With the ever increasing demand for energy to meet the needs of growth in population and improvement in the living standards in particular in developing countries, the abundant unconventional oil ...reserves (about 70% of total world oil), such as heavy oil, oil/tar sands and shale oil, are playing an increasingly important role in securing global energy supply. Compared with the conventional reserves unconventional oil reserves are characterized by extremely high viscosity and density, combined with complex chemistry. As a result, petroleum production from unconventional oil reserves is much more difficult and costly with more serious environmental impacts. As a key underpinning science, understanding the interfacial phenomena involved in unconventional petroleum production, such as oil liberation from host rocks, oil-water emulsions and demulsification, is critical for developing novel processes to improve oil production while reducing GHG emission and other environmental impacts at a lower operating cost. In the past decade, significant efforts and advances have been made in applying the principles of interfacial sciences to better understand complex unconventional oil-systems, while many environmental and production challenges remain. In this critical review, the recent research findings and progress in the interfacial sciences related to unconventional petroleum production are critically reviewed. In particular, the chemistry of unconventional oils, liberation mechanisms of oil from host rocks and mechanisms of emulsion stability and destabilization in unconventional oil production systems are discussed in detail. This review also seeks to summarize the current state-of-the-art characterization techniques and brings forward the challenges and opportunities for future research in this important field of physical chemistry and petroleum.
With the ever increasing demand for energy to meet the needs of growth in population and improvement in the living standards, in particular in developing countries, the abundant unconventional oil reserves (about 70% of total world oil), such as heavy oil, oil/tar sands and shale oil, are playing an increasingly important role in securing global energy supply.
Lasing applications have spread over various aspects of human life. To meet the developing trends of the laser industry towards being miniature, portable, and highly integrated, new laser ...technologies are in urgent demand. Organic semiconductors are promising gain medium candidates for novel laser devices, due to their convenient processing techniques, ease of spectral and chemical tuning, low refractive indexes, mechanical flexibilities, and low thresholds,
etc.
organic solid-state lasers (OSSLs) open up a new horizon of simple, low-cost, time-saving, versatile and environmental-friendly manufacturing technologies for new and desirable laser structures (micro-, asymmetric, flexible,
etc.
) to unleash the full potential of semiconductor lasers for future electronics. Besides the development of optical feedback structures, the design and synthesis of robust organic gain media is critical as a vigorous aspect of OSSLs. Herein, we provide a comprehensive review of recent advances in organic gain materials, mainly focused on organic semiconductors for OSSLs. The significant breakthroughs toward electrical pumping of OSSLs are emphasized. Opportunities, challenges and future research directions for the design of organic gain media are also discussed.
This review introduces the design, opportunities, and challenges of organic gain media for organic solid-state lasers, especially for organic semiconductor lasers, providing a clear panorama for this interesting and exciting research field.
The increasingly stringent emission regulations, such as US 2010, Tier 2 Bin 5 and beyond, off-road Tier 4 final, and Euro V/5 for particulate matter (PM) reduction applications, will mandate the use ...of the diesel particulate filters (DPFs) technology, which is proven to be the only way that can effectively control the particulate emissions. This paper covers a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art DPF technologies, including the advanced filter substrate materials, the novel catalyst formulations, the highly sophisticated regeneration control strategies, the DPF uncontrolled regenerations and their control methodologies, the DPF soot loading prediction, and the soot sensor for the PM on-board diagnostics (OBD) legislations. Furthermore, the progress of the highly optimized hybrid approaches, which involves the integration of diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) + (DPF, NOx reduction catalyst), the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst coated on DPF, as well as DPF in the high-pressure exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) loop systems, is well discussed. Besides, the impacts of the quality of fuel and lubricant on the DPF performance and the maintenance and retrofit of DPF are fully elaborated. Meanwhile, the high efficiency gasoline particulate filter (GPF) technology is being required to effectively reduce the PM and particulate number (PN) emissions from the gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines to comply with the future increasingly stricter emissions regulations.
