Dual functional application of pomelo peel-derived bio-based carbon with controllable morphologies: An efficient catalyst for triiodide reduction and accelerant for anaerobic digestion

Pomelo peel-derived bio-based carbon with controllable morphologies are successfully prepared by three different methods (microwave pyrolysis, two-step activation, hydrothermal carbonization combining chemical activation). The differences in specific surface area and pore size distribution caused by various morphology features remarkably affect the application potential of as-prepared bio-based carbon. Two-step activation carbonization is proven to be an effective and feasible method to synthesize small-size bio-based carbon with large specific surface area (1377.60 m²/g) and total pore volume (0.72 m³/g) as compared with other methods. The bio-based carbon prepared by two-step activation method as counter electrode catalyst in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) obtains an excellent photovoltaic performance as compared with the Pt-based DSSC (6.94% vs. 6.71%). Furthermore, the as-prepared bio-based carbon is used as accelerant in anaerobic digestion (AD) systems and obtains the enhanced cumulative biogas production (525 mL/g VS) and chemical oxygen demand removal rate (70.95%) as compared with the control check group (296 mL/g VS, 29.55%). This work illustrates three promising methods to prepare bio-based carbon with controllable morphologies and superior surface area for realizing their multifunction resource utilizations in renewable energy fields.     

A novel method for increasing biohydrogen production from food waste using electrodialysis

The impact of continuous removal of volatile fatty acids on fermentative hydrogen production from food waste (FW) in a Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) was evaluated. Two experimental phases were conducted, a control phase and one in which volatile fatty acids were removed continuously from the reactor for the first time by electrodialysis (ED). Hydrogen yields were 64.7 cm³ H₂/g VS and 227.3 cm³ H₂/g VS for control phase, and ED phase respectively. Continuous removal of volatile fatty acids during fermentation not only increased H₂ yields but increased the production of volatile fatty acids (a valuable chemical feedstock) from 0.14 g/g VS to 0.34 g/g VS_.     

Hydrogen production from acidogenic food waste fermentation using untreated inoculum: Effect of substrate concentrations

The effect of substrate concentrations (0, 7.5, 15, 22.5, 30, and 37.5 g-VS/L) on hydrogen production from heat-treated and fresh food waste (FW) using untreated inoculums was investigated in this work. The highest hydrogen yield (75.3 mL/g-VS) was obtained with heat-treated FW at 15 g-VS/L. Lower substrate content could not provide enough organic matter for hydrogen fermentation, while higher substrate concentrations shifted the metabolic pathways from hydrogen fermentation to lactic acid fermentation by enriching the lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which lowered the slurry pH and decreased enzyme activity, resulting in a lower chemical oxygen demand (COD), volatile solid (VS), carbohydrate removal rate, and hydrogen yield. Compared with fresh FW, heat-treated FW is preferred for biohydrogen process with acetate as the main organic product. Additionally, at the optimal concentration (15 g-VS/L) using fresh FW, lactic acid is first accumulated and then degraded to produce hydrogen with butyrate as the main metabolite.     

Integrated concepts in water reuse: managing global water needs

Communities across the world face water supply challenges due to increasing demand, drought, depletion and contamination of groundwater, and dependence on single sources of supply. Water reclamation, recycling, and reuse address these challenges by resolving water resource issues and creating new sources of high-quality water supplies. The future potential for reclaimed treated effluent is enormous. Although water reclamation and reuse is practiced in many countries around the world, current levels of reuse constitute a small fraction of the total volume of municipal and industrial effluent generated. In addition, to meet their growing water supply needs, communities are considering other non-traditional sources of water such as agricultural return flows, concentrate and other wastewater streams, storm water, co-produced water resulting from energy and mining industries, as well as the desalination of seawater and brackish groundwater. Water reuse provides a wide range of benefits for communities, which translates into creating immense value for the public and the environment. The benefits of water reuse, however, can be difficult to quantify and often go unrecognized. One of the most significant benefits of water reuse is the value created by the inclusion of water reuse in integrated water resources planning and other aspects of water policy and the implementation of water projects resulting in the long-term sustainability of our water supplies. These integrated concepts, which involve the convergence of diverse areas such as governance, health risks, regulation, and public perception, also present a significant challenge to water reuse. These complex connections can assert equal influences on both the benefits and challenges associated with water reuse. In addressing these complex integrated issues, a number of significant barriers and impediments to the widespread implementation of water reuse projects arise. Numerous examples exist of barriers experienced by current water reuse projects around the world, including: the need for innovative technologies, technology transfer, and novel applications; the need for public education and increased public acceptance; better documentation of the benefits of water reuse; the lack of available funding for water reuse projects; working with the media; and the need for support by regulators and politicians. Integrated concepts can also be factors in a number of trends affecting water reuse globally. Current trends include addressing emerging pollutants of concern, the use of advanced wastewater treatments including membranes, indirect potable reuse, public perception, understanding the economics of water reuse, groundwater recharge and aquifer storage and recovery, salinity management (including concentrate disposal), increase in the use of “alternative sources”, environmental or natural system restoration, innovative uses of nonpotable water reuse, and decentralized and satellite systems. Since these trends are emerging developments in the field of water reclamation and reuse, there are a number of research needs associated with these topics. Research is needed to better understand the issues, to develop innovative technologies, and to develop tools and other assistance for communities and water agencies to implement successful water reclamation and reuse projects.     

