Recent advances in round-the-clock photocatalytic system: Mechanisms,characterization techniques and applications

Solar energy-driven semiconductor photocatalysis has gathered increasing interest in the field of energy and environmental applications. However, a vital problem that limits its application is that photocatalysis requires a continuous light source to perform redox reaction. The ability of keeping catalytic activity in the dark has been the ultimate goal for the wide application of photocatalysis. More and more efforts have been paid to develop photocatalysts to perform photocatalytic reactions under both light and dark conditions, which is so called “round-the-clock photocatalytic system” (RTCPS). RTCPS with an ability of energy storage can work well under both daytime and nighttime, which widely used in the removal of heavy metal ion, the degradation of organic pollutant, disinfection and hydrogen generation. The important potential of RTCPS necessitate timely reviews of the recent advances to streamline efforts. Thus, this review aimed to summarize the recent advances in RTCPS, including the mechanism, characterization techniques and applications. Moreover, future challenge and research direction on the mechanistic study, material design and potential applications are also discussed.     

Local well-posedness for quasi-linear NLS with large Cauchy data on the circle

We prove local in time well-posedness for a large class of quasilinear Hamiltonian, or parity preserving, Schrödinger equations on the circle. After a paralinearization of the equation, we perform several paradifferential changes of coordinates in order to transform the system into a paradifferential one with symbols which, at the positive order, are constant and purely imaginary. This allows to obtain a priori energy estimates on the Sobolev norms of the solutions.     

Natural Cellulose Substance Based Energy Materials

Natural cellulose substances have been proven to be ideal structural templates and scaffolds for the fabrication of artificial functional materials with designed structures, psychochemical properties and functionalities. They possess unique hierarchically porous network structures with flexible, biocompatible, and environmental characteristics, exhibiting great potentials in the preparation of energy-related materials. This minireview summarizes natural cellulose-based materials that are used in batteries, supercapacitors, photocatalytic hydrogen generation, photoelectrochemical cells, and solar cells. When natural cellulose substances are employed as the structural template or carbon sources of energy materials, the three-dimensional porous interwoven structures are perfectly replicated, leading to the enhanced performances of the resultant materials. Benefiting from the mechanical strengths of natural cellulose substances, wearable, portable, free-standing, and flexible materials for energy storage and conversion are easily obtained by using natural cellulose substances as the substrates.     

Exploring the latest Pantheon SN Ia dataset by using three kinds of statistics techniques

In this work, we explore the cosmological consequences of the latest Type Ia supernova (SN Ia)dataset, Pantheon, by adopting the wCDM model. The Pantheon dataset currently contains the largest number of SN Ia samples, which contains 1048 supernovae on the redshift range0 z 2.3. Here we take into account three kinds of SN Ia statistics techniques, including:(1) magnitude statistics (MS), which is the traditional SN Ia statistics technique;(2) flux statistics(FS), which is based on the flux-averaging (FA) method; and (3) improved flux statistics (IFS),which combines the advantages of MS and FS. It should be mentioned that the IFS technique needs to scan the (zcut,Δz) parameters plane, where zcutandΔz are redshift cut-off and redshift interval of FA, respectively. The results are as follows.(1) Using the SN dataset only, the best FA recipe for IFS is (zcut,Δz)=(0.1, 0.08);(2) comparing to the old SN dataset, JLA, adopting the Pantheon dataset can reduce the 2σerror bars of equation of state w by 38%, 47%and 53%for MS, FS and IFS, respectively;(3) FS gives closer results to other observations, such as Baryon acoustic oscillations and cosmic microwave background;(4) compared with FS and IFS,MS more favors a Universe that will end in a ‘big rip’.     

