Fe(III) grafted MoO3 nanorods for effective electrocatalytic fixation of atmospheric N2 to NH3

Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (ENRR) offers a carbon-neutral process to fix nitrogen into ammonia, but its feasibility depends on the development of highly efficient electrocatalysts. Herein, we report that Fe ion grafted on MoO₃ nanorods synthesized by an impregnation technique can efficiently enhance the electron harvesting ability and the selectivity of H⁺ during the NRR process in neutral electrolyte. In 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ solution, the electrocatalyst exhibited a remarkable NRR activity with an NH₃ yield of 9.66 μg h^?1 mg^?1_cat and a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 13.1%, far outperforming the ungrafted MnO₃. Density functional theory calculations revealed that the Fe sites are major activation centers along the alternating pathway.     

Total Site Hydrogen Integration with fresh hydrogen of multiple quality and waste hydrogen recovery in refineries

This paper proposes a novel method combining Pinch Methodology and waste hydrogen recovery, aiming to minimise fresh hydrogen consumption and waste hydrogen discharge. The method of multiple-level resource Pinch Analysis is extended to the level of Total Site Hydrogen Integration by considering fresh hydrogen sources with various quality. Waste hydrogen after Total Site Integration is further regenerated. The technical feasibility and economy of the various purification approaches are considered, demonstrated with a case study of a refinery hydrogen network in a petrochemical industrial park. The results showed that fresh hydrogen usage and waste hydrogen discharge could be reduced by 21.3% and 67.6%. The hydrogen recovery ratio is 95.2%. It has significant economic benefits and a short payback period for Total Site Hydrogen Integration with waste hydrogen purification. The proposed method facilitates the reuse of waste hydrogen before the purification process that incurs an additional environmental footprint. In line with the Circular Economy principles, hydrogen resource is retained in the system as long as possible before discharge.     

Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species in Defense/Stress Responses Activated by Chitosan in Sycamore Cultured Cells

Chitosan (CHT) is a non-toxic and inexpensive compound obtained by deacetylation of chitin, the main component of the exoskeleton of arthropods as well as of the cell walls of many fungi. In agriculture CHT is used to control numerous diseases on various horticultural commodities but, although different mechanisms have been proposed, the exact mode of action of CHT is still unknown. In sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) cultured cells, CHT induces a set of defense/stress responses that includes production of H₂O₂ and nitric oxide (NO). We investigated the possible signaling role of these reactive molecules in some CHT-induced responses by means of inhibitors of production and/or scavengers. The results show that both reactive nitrogen and oxygen species are not only a mere symptom of stress conditions but are involved in the responses induced by CHT in sycamore cells. In particular, NO appears to be involved in a cell death form induced by CHT that shows apoptotic features like DNA fragmentation, increase in caspase-3-like activity and release of cytochrome c from the mitochondrion. On the contrary, reactive oxygen species (ROS) appear involved in a cell death form induced by CHT that does not show these apoptotic features but presents increase in lipid peroxidation.     

Two-agent two-machine flowshop scheduling with learning effects to minimize the total completion time

We study a two-agent scheduling problem in a two-machine permutation flowshop with learning effects. The objective is to minimize the total completion time of the jobs from one agent, given that the maximum tardiness of the jobs from the other agent cannot exceed a bound. We provide a branch-and-bound algorithm for the problem. In addition, we present several genetic algorithms to obtain near-optimal solutions. Computational results indicate that the algorithms perform well in either solving the problem or efficiently generating near-optimal solutions.     

