Dramatic changes in molecular structure, degradation pathway, and porosity of biochar are observed at pyrolysis temperatures ranging from 250 to 550 °C when bamboo biomass is pretreated by ...iron-sulfate-clay slurries (iron–clay biochar), as compared to untreated bamboo biochar. Electron microscopy analysis of the biochar reveals the infusion of mineral species into the pores of the biochar and the formation of mineral nanostructures. Quantitative 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy shows that the presence of the iron clay prevents degradation of the cellulosic fraction at pyrolysis temperatures of 250 °C, whereas at higher temperatures (350–550 °C), the clay promotes biomass degradation, resulting in an increase in both the concentrations of condensed aromatic, acidic, and phenolic carbon species. The porosity of the biochar, as measured by NMR cryoporosimetry, is altered by the iron–clay pretreatment. In the presence of the clay, at lower pyrolysis temperatures, the biochar develops a higher pore volume, while at higher temperature, the presence of clay causes a reduction in the biochar pore volume. The most dramatic reduction in pore volume is observed in the kaolinite-infiltrated biochar at 550 °C, which is attributed to the blocking of the mesopores (2–50 nm pore) by the nonporous metakaolinite formed from kaolinite.
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•N from the urea was bound strongly by the functionalised surfaces of the biochar.•Biochar-mineral urea composite reduced the N leaching in soil.•Biochar-mineral urea composite was ...more effective on the retention of NH4+-N.•Biochar-mineral urea composite increased maize root growth and N use efficiency.
Over use of N fertilizers, most commonly as urea, had been seriously concerned as a major source of radiative N (Nr) for severe environment impacts through leaching, volatilization, and N2O emission from fertilized croplands. It had been well known that biochar could enhance N retention and use efficiency by crops in amended croplands. In this study, a granular biochar-mineral urea composite (Bio-MUC) was obtained by blending urea with green waste biochar supplemented with clay minerals of bentonite and sepiolite. This Bio-MUC material was firstly characterized by microscopic analyses with FTIR, SEM-EDS and STEM, subsequently tested for N leaching in water in column experiment and for N supply for maize in pot culture, compared to conventional urea fertilizer (UF). Microscopic analyses indicated binding of urea N to particle surfaces of biochar and clay minerals in the Bio-MUC composite. In the leaching experiment over 30 days, cumulative N release as NH4+-N and of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was significantly smaller by >70% and by 8% from the Bio-MUC than from UF. In pot culture with maize growing for 50 days, total fresh shoot was enhanced by 14% but fresh root by 25% under Bio-MUC compared to UF. This study suggested that N in the Bio-MUC was shown slow releasing in water but maize growth promoting in soil, relative to conventional urea. Such effect could be related mainly to N retention by binding to biochar/mineral surfaces and partly by carbon bonds of urea to biochar in the Bio-MUC. Therefore, biochar from agro-wastes could be used for blending urea as combined organo/mineral urea to replace mineral urea so as to reduce N use and impacts on global Nr. Of course, how such biochar combined urea would impact N process in soil-plant systems deserve further field studies.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Biowaste eggshell can be used as a cathode while in its calcined form and it is found to be suitable as an anode in an electrochemical cell. This not only enables energy to be stored reversibly but ...also achieves waste management and sustainability goals by redirecting material away from landfill. Biowaste eggshell comprises 94% calcium carbonate (CaCO
3
; calcite), an attractive divalent ion source as a viable option for energy storage. X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive analyses of the calcined (thermally decomposed) biowaste eggshell show that CaO has been formed and the reaction is topotactic. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images of the textural relationship show that the thermal decomposition of calcite resulted in a change in morphology. High-resolution XPS spectra of the C 1s core level from the CaCO
3
and CaO shows that there is a chemical difference in the carbon environments and the total atomic fraction of Ca for each sample with that of carbonate and oxygen varies. In a three-electrode configuration, a working electrode of CaCO
3
is found to be electrochemically active in the positive region, whereas a CaO electrode is active in the negative region. This indicates the potential use of eggshell-derived materials for both cathode and anode. Both the electrodes exhibited a quasi-box-shaped potentiostatic curve implying a capacitor-type behaviour. The CaCO
3
cathode possesses a modest discharge capacitance of 10 F g
−1
but the CaO anode showed excellent capacitance value of 47.5 F g
−1
. The CaO electrode in both positive and negative regions, at a current density of 0.15 A g
−1
exhibited 55 F g
−1
with a retention of nearly 100% after 1000 cycles. At a very low sweep rate of 0.5 mV s
−1
, the CaO electrode showed typical redox-type behaviour with well-defined peaks illustrating battery-type behaviour. The outcome of the calcite/CaO transformation, exhibiting technological importance for energy storage applications, may help to re-evaluate biowaste before throwing it away. The current work explores the viability of eggshell derived materials as a cathode/anode for use in batteries and capacitors.
