Role and prospects of green quantum dots in photoelectrochemical hydrogen generation: A review

Eco-friendly quantum dots (QDs) can be termed green QDs which stand as an attractive choice to modify the properties of known semiconductors in the direction of getting efficient photoelectrodes for solar-induced photoelectrochemical (PEC) splitting of water, due to their peculiar properties. Thus, it is of high significance to analyze their merit/demerit as an effective scaffold in PEC cell. QDs are known for their excellent optical properties however, the coupling of green QDs with semiconductor is not only useful in improving absorption characteristics but also promotes charge transfer. This review has undertaken the critical analysis on the worldwide research going on the green QDs modified photoelectrode with respect to their optical, electrical & photoelectrochemical properties, role, usefulness, efficiency, and finally the success in PEC system for hydrogen production. Various methods on the facile synthesis & sensitization techniques of green QDs available in the literature have also been discussed. Further, recent advances on the development of green QDs based photo-electrode, along with major challenges of using green QDs in this field have also been presented.     

Green Measurements for Software Product Based on Sustainability Dimensions

Software is a central component in the modern world and vastly affects the environment’s sustainability. The demand for energy and resource requirements is rising when producing hardware and software units. Literature study reveals that many studies focused on green hardware; however, limited efforts were made in the greenness of software products. Green software products are necessary to solve the issues and problems related to the long-term use of software, especially from a sustainability perspective. Without a proper mechanism for measuring the greenness of a particular software product executed in a specific environment, the mentioned benefits will not be attained. Currently, there are not enough works to address this problem, and the green status of software products is uncertain and unsure. This paper aims to identify the green measurements based on sustainable dimensions in a software product. The second objective is to reveal the relationships between the elements and measurements through empirical study. The study is conducted in two phases. The first phase is the theoretical phase, where the main components, measurements and practices that influence the sustainability of a software product are identified. The second phase is the empirical study that involved 103 respondents in Malaysia investigating current practices of green software in the industrial environment and further identifying the main sustainability dimensions and measurements and their impact on achieving green software products. This study has revealed seven green measurements of software product: Productivity, Usability, Cost Reduction, Employee Support, Energy Efficiency, Resource Efficiency and Tool Support. The relationships are statistically significant, with a significance level of less than 0.01 (p = 0.000). Thus, the hypothesised relationships were all accepted. The contributions of this study revolve around the research perspectives of the measurements to attain a green software product.     

Exploring the feasibility of green hydrogen production using excess energy from a country-scale 100% solar-wind renewable energy system

When planning large-scale 100% renewable energy systems (RES) for the year 2050, the system capacity is usually oversized for better supply-demand matching of electrical energy since solar and wind resources are highly intermittent. This causes excessive excess energy that is typically dissipated, curtailed, or sold directly. The public literature shows a lack of studies on the feasibility of using this excess for country-scale co-generation. This study presents the first investigation of utilizing this excess to generate green hydrogen gas. The concept is demonstrated for Jordan using three solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, and hybrid PV-wind RESs, all equipped with Lithium-Ion battery energy storage systems (ESSs), for hydrogen production using a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) system. The results show that the PV-based system has the highest demand-supply fraction (>99%). However, the wind-based system is more favorable economically, with installed RES, ESS, and PEM capacities of only 23.88 GW, 2542 GWh, and 20.66 GW. It also shows the highest hydrogen annual production rate (172.1 × 10³ tons) and the lowest hydrogen cost (1.082 USD/kg). The three systems were a better option than selling excess energy directly, where they ensure annual incomes up to 2.68 billion USD while having payback periods of as low as 1.78 years. Furthermore, the hydrogen cost does not exceed 2.03 USD/kg, which is significantly lower than the expected cost of hydrogen (3 USD/kg) produced using energy from fossil fuel-based systems in 2050.     

A strategic roadmap for large-scale green hydrogen demonstration and commercialisation in China: A review and survey analysis

Hydrogen is gaining increased attention from industries and policymakers in China. However, most of the current demonstration projects in the country have relied on conventional energy sources, including industrial byproduct hydrogen and grey hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. Moreover, strategies and policy frameworks leading to a shift to green or low-carbon hydrogen have neither been explored in-depth nor been identified clearly in the context of China. This study aims at bridging such gaps. Roadmapping techniques enhanced by the Delphi method and SWOT analysis are used to survey hydrogen energy experts from government bodies, industries, and academia to achieve basic agreement on strategically enabling large-scale green hydrogen demonstrations followed by commercialisation in China. The outcome of two rounds of surveys showed that experts' opinions converged on a strategic roadmap with three stages of development. The corresponding policies needed in each stage are evaluated and selected to form a systemic framework.     

Energy-optimal base station density in cellular access networks with sleep modes

Sleep modes are widely accepted as an effective technique for energy-efficient networking: by adequately putting to sleep and waking up network resources according to traffic demands, a proportionality between energy consumption and network utilization can be approached, with important reductions in energy consumption. Previous studies have investigated and evaluated sleep modes for wireless access networks, computing variable percentages of energy savings. In this paper we characterize the maximum energy saving that can be achieved in a cellular wireless access network under a given performance constraint. In particular, our approach allows the derivation of realistic estimates of the energy-optimal density of base stations corresponding to a given user density, under a fixed performance constraint. Our results allow different sleep mode proposals to be measured against the maximum theoretically achievable improvement. We show, through numerical evaluation, the possible energy savings in today’s networks, and we further demonstrate that even with the development of highly energy-efficient hardware, a holistic approach incorporating system level techniques is essential to achieving maximum energy efficiency.     