Preparation and characterization of aluminum pillared K10 and KSF for adsorption of trimethoprim

Montmorillonite KSF and K10 were used as precursor materials for synthesis of aluminum pillared K10 and KSF (Al-K10 and Al-KSF) which characterized by TGA, XRD, SEM and FT-IR spectroscopic analysis. The sorption of trimethoprim (TMP) which is commonly employed as an antibiotic onto Al-K10 and Al-KSF was also investigated as a function of adsorbent dosage, solution pH, contact time and temperature. The adsorption kinetics was interpreted using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order kinetic models and intraparticle diffusion model. The pseudo-second-order model provided the best correlation. Adsorption isotherm parameters were obtained from Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin–Radushkevich (DR) isotherm models. Adsorption of TMP onto Al-K10 and Al-KSF was physical in nature and ion-exchange mechanism for DR equation, respectively. Al-K10 exhibits higher removal capacity at lower adsorbent dosages in comparison with Al-KSF. The removal capacity was increased by increasing pH. ΔH⁰, ΔS⁰ and ΔG⁰ showed that adsorption of trimethoprim was endothermic, increasing randomness and not spontaneous in nature.     

Extraction,Chemical Composition,and Antifungal Activity of Essential Oil of Bitter Almond

The essential oil from the powder residual of dried bitter almond, a novel and environmentally-friendly fungicide, was successfully extracted in a 0.7% yield by hydro-distillation under optimized conditions. The chemical composition of bitter almond essential oil (BAEO) was analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Twenty-one different components representing 99.90% of the total essential oil were identified, of which benzaldehyde (62.52%), benzoic acid (14.80%), and hexadecane (3.97%) were the most abundant components. Furthermore, the in vitro and in vivo antifungal activities of BAEO against common plant pathogenic fungi were evaluated by the mycelium linear growth rate method and pot test, respectively. It was documented that 1 mg/mL of BAEO could variously inhibit all tested pathogenic fungi with the inhibition rates of 44.8%~100%. Among the tested 19 strains of fungi, the median effective concentration (EC₅₀) values of BAEO against Alternaria brassicae and Alternaria solani were only 50.2 and 103.2 μg/mL, respectively, which were higher than those of other fungi. The in vivo antifungal activity of BAEO against Gloeosporium orbiculare was much higher than Blumeria graminis. The protective efficacy for the former was up to 98.07% at 10 mg/mL and the treatment efficacy was 93.41% at 12 mg/mL. The above results indicated that BAEO has the great potential to be developed as a botanical and agricultural fungicide.     

Building a high-performance,programmable secure coprocessor

Secure coprocessors enable secure distributed applications by providing safe havens where an application program can execute (and accumulate state), free of observation and interference by an adversary with direct physical access to the device. However, for these coprocessors to be effective, participants in such applications must be able to verify that they are interacting with an authentic program on an authentic, untampered device. Furthermore, secure coprocessors that support general-purpose computation and will be manufactured and distributed as commercial products must provide these core sanctuary and authentication properties while also meeting many additional challenges, including:

• •the applications, operating system, and underlying security management may all come from different, mutually suspicious authorities;
• •configuration and maintenance must occur in a hostile environment, while minimizing disruption of operations;
• •the device must be able to recover from the vulnerabilities that inevitably emerge in complex software;
• •physical security dictates that the device itself can never be opened and examined; and
• •ever-evolving cryptographic requirements dictate that hardware accelerators be supported by reloadable on-card software.

This paper summarizes the hardware, software, and cryptographic architecture we developed to address these problems. Furthermore, with our colleagues, we have implemented this solution, into a commercially available product.     

Modelling metabolic energy by neural networks

The apparent metabolic energy (EMA) of barley is modelled as a function of 12 easily obtainable analytical parameters by applying neural networks with the error back-propagation learning strategy. Kohonen maps and Ward's clustering technique have been used to define the objects for the training and test sets. The architecture of the neural network and the relevant parameters of error back-propagation learning have been optimised providing a RMS of 1.081 and a correlation coefficient (predicted versus found values) of 0.82. Contour maps of all variables including the output EMA value have been obtained by applying the counter-propagation learning strategy in a two-layer neural network. The responses yielded by the networks show that this method is capable of establishing a quantitative relationship between EMA and the original variables.     

Atomically thin titanium carbide used as high-efficient,low-cost and stable catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Addressed herein, a highly effective, low-cost and stable TiC nanocatalyst was successfully synthesized through ultrasonic exfoliation of commercial TiC in deionized water and its application as a catalyst in the oxygen reduction reaction is outlined. A facile ultrasonic exfoliation was applied to fabricate atomically thin TiC. The structure, morphology, composition and catalytic properties of atomically thin TiC were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and electrochemical methods. Atomically thin TiC possesses superior ORR activity in terms of catalytic performance, methanol tolerance, and long-term durability. This work has been provided a low-cost, efficient and stable substitute catalyst for Pt/C to promote the industrialization for energy storage and conversion devices.     

注重荒漠区胡杨林生态保护与修复的汊渗轮灌研究

针对传统生态调度"只放不灌""大水漫灌"造成的生态水利用效率低、灌溉面积有限等实际问题,本文基于荒漠区耐旱性植被胡杨特殊的生物节律,提出汊渗轮灌的灌溉理念,明确了汊渗轮灌的定义、内涵,构建了汊渗轮灌系统和灌溉模式,搭建了汊渗轮灌的基本框架.以我国最大的内陆河塔里木河下游为例,基于汊渗轮灌的灌溉模式优化塔河下游原有的工程...