Performance of floating cum tilted-wick type solar still with the effect of water flowing over the glass cover

A simple transient performance of floating cum tilted-wick type solar still has been presented by incorporating the effects of water flowing over a glass cover, heat capacity of tilted-wick water surface and floating-wick water surface. Explicit expressions for flowing water, glass, tilted-wick water surface and floating-wick water surface temperature and efficiency of the system have been derived. Numerical calculations have been carried out for a typical day in the month of March 2004. The relative standard deviations between the numerical and experimental results of different temperature components of the proposed still have been found. The results indicate that the relative standard deviations between theoretical and experimental results are less than 8% (glass cover), 2% (tiltedwick water surface), 1% (floating-wick water surface) and 2% (flowing water at the lower end of the glass cover) an average for the working hours of the day. Moreover, based on the numerical results, the following conclusions have been drawn: (i) glass cover temperature decreases significantly; (ii) the effect of water flowing over the glass cover has a fascinating effect on the production of distillate output during peak sunny hours; (iii) water flow rate of 1.5 m/s is optimum, and beyond it the efficiency decreases. Experimental investigations have been performed at Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, India.     

Effects of electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells and evaluation by impedance spectroscopy

Effects of the electrolyte of DSCs on impedance spectra were evaluated by changing concentration of redox couple, viscosity, and additives to electrolyte. The relation with current-voltage characteristics (I-V characteristics) was investigated. In many cases, the impedance component attributed to charge transfer at TiO₂|electrolyte interface demonstrated strong relation with the I-V characteristics. The recombination of electrons in TiO₂ with I₃⁻ in electrolyte was a key factor in determining performance of DSCs. To evaluate the effect of I₃⁻, diffusion-limiting current in the electrolyte for various viscosities was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry. When the short circuit current (SCC) was almost equal to the diffusion-limiting current, strong influence of the diffusion coefficient on the impedance spectra was observed: impedance arcs were enlarged as the diffusion coefficient was decreased. On the other hand, when the diffusion-limiting current was larger than the SCC, photo-excitation and electron injection processes became dominating factors in the DSCs performance. The SCC was regulated by the charge recombination process at TiO₂|electrolyte interface, and thus the impedance component ω₃ was related to the performance in such condition.     

LiNO3-NaNO3-KNO3三元熔盐材料的设计及热稳定性研究

采用共形离子溶液模型(conformalionic solution model, CIS) 在二元熔盐体系相图的基础上，对三元熔盐体系LiNO₃-NaNO₃-KNO₃进行了相图计算，得到该三元体系最低共熔点为117.7℃，相应的摩尔分数组成分别为x(LiNO₃) = 0.375，x(NaNO₃) = 0.075，x(KNO₃) = 0.550。按照热力学最低共熔点计算结果，采用熔融法制备了三元硝酸熔盐，通过DSC和TG实验测定其最低共熔点为118.3℃，这与计算得到的结果(117.7℃)基本一致。TG测试结果表明当温度低于587.2℃时，该三元熔盐体系较为稳定，其工作温度范围为118.3~587.2℃，该三元硝酸熔盐适合在太阳能热发电中作为高温传热蓄热材料使用。     

Solar Photocatalytic Degradation of Textile Dyes in TiO2 Suspended Solutions

The degradation and decolourization of direct dye (Everdirect supra turguoise blue, FBL), acidic dye (Isolan orange S-RL) and vat dye (Indanthren red FBB) have been investigated by solar/TiO2 process. The effects of solution pH, dye concentration, dosage of TiO2 and nano-size of TiO2 have been studied. The increase in initial pH (3, 5 and 11) and dye concentration decrease the removal rate. The treatment for FBB and FBL dye solutions is more efficient than that of S-RL.Under optimum conditions, the color removal is found to be almost complete for FBB and FBL while that of S-RL also reaches 95%. Langmuir adsorption isotherm and modified Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic model (L-H model) have been fitted to the experimental data and found to correlate the adsorption patterns as well as the kinetics of the dyes studied.     