Biowaste eggshell can be used as a cathode while in its calcined form and it is found to be suitable as an anode in an electrochemical cell.
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Evolution of Cilia Mitchell, David R
Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology,
01/2017, Volume:
9, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Anton van Leeuwenhoek's startling microscopic observations in the 1600s first stimulated fascination with the way that cells use cilia to generate currents and to swim in a fluid environment. ...Research in recent decades has yielded deep knowledge about the mechanical and biochemical nature of these organelles but only opened a greater fascination about how such beautifully intricate and multifunctional structures arose during evolution. Answers to this evolutionary puzzle are not only sought to satisfy basic curiosity, but also, as stated so eloquently by Dobzhansky (Am Zool 4: 443 1964), because "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Here I attempt to summarize current knowledge of what ciliary organelles of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) were like, explore the ways in which cilia have evolved since that time, and speculate on the selective processes that might have generated these organelles during early eukaryotic evolution.
Magnesium molybdate (MgMoO4), which possesses synergistic features combining both hierarchical plate-like nanomaterials and porous architectures, has been successfully synthesized through a facile ...combustion synthesis at a low temperature. The hierarchical architecture is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. The as-obtained MgMoO4 nanoplates showed a porous structure with a pore-size distribution ranging from 50 to 70 nm. This porosity provides an electron transport pathway and enhanced surface reaction kinetics. The binding energies measured for Mg 2p, Mo 3d, 3p and O 1s are consistent with the literature, and with the metal ions being present as M(ii) and M(vi) states, respectively. This indicates that the oxidation states of the metal cations are as expected. The electrochemical behaviour of MgMoO4 was investigated using aqueous (NaOH) and non-aqueous solvents (NaClO4 in EC : DMC : FEC) for supercapacitor and battery applications. The sodium-ion capacitor involves ion absorption and insertion into the MgMoO4 electrodes resulting in superior power and energy densities. However, the cycling stability was found to be stable only for an aqueous system. The formation of a solid electrolyte surface layer restricted the reversible capacity of the MgMoO4 in the sodium-battery. Nevertheless, it does offer some promise as an anode material for storing energy with high rate performance and excellent capacity retention. Detailed comparative analyses of various electrolytes in storage devices such as hybrid sodium-ion capacitors and sodium-ion batteries are vital for the integration of hierarchical structured materials into practical applications. The reaction mechanisms are postulated.
In this paper, a method for joint source-channel coding (JSCC) based on concatenated spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes is investigated. A construction consisting of two ...SC-LDPC codes is proposed: one for source coding and the other for channel coding, with a joint belief propagation-based decoder. Also, a novel windowed decoding (WD) scheme is presented with significantly reduced latency and complexity requirements. The asymptotic behavior for various graph node degrees is analyzed using a protograph-based Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) chart analysis for both LDPC block codes with block decoding and for SC-LDPC codes with the WD scheme, showing robust performance for concatenated SC-LDPC codes. Simulation results show a notable performance improvement compared to existing state-of-the-art JSCC schemes based on LDPC codes with comparable latency and complexity constraints.
Bio-waste chicken eggshells to store energy Minakshi, Manickam; Visbal, Heidy; Mitchell, David R. G ...
