Metal−organic framework (MOF) materials, which are built of metal ions or metal ion clusters bridged organic linkers, possess the well-defined pore structures, large surface area and extraordinary ...adsorption affinities. In recent years, MOF-based membranes have attracted large attention in separation applications due to their excellent performance. In respect to practical applications, the substrates and construction will greatly influence the industrial promotion and separation performance of the MOF-based membranes. Inorganic materials are the earliest substrates for continuous MOF membranes. Both the bare and modified substrates can be used for supporting the MOF membranes by changing the synthesis preparation process, such as solvothermal synthesis, interfacial synthesis and liquid phase epitaxy approach. In order to reduce the cost and enhance the processability of the MOF membrane, the polymer substrates can also be employed to obtain the continuous MOF membranes. Moreover, the hollow fiber substrates can provide the large membrane areas per volume. Since there is good compatibility between the MOFs and polymers, MOFs can also be employed as fillers to fabricate mixed matrix membranes. Those MOF-based membranes exhibit good performance in gas separation, pervaporation and nanofiltration. Therefore, this review gives an overview of the continuous MOF membranes supported by inorganic substrates and polymer substrates and the MOF-based mixed matrix membranes.
•We present a review on MOF-based membranes for separation.•Potential applications of different types of MOF membranes are discussed.•Inorganic/polymer substrates and strategies for continuous membranes are focused.•The characters of MOF-based mixed matrix membranes are presented.•Scopes for future research of MOF-based membranes are outlined.
Window opening behaviour has become of a specific concern when it comes to the adaptive comfort analysis and evaluation. A field study of occupants' window opening behaviour was carried out from ...Jan/05 to Apr/06 in a naturally ventilated office building in Sheffield's, UK climate conditions. Window positions were recorded daily on academic semester weekdays. A total of 1620 windows' positions in 329 days (16 months) were recorded. Outdoor and indoor physical parameters such as air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed etc. were collected at the same time. The results show that manual window control, as indicated by the proportion of windows opened, has a strong correlation with: outdoor air temperature, the season of year, time of a day and occupancy pattern. Window orientation is also considered as a relevant influencing factor. Moreover, the study tests a stochastic model to predict the probability of windows being open given the outdoor temperature with promising results. Also insights are reported about behaviour in non-office spaces in the building as a whole.
Assessments have been made of 153 classrooms in 27 schools in order to identify the impact of the physical classroom features on the academic progress of the 3766 pupils who occupied each of those ...specific spaces.
This study confirms the utility of the naturalness, individuality and stimulation (or more memorably, SIN) conceptual model as a vehicle to organise and study the full range of sensory impacts experienced by an individual occupying a given space. In this particular case the naturalness design principle accounts for around 50% of the impact on learning, with the other two accounting for roughly a quarter each.
Within this structure, seven key design parameters have been identified that together explain 16% of the variation in pupils' academic progress achieved. These are Light, Temperature, Air Quality, Ownership, Flexibility, Complexity and Colour. The muted impact of the whole-building level of analysis provides some support for the importance of “inside-out design”.
The identification of the impact of the built environment factors on learning progress is a major new finding for schools' research, but also suggests that the scale of the impact of building design on human performance and wellbeing in general, can be isolated and that it is non-trivial. It is argued that it makes sense to capitalise on this promising progress and to further develop these concepts and techniques.
•The study reveals a 16% impact of school design on 3766 pupils' learning rates.•An Environment-behaviour factors model is strongly validated.•10 environmental factors of the classroom and 5 non-e factors are analysed.•The study uses multilevel statistical modelling for the nested situation.
An empirical study was carried out from Jan/05 to Apr/06 in a high-rise office building to reveal blind operation patterns and to investigate the variables driving blind usage. The positions of ...internal Venetian blinds of every façade were recorded on a daily basis. A subsidiary questionnaire survey was also carried out to understand the occupant’s sensation and experience of their built environment. This paper reviews and extends current knowledge of the motivating forces involved by analysing actual blind occlusion against some potentially influential factors. The study reported aims to fill gaps in previous studies by addressing: an office building in its entirety (not just the offices towards a specific orientation), assessing larger offices as is typical (not single occupancy) and studying the building over a period of 16 months (not just several weeks or months). The work demonstrates the importance of solar altitude and solar radiation as the principal determinants of blind use. The seasonal effect is also very significant, when taking building orientation into consideration. The variation of the occlusion is located separately in a notable way according to how long the rooms are exposed to sunlight. Occupants’ preferences for blind position are based on a long-term perception of sunlight and the built environment they are accustomed to. The study uses the logit analysis to predict the probability of blind lowering and raising actions: when solar radiation rises above 150 W/m2, more blinds will be raised up than pulled down. Also, insights are reported about different behaviour patterns in non-office spaces within the building.