A lightweight cell switching and traffic offloading scheme for energy optimization in ultra-dense heterogeneous networks

One of the major capacity boosters for 5G networks is the deployment of ultra-dense heterogeneous networks (UDHNs). However, this deployment results in a tremendous increase in the energy consumption of the network due to the large number of base stations (BSs) involved. In addition to enhanced capacity, 5G networks must also be energy efficient for it to be economically viable and environmentally friendly. Dynamic cell switching is a very common way of reducing the total energy consumption of the network, but most of the proposed methods are computationally demanding, which makes them unsuitable for application in ultra-dense network deployment with massive number of BSs. To tackle this problem, we propose a lightweight cell switching scheme also known as Threshold-based Hybrid cEll swItching Scheme (THESIS) for energy optimization in UDHNs. The developed approach combines the benefits of clustering and exhaustive search (ES) algorithm to produce a solution whose optimality is close to that of the ES (which is guaranteed to be optimal), but is computationally more efficient than ES and as such can be applied for cell switching in real networks even when their dimension is large. The performance evaluation shows that THESIS significantly reduces the energy consumption of the UDHN and can reduce the complexity of finding a near-optimal solution from exponential to polynomial complexity.     

Nanostructured BaTi1-xSnxO3 ferroelectric materials for electrocaloric applications and energy performance

Nanostructured BaTi_1-xSn_xO₃ (x = 0, 0.05 & 0.075) were successfully synthesized using the modified Pechini processing method. The phase purity and symmetry were examined by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. Tetragonal symmetry was obtained for BaTiO₃ (BT) while orthorhombic symmetry for Sn doped BT. BT exhibits an up-shift of the Curie temperature towards high temperatures (T_C = 139 °C). In contrast, a down-shift was recorded for Sn doped BT. Then, indirect electrocaloric (EC) adiabatic temperature change ΔT and the energy storage performances were determined based on ferroelectric hysteresis loops. Interestingly, large EC responsivity of ΔT/ΔE = 0.81 × 10⁻⁶ K m/V was obtained for the BT accompanied with a moderate stored energy of 23 mJ/cm³ but with a high energy efficiency of 67%. The incorporation of Sn in BT was found to broaden the EC responsivity and to improve the energy efficiency up to 90%, recorded for the 5% Sn doped BT.     

On the efficiency of energy harvesting using vortex-induced vibrations of cables

Many technologies based on fluid–structure interaction mechanisms are being developed to harvest energy from geophysical flows. The velocity of such flows is low, and so is their energy density. Large systems are therefore required to extract a significant amount of energy. The question of the efficiency of energy harvesting using vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of cables is addressed in this paper, through two reference configurations: (i) a long tensioned cable with periodically-distributed harvesters and (ii) a hanging cable with a single harvester at its upper extremity. After validation against either direct numerical simulations or experiments, an appropriate reduced-order wake-oscillator model is used to perform parametric studies of the impact of the harvesting parameters on the efficiency. For both configurations, an optimal set of parameters is identified and it is shown that the maximum efficiency is close to the value reached with an elastically-mounted rigid cylinder. The variability of the efficiency is studied in light of the fundamental properties of each configuration, i.e. body flexibility and gravity-induced spatial variation of the tension. In the periodically-distributed harvester configuration, it is found that the standing-wave nature of the vibration and structural mode selection plays a central role in energy extraction. In contrast, the efficiency of the hanging cable is essentially driven by the occurrence of traveling wave vibrations.     

Search for premelting at the end of positron track in ice

The ortho-positronium lifetime in ice in the range of temperature of 1 K below the melting point contains a component longer than the one determined in water. This work provides an experimental evidence of local ice melting owing to the energy deposited in the cluster of ionization products (blob) at the end of positron track.     

Overall Carbon-neutral Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 in Molten Salts using a Liquid Metal Sn Cathode

An overall carbon-neutral CO₂ electroreduction requires enhanced conversion efficiency and intensified functionality of CO₂-derived products to balance the carbon footprint from CO₂ electroreduction against fixed CO₂. A liquid Sn cathode is herein introduced into electrochemical reduction of CO₂ in molten salts to fabricate core–shell Sn−C spheres (Sn@C). An in situ generated Li₂SnO₃/C directs a self-template formation of Sn@C. Benefitting from the accelerated reaction kinetics from the liquid Sn cathode and the core–shell structure of Sn@C, a CO₂-fixation current efficiency higher than 84 % and a high reversible lithium-storage capacity of Sn@C are achieved. The versatility of this strategy is demonstrated by other low melting point metals, such as Zn and Bi. This process integrates energy-efficient CO₂ conversion and template-free fabrication of value-added metal-carbon, achieving an overall carbon-neutral electrochemical reduction of CO₂.