Dalton transactions : an international journal of inorganic chemistry,
12/2018, Volume:
47, Issue:
47
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Bio-waste in the form of chicken eggshells, which contain high amounts of calcium carbonate (CaCO
3
), is used to store energy. The fine eggshell powders are used as an electrode against a metallic ...lithium anode in a non-aqueous electrolyte. The initial discharge capacitance of the eggshell system was found to be 232 F g
−1
, while the reversible capacitance was 120 F g
−1
. Thereon, the cell maintained an excellent capacitance retention of 92% over 1000 cycles. The electrochemical performance obtained is comparable to that of commercially available classical activated carbon (AC) material. CaCO
3
showed a non-faradaic behaviour and the shape of the electrochemical curves resembles that of the AC electrode. The preliminary findings suggest that CaCO
3
from eggshells can be used as the electrode in Li-ion capacitors to store and release charges effectively over a wide electrochemical stability window of 4 V. Using chicken eggshells in this manner not only reduces the amount of bio-waste, but also adds considerable value. A detailed understanding of the electrochemical and physical behaviour of the material is needed in order to improve its performance and to enable its widespread use.
Chicken eggshell, a calcite mineral (CaCO
3
) along with an inner shell membrane, is crushed into a powder to be used as an electrode for a lithium-ion capacitor.
In this paper, we construct protograph-based spatially coupled low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes by coupling together a series of L disjoint, or uncoupled, LDPC code Tanner graphs into a single ...coupled chain. By varying L , we obtain a flexible family of code ensembles with varying rates and frame lengths that can share the same encoding and decoding architecture for arbitrary L . We demonstrate that the resulting codes combine the best features of optimized irregular and regular codes in one design: capacity approaching iterative belief propagation (BP) decoding thresholds and linear growth of minimum distance with block length. In particular, we show that, for sufficiently large L , the BP thresholds on both the binary erasure channel and the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel saturate to a particular value significantly better than the BP decoding threshold and numerically indistinguishable from the optimal maximum a posteriori decoding threshold of the uncoupled LDPC code. When all variable nodes in the coupled chain have degree greater than two, asymptotically the error probability converges at least doubly exponentially with decoding iterations and we obtain sequences of asymptotically good LDPC codes with fast convergence rates and BP thresholds close to the Shannon limit. Further, the gap to capacity decreases as the density of the graph increases, opening up a new way to construct capacity achieving codes on memoryless binary-input symmetric-output channels with low-complexity BP decoding.
Based on the Seebeck and Peltier effects, state‐of‐the‐art bismuth telluride‐based thermoelectric materials, which are capable of direct and reversible conversion of thermal to electrical energy, ...have great potential in energy harvesting and solid‐state refrigerators. However, their widespread use is limited by their low conversion efficiency, which is determined by the dimensionless figure‐of‐merit (ZT). Significant enhancement of ZT is a great challenge owing to the common interdependence of electrical and thermal conductivity. Here, it is demonstrated that by incorporating nanoamorphous boron into the p‐type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3, a record high ZT of 1.6 at 375 K is achieved. It is shown that a high density of nanostructures and dislocations due to the incorporation of the boron inclusions, leads to a significant reduction of thermal conductivity and improved charge transport. The findings represent an important step to further promote the development of thermoelectric technology and its widespread application in solid‐state refrigeration and power generation from waste heat.
A breakthrough in ultra‐high thermoelectric performance is achieved in p‐type bulk BiSbTe/Boron nanocomposite materials, which has great potential for wide application in solid‐state refrigeration and power generation.
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Thermoelectric (TE) materials have attracted extensive interest because of their ability to achieve direct heat-to-electricity conversion. They provide an appealing renewable energy source in a ...variety of applications by harvesting waste heat. The record-breaking figure of merit reported for single crystal SnSe has stimulated related research on its polycrystalline counterpart. Boosting the TE conversion efficiency requires increases in the power factor and decreases in thermal conductivity. It is still a big challenge, however, to optimize these parameters independently because of their complex interrelationships. Herein, we propose an innovative approach to decouple electrical and thermal transport by incorporating carbon fiber (CF) into polycrystalline SnSe. We show that the incorporation of highly conductive CF can successfully enhance the electrical conductivity, while greatly reducing the thermal conductivity of polycrystalline SnSe. As a result, a high TE figure-of-merit (zT) of 1.3 at 823 K is obtained in p-type SnSe/CF composite polycrystalline materials. Furthermore, SnSe samples incorporated with CFs exhibit superior mechanical properties, which are favorable for device fabrication applications. Our results indicate that the dispersion of CF can be a good way to greatly improve both TE and mechanical performance.
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