Shift in thinking to address the 21st century hunger gap

The present water policy debate is dominated by the 30 yr old mission to secure water supply and sanitation to all people. The water needed to produce a nutritionally acceptable diet for one person is however 70 times as large as the amount needed for domestic water supply. The food security dilemma is largest in arid climate regions, a situation constituting a formidable challenge. It is suggested that an additional 5 600 km³/yr of consumptive water use will be needed to produce an adequate amount of food by 2050 – i.e almost a doubling of today’s consumptive use of 6800 km³/yr. Past misinterpretations and conceptual deficiencies show the importance of a shift in thinking. Combining the scale of the challenge and the time scale of the efforts to feed humanity and eradicate hunger leads to an impression of great urgency. This urgency strengthens the call for international research both for supporting agricultural upgrading, and for much better handling of issues of environmental sustainability. What stands out is the need of a new generation of water professionals, able to handle complexity and able to incorporate water implications of land use and of ecosystem health in integrated water resources management. It will for those reasons be essential and urgent to upgrade the educational system to producing this new generation.     

Hydrogen production in solar reactors

The present work summarizes the recent activities of our laboratory in the field of solar-aided hydrogen production with structured monolithic solar reactors. This reactor concept, “transferred” from the well-known automobile exhaust catalytic after-treatment systems, employs ceramic supports optimized to absorb effectively solar radiation and develop sufficiently high temperatures, that are coated with active materials capable to perform/catalyze a variety of “solar-aided” reactions for the production of hydrogen such as water splitting or natural gas reforming. Our work evolves in an integrated approach starting from the synthesis of active powders tailored to particular hydrogen production reactions, their deposition upon porous absorbers, testing of relevant properties of merit such as thermomechanical stability and hydrogen yield and finally to the design, operation simulation and performance optimization of structured monolithic solar hydrogen production reactors. This approach, among other things, has culminated to the world's first closed, solar-thermochemical cycle in operation that is capable of continuous hydrogen production employing entirely renewable and abundant energy sources and raw materials – solar energy and water, respectively – without any CO₂ emissions and holds, thus, a significant potential for large-scale, emissions-free hydrogen production, particularly for regions of the world that lack indigenous resources but are endowed with ample solar energy.     

Phytic Acid Degradation in Complementary Foods Using Phytase Naturally Occurring in Whole Grain Cereals

Complementary foods based on cereals and legumes often contain high amounts of phytic acid, a potent inhibitor of mineral and trace element absorption. The possibility to degrade phytic acid during the production of complementary foods by using whole grain cereals as the phytase source was investigated. Whole grain rye, wheat, or buckwheat (10%) were added to cereal‐legume‐based complementary food mixtures, and phytic acid was shown to be completely degraded in a relatively short time (1.5 to 3 h) when incubated at optimal conditions for cereal phytase. The potential usefulness of the method for industrial production was demonstrated with a complementary food based on wheat and soybean.     

沼气脱硫技术研究

本文综述了近年研究人员在开发沼气脱硫工艺方面所做的工作,包括现代与传统的脱硫技术工艺.探讨了物理、化学和生物脱硫技术对沼气脱硫工艺的影响因素.     

Hydriding and Dehydriding Characteristics of Mechanically Alloyed LaMg_(17) Ni Composite Material

Magnesiumandmagnesiumalloyshavebeenin vestigatedashydrogenstoragematerialsforseveralde cadesbecausefarmorehydrogenbyweightcanbestoredinthemthaninmostoftheothercurrentlyknownhydrogenstoragealloys .Moreover ,thehighnaturalabundanceofMg ,itslightmassandenviron mentalcompatibilitypotentiallymakemagnesiumoneofthemostprospectivecandidatesforfuturehydrogenstoragematerials .Unfortunately ,thepracticalappli cationofMganditsalloyshasbeenlimitedonlytocertainstoragedevicebecauseoftheirpoorhydriding dehydr…     

小型加氢站网络的成本分析

在2008年之前,上海的燃料电池汽车数量将达到百辆级规模,为了示范运行这些车辆,迫切需要建立一个有若干个加氢站组成的小型网络来提供加氢服务,为此需要确定投资运营成本。本文通过建立氢气运输成本模型(HTCM)和加氢站成本模型(HSCM),以90辆燃料电池轿车和10辆燃料电池公交车为服务对象,对由4种不同类型共5个加氢站组成的小型网络为案例,计算了每个加氢站的投资运行成本、氢气使用成本。结果表明,整个加氢站网络的年均总成本大约为769万元,而氢气的最终使用成本依据不同的供氢方式在30~77元/kg之间。     

Changes in polymer foils used in food packaging tested by using differential scanning calorimetry

This work is an experimental study of the differential scanning calorimetry characterisation of polymer materials used in food packaging materials, such as polypropylene (0.03 mm), polyethylene (0.1 and 0.03 mm), poly(D-(-)-Β-hydroxybutyrate) (powder), two-layered polypropylene (0.064 mm), and two-layered polypropylene with poly-vinylidene-chloride (0.012/0.021). The polymer stability was checked by simulation of conditions during food preparation in microwave ovens, sterilisation or rapid freezing. The materials were tested in the temperature range from 40 to 200‡C at different scan rates from 2 to 30°C min⁻¹ during heating or cooling. The enthalpies show a high correlation coefficient (0.964) with scan rate. All samples undergo phase change in the temperature range from 107 to 173°C during heating and enthalpies are in the range from 31.8 to 71.1Jg⁻¹. Upon subsequent cooling from 200°C, the temperature range of phase changes is shifted to lower temperatures from 86 to 102°C with enthalpies ranging from 30.4 to 57.8 J g⁻¹. Experiments with exposure of polymers to microwave radiation and freezing prove that the phase change considering the temperature range is very similar in all experiments.     

苯乙烯与1-(2-叔丁基过氧异丙基)-3-异丙烯基苯共聚行为研究

苯乙烯与1－（2－叔丁基过氧异丙基）－3－异丙烯基苯（D120）能进行自由基共聚合反应，聚合后过氧基团以侧基的形成被保留在共聚物大分子链上，凝胶色谱分析发现，随原料单体中D120比例增加，共聚物的分子量减小，分子量分布变窄，DSC分析发现共聚物中过氧基团的分解温度随D120结构单元含量的增加而下降，但仍高于D120单体过氧基团的分解温度，苯乙烯与D120的竞聚率为：rD120=0.700,rSt=0.714。     

室温离子注氢CeO2的微结构及价态研究

利用高分辨透射电子显微镜(HRTEM)及电子能量损失谱(EELS)对室温下注入氢离子的CeO2烧结体的显微组织结构和价态进行了原位观察和分析。结果表明：室温注氢，虽可以使严重损伤区内氧的状态发生明显改变，却不能引起CeO2的相转变及Ce的价态改变；这一结果可能与氢离子因尺寸太小不能占据CeO2的正常格点位置从而无法有效形成氧空位以及室温下CeO2中Ce和O的扩散比较困难等因素有关。     

纳米Fe粉的制备研究

总结了纳米Fe粉的制备方法,重点介绍了一种新的制备方法——封闭循环氢还原法。该方法以FeSO·47H2O和NaOH为原料,采用沉淀方法制备粒径为30～70nm的Fe2O3粉末,其反应条件为:反应温度50℃,反应终点pH值大于12,陈化时间1h。用封闭循环氢还原法,在400℃下还原Fe2O3得到了Fe粉。其粒径在20～50nm之间,含量为99.16%。