► We study on the factors influencing the occupants’ blind-control behaviour. ► Factors such as weather stimulus and building orientation are analysed. ► The importance of solar altitude and solar radiation is demonstrated. ► Seasonal effect is significant when taking the orientation into consideration. ► More blinds are raised up than pulled down when solar radiation is above 150 W/m2.
The aim of this study was to explore if there is any evidence for demonstrable impacts of school building design on the learning rates of pupils in primary schools.
Hypotheses as to positive impacts ...on learning were developed for 10 design parameters within a neuroscience framework of three design principles. These were tested using data collected on 751 pupils from 34 varied classrooms in seven different schools in the UK. The multi-level model developed explained 51% of the variability in the learning improvements of the pupils, over the course of a year. However, within this a high level of explanation (73%) was identified at the “class” level, linked entirely to six built environment design parameters, namely: colour, choice, connection, complexity, flexibility and light.
The model was used to predict the impact of the six design parameters on pupil’s learning progression. Comparing the “worst” and “best” classrooms in the sample, these factors alone were found to have an impact that equates to the typical progress of a pupil over one year. It was also possible to estimate the proportionate impact of these built environment factors on learning progression, in the context of all influences together. This scaled at a 25% contribution on average.
This clear evidence of the significant impact of the built environment on pupils’ learning progression highlights the importance of this aspect for policy makers, designers and users. The wide range of factors involved in this holistic approach still leaves a significant design challenge.
► The study reveals a 25% impact of school design on 751 pupils’ learning rates. ► An environment–human–performance model is developed. ► Ten environmental factors of the classroom and 3 non-efactors are analysed. ► The study uses multilevel statistical modelling for the nested situation.
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•Nanorod-like CoMoO4 at MPC supports were prepared by a simple method.•CoMoO4/MPC hybrids were acted as an effective sensing platform for non-enzymatic glucose detection.•The novel ...CoMoO4/MPC hybrids will hold promise in development of electrode materials.
Glucose is a popular biosensor target due to its closely with diabetes or hypoglycemia in blood. Designing efficiency electrocatalysts for the determination of glucose is vital to develop glucose detection devices. CoMoO4, as a kind of bimetallic oxide material, exhibits unique electrochemical properties. 3D macroporous carbon (MPC) has large specific surface area and excellent electrical conductivity, providing an effective support for loading other nano-entities to form novel composite with good synergetic effects. Herein, nanorod-like CoMoO4 anchored onto MPC support was synthesized for the development of a promising electrochemical sensing platform for glucose. Attributing to the synergic effects between the good electrocatalytic performance of CoMoO4 nanorods and the extraordinary electrical conductivity of 3D layered MPC, the novel CoMoO4/MPC composites non-enzymatic sensor shows excellent electrocatalytic performance for oxidation of glucose. Under the optimum conditions, the proposed CoMoO4/MPC hybrids provided a reliable linear range of 5 × 10−7 to 1.08 × 10−4 M with a low limit of detection (0.13 μM) for the detection of glucose. Meanwhile, the CoMoO4/MPC sensing platform shows fast response time of 1.76 s, good stability and selectivity for detecting glucose. Moreover, this non-enzymatic sensor also has been successfully applied to measure glucose level in human blood samples. Therefore, the developed sensor holds a new promise for the construction of facile and sensitive non-enzymatic glucose analytical platform.
We have provided a brief review about biomass derived carbon materials and their applications for electrochemical energy storage.
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•Provide a brief review about biomass derived carbon ...materials.•Address the pore formation mechanism on carbon materials.•Hierarchical porous carbon show high capacity and good cycles.•Demonstrate two effective pore formation methods on carbon.