Ignition and Combustion of Dust-Gas Suspensions

The ignition and combustion of dust-gas suspensions are considered. It is shown that the ability of these systems to accumulate heat is determined not only by their kinetic and thermal properties but also by the relation between their reaction surface and the heat-removal surface (f). Experimental information on flame temperatures, ignition delays, and flame propagation over gas suspensions is processed using the parameter f, and the postulate on the stimulating role of the developed reaction surface in activating these processes is validated. It is shown that during overall burning, diffusion combustion of particles occurs only for rather small values of f. The ambiguous effect of the parameter f on the ignition and combustion processes leads to the necessity of optimizing the fuel size distribution and concentration for the effective operation of the power devices. The role of the macroparameters of two-phase flames of refractory metals in the synthesis of combustion nanoproducts is analyzed. __________ Translated from Fizika Goreniya i Vzryva, Vol. 41, No. 6, pp. 3–14, November–December, 2005.     

太阳位置传感器设计

传感器是跟踪型太阳能装置中一种重要的电子元器件,它直接影响太阳能的利用效率。通过介绍太阳运行规律,结合目前常用的太阳跟踪方案,提出了一种跟踪方案,并由此设计了具有能主动搜索太阳位置的大范围、高精度的太阳位置光电传感器,完成了其机械结构、电路设计,详细阐述了传感器的工作原理及性能,最后通过仿真分析验证了传感器设计的正确性,为同类型设计提供借鉴。     

A novel high-performance counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

A novel Pt counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) was prepared by thermal decomposition of H₂PtCl₆ on NiP-plated glass substrate. The charge-transfer kinetic properties of the platinized NiP-plated glass electrode (Pt/NiP electrode) for triiodide reduction were studied by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Pt/NiP electrode has the advantage over the platinized FTO conducting glass electrode (Pt/FTO electrode) in increasing the light reflectance and reducing the sheet resistance leading to improve the light harvest efficiency and the fill factor of the dye-sensitized solar cells effectively. The photon-to-current efficiency and the overall conversion efficiency of DSC using Pt/NiP counter electrode is increased by 20% and 33%, respectively, compared to that of using Pt/FTO counter electrode. Examination of the anodic dissolution and the long-term test on the variation of charge-transfer resistance indicates the good stability of the Pt/NiP electrode in the electrolyte containing iodide/triiodide.     

阳光下TiO2/GAC光催化处理洗涤剂废水的研究

利用太阳光作光源，采用固定在颗粒活性炭中的TiO2(TiO2／GAC)作光催化剂，利用其将活性炭极好的吸附性与TiO2优良的光催化性能结合于一体的特性，设计了对以洗衣粉配置的洗涤剂模拟废水的两种处理方案：同时光照-吸附法和吸附饱和-光照水洗再生法，并在实验基础上对两种方案的一些性能进行了讨论。     

Design of new catalysts for ecological high-quality transportation fuels by combinatorial computational chemistry and tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics approaches

Recently, we introduced a concept of combinatorial chemistry to computational chemistry and proposed a new method called “combinatorial computational chemistry”, which enables us to perform a theoretical high-throughput screening of catalysts. In the present paper, we reviewed our recent application of our combinatorial computational chemistry approach to the design of new catalysts for high-quality transportation fuels. By using our combinatorial computational chemistry techniques, we succeeded to predict new catalysts for methanol synthesis and Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. Moreover, we have succeeded in the development of chemical reaction dynamics simulator based on our original tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics method. This program realizes more than 5000 times acceleration compared to the regular first-principles molecular dynamics method. Electronic- and atomic-level information on the catalytic reaction dynamics at reaction temperatures significantly contributes the catalyst design and development. Hence, we also summarized our recent applications of the above quantum chemical molecular dynamics method to the clarification of the methanol synthesis dynamics in this review.     

Interaction of Two Diffusion Flames Spreading Along a Metal Substrate Wetted with Different Fuels

The paper reports an experimental and theoretical study of the interaction of two diffusion flames propagating over the surface of two different liquid fuels applied to both sides of a thin metal substrate. It is shown that in this system, there may be formation of a unified complex — a doublesided flame which has the properties of a steadystate flame with a peculiar structures. Some velocity and structural dependences for doublesided flames are determined. A mathematical model for a doublesided flame is proposed that adequately describes experimental relations. A physical model for a doublesided flame with a pulsating flame of the heavier fuel is formulated.