Insights into low-carbon hydrogen production methods: Green,blue and aqua hydrogen

The primary aim of this study is to provide insights into different low-carbon hydrogen production methods. Low-carbon hydrogen includes green hydrogen (hydrogen from renewable electricity), blue hydrogen (hydrogen from fossil fuels with CO₂ emissions reduced by the use of Carbon Capture Use and Storage) and aqua hydrogen (hydrogen from fossil fuels via the new technology). Green hydrogen is an expensive strategy compared to fossil-based hydrogen. Blue hydrogen has some attractive features, but the CCUS technology is high cost and blue hydrogen is not inherently carbon free. Therefore, engineering scientists have been focusing on developing other low-cost and low-carbon hydrogen technology. A new economical technology to extract hydrogen from oil sands (natural bitumen) and oil fields with very low cost and without carbon emissions has been developed and commercialized in Western Canada. Aqua hydrogen is a term we have coined for production of hydrogen from this new hydrogen production technology. Aqua is a color halfway between green and blue and thus represents a form of hydrogen production that does not emit CO₂, like green hydrogen, yet is produced from fossil fuel energy, like blue hydrogen. Unlike CCUS, blue hydrogen, which is clearly compensatory with respect to carbon emissions as it captures, uses and stores produced CO₂, the new production method is transformative in that it does not emit CO₂ in the first place. In order to promote the development of the low-carbon hydrogen economy, the current challenges, future directions and policy recommendations of low-carbon hydrogen production methods including green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, and aqua hydrogen are investigated in the paper.     

Precipitating spinel into precursor glass and its assistance in crystallization

The crystallization phenomena of spinel in CaO-MgO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂-Fe₂O₃ glass have received much attention due to the particular role in preparation of glass-ceramic materials, which represent an effective option to manage hazardous waste. In this study, both preliminary spinel and secondary spinel were precipitated in the precursor glass. The formation of these spinel was meticulously assessed by a combination of X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy. The structure of the microenvironment in the precursor glass was characterized by Raman spectrums. These advanced techniques highlight the potential for one-step crystallization of the glass. The investigation, which focused on one-step crystallization, demonstrated the growth of pyroxene on spinel accompanying a migration of chromium. The results also show the microstructure of the obtained glass-ceramic was very dependent on the heat-treat temperature. This study not only unambiguously reveals the precipitation mechanisms of spinel but also provides more documentation for one-step crystallization in the glass-ceramics field.     

Fatigue in bamboo

This paper describes the results of an experimental programme to determine the fatigue behaviour of bamboo. Bamboo is subjected to cyclic loading, both in the plant itself and subsequently when the material is used in load-bearing applications in the construction industry. However, there is currently no data in the literature describing fatigue in this material. We found that sections of bamboo culm loaded parallel to the culm axis did not undergo fatigue failure: samples either failed on the first loading cycle, or not at all. By contrast, fatigue was readily apparent in samples loaded in compression across the diameter of the culm. The number of cycles to failure increased as the cyclic load range decreased in a manner similar to that found in many engineering materials: fatigue occurred at applied loads as small as 40% of the ultimate strength. Two different species of bamboo were tested and found to have different ultimate strengths but similar high-cycle fatigue strengths. Finite element analysis was used to help understand the progression of fatigue damage and the effect of stress concentration features. Some tentative design rules are proposed to define stress levels for the safe use of bamboo, taking fatigue into account.     

Bamboo biochar-catalytic degradation of lignin under microwave heating

Abstract

Lignin biochar-catalytic depolymerization using biochar Fe-600, Fe-800, Ni-600, Ni-800 catalysts under microwave-heating (180?°C for 30?min) was explored in an ethanol/formic acid (1:1) media. Non-catalyst depolymerization was also studied and compared with the biochar-catalysts results. Characteristics of the bio-char catalysts were analyze by BET, XRD, and FT-IR. GPC, FT-IR, and MALDI-TOF MS spectrometry were also used to characterize the depolymerization products. The experimental results showed that the S_BET, V_t, and V_mec and average pore diameter of the biochars are considerably dependent on the preparation temperature and type of cation (Ni²⁺ or Fe³⁺). The maximum yield of bio-oil product was obtained as 85?wt% with the addition of biochar Ni-600 and the total amount of oligomers or monomers with a molecular weight of 164 to 446 reaches 80.4%.     

ZnIn2S4/In(OH)3 hollow microspheres fabricated by one-step l-cysteine-mediated hydrothermal growth for enhanced hydrogen production and MB degradation

An intervening barrier for photocatalytic water decomposition and pollutant degradation is the frustratingly quick recombination of e⁻ - h⁺ pairs. Delicate design of heterojunction photocatalysts by coupling the semiconductors at nanoscale with well-matched geometrical and electronic alignments is an effective strategy to ameliorate the charge separation. Here a facile and environment-friendly l-cysteine-assisted hydrothermal process under weakly alkaline conditions is demonstrated for the first time to fabricate ZnIn₂S₄/In(OH)₃ hollow microspheres with intimate contact, which are verified by XRD, SEM, (HR)TEM, XPS, N₂ adsorption-desorption, UV–Vis DRS and photoluminescence spectra. ZnIn₂S₄/In(OH)₃ heterostructure (L-cys/Zn²⁺ = 4, molar ratio) with a band-gap of 2.50 eV, demonstrates the best photocatalytic performance for water reduction and MB degradation under visible light, outperforming its counterparts (In(OH)₃ and ZnIn₂S₄). The excellent activity of ZnIn₂S₄/In(OH)₃ heterostructure arises from the intercrossed band-edge positions as well as the unique hollow structure with large surface area and wide pore-size distribution, which are beneficial for the efficient charge migration from bulk to surface as well as at the interface between ZnIn₂S₄ and In(OH)₃. This work provides an efficient and eco-friendly strategy for one-pot synthesis of heterostructured composites with intimate contact for photocatalytic application.