用改进的混合蛙跳算法对最小二乘支持向量机的参数进行寻优,实现蔬菜总黄酮软测量。仿真结果表明,基于改进混合蛙跳算法的最小二乘支持向量机软测量模型具有测量精度高,稳定性好的优点,有利于蔬菜总黄酮化学物测量工程的实际应用。