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•Increasing stringent emission regulations mandate the use of particulate filters.•Progress of DPF substrate, regenerations, and integrated systems are discussed.•Impacts of the quality of fuel and lubricant on DPF performance are elaborated.•High efficiency gasoline particulate filters reducing PM and PN are illustrated.•Future perspectives of the advanced particulate filter technologies are described.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Increasingly stringent emission legislations, such as US 2010 and Euro VI, for NOx in mobile applications will require the use of intensification of NOx reduction aftertreatment technologies, such as ...the selective catalytic reduction (SCR). Due to the required higher deNOx efficiency, a lot of efforts have recently been concentrated on the optimization of the SCR systems for broadening the active deNOx temperature window as widely as possible, especially at low temperatures, enhancing the catalysts durability, and reducing the cost of the deNOx system. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art SCR technologies, including the alternative ammonia generation from the solid reductants, Vanadium-based, Cu-zeolite (CuZ) and Fe-zeolite (FeZ) based, and the novel chabazite zeolite with small pore size SCR catalysts. Furthermore, the progresses of the highly optimized hybrid approaches, involving combined CuZ and FeZ SCR, passive SCR, integration of DOC + (DPF, SCR), as well as SCR catalyst coated on DPF (referred as SCRF hereinafter) systems are well discussed. Even though SCR technology is considered as the leading NOx aftertreatment technology, attentions have been paid to the adverse by-products, such as NH3 and N2O. Relevant regulations have been established to address the issues.
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•The review of state of the art technologies of selective catalytic reduction of NOx.•The mainstream V-based, Cu- and Fe-zeolite, and chabazite catalysts are illustrated.•The development of highly optimized hybrid integration SCR systems are analyzed.•The by-products of SCR systems and the corresponding regulations are discussed.•The future perspectives of the advanced SCR technologies are described.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Cable-suspended transportation is an important way of transferring goods and materials by rotorcraft in complex and hazardous environments, where external disturbances, system uncertainties, and, ...especially, the underactuated characteristic bring great challenges to realize safe and smooth deliveries. In terms of the aforementioned problems, this paper presents an enhanced coupling hierarchical control scheme for both quadrotor positioning and payload swing elimination. By exploiting the cascade property of quadrotor transportation systems, we can design controllers for the inner loop and the outer one separately, provided that the growth restriction condition is well satisfied, which greatly simplifies the design procedure. As the outer loop describes the quadrotor translation and payload swing motion, our central work focuses on the controller design of this subsystem. Specifically, a generalized payload signal is introduced to increase the state coupling, based on which we construct a novel energy storage function. Consequently, an energy coupling control law is proposed, which ensures that the equilibrium point of the system is asymptotically stable by using Lyapunov techniques and LaSalle's invariance theorem. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the superior control performance, even in the presence of external disturbances and parameter uncertainties.
An ongoing outbreak of severe respiratory pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus has recently emerged in China. Here we report the epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and radiological ...characteristics of 19 suspect cases. We compared the positive ratio of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid amplification test results from different samples including oropharyngeal swab, blood, urine and stool with 3 different fluorescent RT-PCR kits. Nine out of the 19 patients had 2019-nCoV infection detected using oropharyngeal swab samples, and the virus nucleic acid was also detected in eight of these nine patients using stool samples. None of positive results was identified in the blood and urine samples. These three different kits got the same result for each sample and the positive ratio of nucleic acid detection for 2019-nCoV was only 47.4% in the suspect patients. Therefore, it is possible that infected patients have been missed by using nucleic acid detection only. It might be better to make a diagnosis combining the computed tomography scans and nucleic acid detection.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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•Selective catalytic reduction of NOx with NH3 over Cu/SSZ-13.•Catalysts are prepared by one-pot synthesis method with different Si/Al ratios.•Cu/SSZ-13-6.5 shows the best NH3-SCR ...performance and hydrothermal stability.•Increasing Si/Al deteriorates physical-chemical properties of aged catalysts.•Increasing Si/Al decreases active sites, nitrate species, acidity of aged catalysts.