Natural biomass-derived carbons have attracted great attention due to their interesting characteristics of naturally porous or hierarchical structured and heteroatom doping. In this review, the recent progress in the synthesis of naturally-derived carbon and their composite electrodes is summarized in detail. Advantages and disadvantages of different methods (e.g., chemical and physical activations) are discussed. In addition, we further address the pore formation mechanism on biomass-derived carbons. Furthermore, their applications for electrochemical energy storage in lithium ion batteries and sodium ion batteries are briefly reviewed and highlighted associated with their structural merits such as hierarchical porous structure, high conductivity as well as large surface area. Outlook of research trends on next-generation high-performance electrodes based on biomass-derived carbons is provided at the end.
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•MOFs precursors were prepared via microwave irradiation and used as self-sacrificing template.•Fe, Co bimetal embedded nanoporous carbon (Fe-Co/NPC) was prepared by a rapid and ...scalable strategy.•Fe-Co/NPC composites showed excellent electrochemical performance as ideal electrocatalyst for OER.
The development of highly efficient, stable, and low-cost non-noble-metal electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reactions (OER) is a major challenge for facilitate the efficiency of green energy storage. Bimetallic oxides are considered promising candidates as the electrocatalysts for OER because of their remarkable electrocatalytic activity, good stability, and low cost. In this work, ZIF-67 precursors were prepared via microwave irradiation and used as a self-sacrificing template. We proposed a rapid and scalable strategy to prepare Fe, Co bimetal embedded nanoporous carbon (Fe-Co/NPC) polyhedron composites by thermal decomposition of Fe species incorporated ZIF-67 precursor. Benefiting from the distinctive 3D polyhedron structural and compositional advantages, Fe-Co/NPC with hierarchical porous structure showed excellent electrochemical performance as ideal electrode material for OER. The resulting Fe-Co/NPC displayed outstanding electrocatalytic activity for OER with appreciable onset potential (1.59 V (vs. RHE)), small Tafel slope (53.55 mV dec−1), low over-potential (396 mV) to reach 10 mA cm−2, and excellent durability with negligible loss in current density after 1000 cycles. The current work demonstrated new insight into the design and construction of 3D structured Fe-Co/NPC polyhedron catalysts with highly electrocatalytic activity and good stability for electrocatalysis applications.
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•An electrochemical sensing platform is constructed for detecting miR-21 based on interface impedance spectroscopy.•The biosensor shows low limit of detection and wide dynamic ...correlation of miR-21.•The proposed method is enzyme-free and PCR-free strategy.
A hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplification-based electrochemical impedimetric biosensor is fabricated for the quick, sensitive, and specific detection of miRNA-21 (miR-21) via monitoring of electrode interfacial property changes in real-time. Two sequences of H1 and H2 are adopted to trigger HCR amplification. A large amount of linear DNA concatemer are formed which could change the interfacial properties of the electrode. Interfacial charge transfer resistance difference (Rct) is probed via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Randles equivalent circuit. After amplifying via HCR, oligonucleotides with negatively charged repelling Fe(CN)63−/4− ions can form a spatial blockage. HCR amplification strategy markedly enhanced the electrochemical signal with a limit of detection (LOD) down to 4.63 fM (S/N = 3). This strategy exhibited excellent selectivity for three different miRNAs: miR-199a, miR-141, and miR-155. Moreover, results show that the proposed method can be applied to miR-21 detection in the total RNA extracted from five cells. This work presents an enzyme-free and label-free EIS nucleic acid sensor for sensitively and selectively detecting miR-21, offering a promising approach in early diseases diagnosis.
The proposed methodology presents a comprehensive analysis of soft sensor modeling techniques for air ozone prediction. We compare the performance of three different modeling techniques: LR (linear ...regression), NN (neural networks), and RFR (random forest regression). Additionally, we evaluate the impact of different variable sets on prediction performance. Our findings indicate that neural network models, particularly the RNN (recurrent neural networks), outperform the other modeling techniques in terms of prediction accuracy. The proposed methodology evaluates the impact of different variable sets on prediction performance, finding that variable set E demonstrates exceptional performance and achieves the highest average prediction accuracy among various software sensor models. In comparing variable set E and A, B, C, D, it is observed that the inclusion of an additional input feature, PM
, in the latter sets does not improve overall performance, potentially due to multicollinearity between PM
and PM
variables. The proposed methodology provides valuable insights into soft sensor modeling for air ozone prediction.Among the 72 sensors, sensor NN
outperforms all other evaluated sensors, demonstrating exceptional predictive performance with an impressive R
of 0.8902, low RMSE of 24.91, and remarkable MAE of 19.16. With a prediction accuracy of 81.44%, sensor NN
is reliable and suitable for various technological applications.
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