Sparsity-inspired image reconstruction for electrical capacitance tomography

We present a new image reconstruction method for Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT). ECT image reconstruction is generally ill-posed because the number of measurements is small whereas the image dimensions are large. Here, we present a sparsity-inspired approach to achieve better ECT image reconstruction from the small number of measurements. Our approach for ECT image reconstruction is based on Total Variation (TV) regularization. We apply an efficient Split-Bregman Iteration (SBI) approach to solve the problem. We also propose three metrics to evaluate image reconstruction performance, i.e., a joint metric of positive reconstruction rate (PRR) and false reconstruction rate (FRR), correlation coefficient, and a shape and location metric. The results on both synthetic and real data show that the proposed TV-SBI method can better preserve the edges of images and better resolve different objects within reconstructed images, as compared to a representative state-of-the-art ECT image reconstruction algorithm, Projected Landweber Iteration with Linear Back Projection initialization (LBP-PLI).     

Quantum Sensing in a Physiological‐Like Cell Niche Using Fluorescent Nanodiamonds Embedded in Electrospun Polymer Nanofibers

Fluorescent nanodiamonds (fNDs) containing nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers are promising candidates for quantum sensing in biological environments. This work describes the fabrication and implementation of electrospun poly lactic‐co‐glycolic acid (PLGA) nanofibers embedded with fNDs for optical quantum sensing in an environment, which recapitulates the nanoscale architecture and topography of the cell niche. A protocol that produces uniformly dispersed fNDs within electrospun nanofibers is demonstrated and the resulting fibers are characterized using fluorescent microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) and longitudinal spin relaxometry results for fNDs and embedded fNDs are compared. A new approach for fast detection of time varying magnetic fields external to the fND embedded nanofibers is demonstrated. ODMR spectra are successfully acquired from a culture of live differentiated neural stem cells functioning as a connected neural network grown on fND embedded nanofibers. This work advances the current state of the art in quantum sensing by providing a versatile sensing platform that can be tailored to produce physiological‐like cell niches to replicate biologically relevant growth environments and fast measurement protocols for the detection of co‐ordinated endogenous signals from clinically relevant populations of electrically active neuronal circuits.     

Zinc doped Fe2O3 for boosting Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation to ammonia under mild conditions

Artificial nitrogen fixation is emerging as a promising approach for synthesis of ammonia at mild conditions. Inspired by biological nitrogen fixation based on bacteria containing iron, zinc doped Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles are proposed as an efficient and earth abundant electrocatalyst for converting N₂ to NH₃. In neutral media, it achieves a maximum Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 10.4% and a large NH₃ yield rate of 15.1 μg h^?1 mg^?1_cat. at ?0.5 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode. This catalyst also exhibits excellent selectivity and stability. Theoretical calculations suggest the reaction follows the associative enzymatic mechanism and it has a barrier of as low as 0.68 eV.     

含氮化合物对NiW体系催化剂芳烃加氢性能的影响

以γ-Al2O3、B改性的γ-Al2O3、F改性的γ-Al2O3、SiO2-Al2O3为载体制备Ni、W含量相同的四种催化剂，通过程序升温还原表征考察活性金属与不同载体的相互作用。利用氮含量不同、四氢萘含量相同的四种原料考察含氮化合物对同种NiW体系催化剂四氢萘加氢的影响以及对活性金属与载体相互作用不同的催化剂四氢萘加氢的影响。结果表明，以γ-Al2O3或SiO2-Al2O3载体制备的催化剂的金属组分与载体相互作用较强，B或F改性的γ-Al2O3能显著削弱活性金属与载体的相互作用；含氮化合物对四氢萘加氢具有强烈的抑制作用，使四氢萘加氢反应的表观活化能增加；在实验研究的四种催化剂中，金属组分与载体相互作用较弱的催化剂受含氮化合物的抑制较强。     

RFA—300型自动分析仪检测总植物碱的改进

对连续流动法测定烟草及烟草制品中总植物碱的各影响因素进行了试验研究,并根据试验结果对仪器管路进行相应的改造。实验结果表明,烟草制品中总植物碱的连续流动法测定,改进后方法的回收收率高、重现性好。     

双室充氮包装机的技术改进

分析了原机型的性能特点和不足之处,介绍了改进方案。