This study focuses on investigating the influence of Si/Al ratio on the performance of hydrothermally aged Cu/SSZ-13 catalysts prepared by in situ hydrothermal synthesis method. It was found that NH3-SCR performance and hydrothermal stability of Cu/SSZ-13 decreased with increasing Si/Al ratio. Fresh and hydrothermally aged Cu/SSZ-13 with Si/Al ratio of 6.5 showed the best SCR activity and N2 selectivity in a broad temperature of 200–500 °C, in which more than 90% NOx was reduced with superior N2 selectivity above 95%. The effect of Si/Al ratio on the properties of the physicochemical structure, the change of acidity intensity, and Cu species migration or transformation of the fresh and aged Cu/SSZ-13 catalysts were comprehensively characterized by NH3-TPO, NH3-TPD, H2-TPR, N2 physisorption, XRD, ICP-AES, and XPS. The increase of the surface CuO species, the decrease of the amount of Cu2+ in active sites, the chemisorption NH3 species, the specific surface area, the total pore volume, and the increase of average pore diameter, may be the main reasons for performance deterioration over high-Si/Al-ratio catalysts after hydrothermal aging. Furthermore, in situ DRIFTS indicate that, with the increasing Si/Al ratio, the zeolitic structure was easy to collapse, and that the surface acid sites, the active copper species, as well as the adsorbed surface nitrate, decreased after hydrothermally aged. After hydrothermal aging, the amount of isolated Cu2+ decreased, and more CuO species were aggregated, mainly coming from the conversion of the unstable isolated Cu2+ species in D6R or CHA cages. The decrease of isolated Cu2+ and CuO species aggregation were significant in Cu/SSZ-13 with high Si/Al ratios. The CuO leaded to the instability of the SSZ-13 skeleton structure and NH3 oxidation promotion, resulting in catalysts deactivation.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This study explores the enhancement of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs) using ammonium-enhanced vanadium oxide cathodes. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations reveal that NH4+ incorporation ...into V6O16 lattices significantly facilitates Zn2+ ion diffusion by reducing electrostatic interactions, acting as a structural lubricant. Subsequent experimental validation using (NH4)2V6O16 cathodes synthesized via a hydrothermal method corroborates the DFT findings, demonstrating remarkable electrochemical stability with a capacity retention of 90% after 2000 cycles at 5 A g−1. These results underscore the potential of NH4+ in improving the performance and longevity of AZIBs, providing a pathway for sustainable energy storage solutions.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Effect of strains CL-1 and X30 on Cd immobilization and uptake of rape was evaluated.•CL-1 and X30 increased pH and immobilized Cd in the solution and rhizosphere soil.•CL-1 and X30 increased ...polyamine concentration in the solution and rhizosphere soil.•CL-1 was better to increase arginine decarboxylase-producing bacteria in the soil.•CL-1 was better to decrease the rhizosphere soil available Cd and rapeseed Cd uptake.
Two Cd-immobilizing and polyamine-producing bacteria Serratia liquefaciens CL-1 and Bacillus thuringiensis X30 were characterized for their effects on Cd immobilization, pH, and polyamine production in the solution and the rapeseed biomass and Cd uptake of Brassica napus Qinyou-10 in Cd-contaminated soil. These strains significantly increased pH and reduced water-soluble Cd concentration (25–76%) compared to the controls. Furthermore, strain CL-1 produced more polyamine (71–192%) in the solution than strain X30. Cell surface absorbed Cd content was increased by 23-56% in the presence of strain CL-1 compared to strain X30. The strains significantly increased the rapeseed biomass (12–32%), pH, polyamine content (70–244%), and relative abundance (21-49%) of arginine decarboxylase-producing bacteria (ADPB) of the rhizosphere soils but decreased DTPA-extractable Cd content and rapeseed Cd uptake compared to the controls. Notably, strain CL-1 had higher ability to reduce the rapeseed Cd and DTPA-extractable Cd contents and increase the abundance of ADPB than strain X30. Our results showed the distinct impact of these strains on the rapeseed Cd uptake and available Cd content and suggested that these strains reduced the available Cd and rapeseed Cd uptake by increasing the cell adsorption of Cd, abundance of ADPB, polyamine production, and pH in the rhizosphere soils.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Spectral-spatial classification of remotely sensed hyperspectral images has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Although Gabor filtering has been used for feature extraction from ...hyperspectral images, its capacity to extract relevant information from both the spectral and the spatial domains of the image has not been fully explored yet. In this paper, we present a new discriminative low-rank Gabor filtering (DLRGF) method for spectral-spatial hyperspectral image classification. A main innovation of the proposed approach is that our implementation is accomplished by decomposing the standard 3-D spectral-spatial Gabor filter into eight subfilters, which correspond to different combinations of low-pass and bandpass single-rank filters. Then, we show that only one of the subfilters (i.e., the one that performs low-pass spatial filtering and bandpass spectral filtering) is actually appropriate to extract suitable features based on the characteristics of hyperspectral images. This allows us to perform spectral-spatial classification in a highly discriminative and computationally efficient way, by significantly decreasing the computational complexity (from cubic to linear order) compared with the 3-D spectral-spatial Gabor filter. In order to theoretically prove the discriminative ability of the selected subfilter, we derive an overall classification risk bound to evaluate the discriminating abilities of the features provided by the different subfilters. Our experimental results, conducted using different hyperspectral images, indicate that the proposed DLRGF method exhibits significant improvements in terms of classification accuracy and computational performance when compared with the 3-D spectral-spatial Gabor filter and other state-of-the-art spectral-spatial classification methods.
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