Local vs. global redundancy – trade-offs between resilience against cascading failures and frequency stability

When designing or extending electricity grids, both frequency stability and resilience against cascading failures have to be considered amongst other aspects of energy security and economics such as construction costs due to total line length. Here, we compare an improved simulation model for cascading failures with state-of-the-art simulation models for short-term grid dynamics. Random ensembles of realistic power grid topologies are generated using a recent model that allows for a tuning of global vs local redundancy. The former can be measured by the algebraic connectivity of the network, whereas the latter can be measured by the networks transitivity. We show that, while frequency stability of an electricity grid benefits from a global form of redundancy, resilience against cascading failures rather requires a more local form of redundancy and further analyse the corresponding trade-off.     

Editorial

This topical issue collects contributions to the interdisciplinary study of the interacting global systems of public health, energy production, and climate change, in order to provide physicists with an opportunity to explore these fields of application of great societal importance.     

Measurement of the effective thermal conductivity of a Mg–MgH2 packed bed with oscillating heating

The magnesium–magnesium hydride–hydrogen-system (Mg–MgH₂–H₂) offers, because of its combined hydrogen and heat storage capacity, the possibility to design hydride heat pumps and heat stores. For such industrial application systems based on cylindrically formed reactors filled with an active magnesium powder, the effective thermal conductivity limits the time in which the metal hydride alloy is charged and discharged with hydrogen. Determination of this transport coefficient is of fundamental importance for the optimum design of magnesium hydride reactors. The complex interrelation of the different transport mechanisms in a metal hydride packed bed and the hitherto undefined rule that the solid effective thermal conductivity behaves as a function of the hydrogen concentration, requires a reliable and simple-to-realize measuring method so as to determine the effective thermal conductivity of a magnesium hydride bed. In the present study, a report is given for the first time on the initiation of a measuring technique with oscillating change of temperature in a non-permeated packed bed of fine-grained material. The measurement of the effective thermal conductivity can ensue by tailoring the problem-specific mathematical result to the experimentally recorded temperature-time function. The effective thermal conductivity of the magnesium hydride bed varies between 2 and 8 W/(m K) in a temperature range of 523–653 K.     

Does the ion–molecule reaction between HCCH and HCN lead to CH2CH–CN? A computational and experimental study of the reverse process

The title ion–molecule reaction has been proposed to play an important role in interstellar chemistry if it yields acrylonitrile ions CH₂CH–CN⁺. This question was probed by examining the formation of HCCH⁺ and HCN from low-energy ions CH₂CH–CN⁺ and related isomers, using tandem mass spectrometry based experiments (D and ¹³C labelling) in conjunction with model chemistry calculations (CBS-QB3/APNO). We conclude that the title reaction is a barrierless multistep rearrangement that may not effectively compete with the straightforward formation of stable distonic ions HCCH–NCH⁺ from HCCH⁺(ion)–HCN(dipole) encounter complexes.     

Even-electron ions: a systematic study of the neutral species lost in the dissociation of quasi-molecular ions

The collision-induced dissociations of the even-electron [M + H](+) and/or [M - H](-) ions of 121 model compounds (mainly small aromatic compounds with one to three functional groups) ionized by electrospray ionization (ESI) or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) have been studied using an ion trap instrument, and the results are compared with the literature data. While some functional groups (such as COOH, COOCH(3), SO(3)H in the negative ion mode, or NO(2) in both the positive and negative ion modes) generally promote the loss of neutrals that are characteristic as well as specific, other functional groups (such as COOH in the positive ion mode) give rise to the loss of neutrals that are characteristic, but not specific. Finally, functional groups such as OH and NH(2) in aromatic compounds do not lead to the loss of a neutral that reflects the presence of these substituents. In general, the dissociation of [M + H](+) and [M - H](-) ions generated from aliphatic compounds or compounds containing an aliphatic moiety obeys the even-electron rule (loss of a molecule), but deviations from this rule (loss of a radical) are sometimes observed for aromatic compounds, in particular for nitroaromatic compounds. Thermochemical data and ab initio calculations at the CBS-QB3 level of theory provide an explanation for these exceptions. When comparing the dissociation behaviour of the even-electron [M + H](+) and/or [M - H](-) ions (generated by ESI or APCI) with that of the corresponding odd-electron [M](+) ions (generated by electron ionization, EI), three cases may be distinguished: (1) the dissociation of the two ionic species differs completely; (2) the dissociation involves the loss of a common neutral, yielding product ions differing in mass by one Da, or (3) the dissociations lead to a common product ion.     

Interdisciplinary challenges in the study of power grid resilience and stability and their relation to extreme weather events

This topical issue collects contributions to the interdisciplinary study of power grid stability in face of increasing volatility of energy production and consumption due to increasing renewable energy infeed and changing climatic conditions. The individual papers focus on different aspects of this field and bring together modern achievements from various disciplines, in particular complex systems science, nonlinear data analysis, control theory, electrical engineering, and climatology. Main topics considered here are prediction and volatility of renewable infeed, modelling and theoretical analysis of power grid topology, dynamics and stability, relationships between stability and complex network topology, and improvements via topological changes or control. Impacts for the design of smart power grids are discussed in detail.     

Catalysis in hydrogen-bridged radical cations

Hydrogen-bridged radical cations (HBRCs) are an intriguing subclass of ion-molecule complexes. They may act as key intermediates of remarkable stability in both association and dissociation reactions of heteroatom-containing molecular ions. The H-bridge of such an HBRC can promote isomerization of its ionic component by H-transfer. Proton-transport catalysis (PTC) is a prime example. Here, a neutral molecule promotes the smooth transformation of an ion into its H-shift isomer by consecutive proton-transfer reactions. A celebrated case is the water catalyzed isomerization of CH(3)OH(?+) into its more stable distonic isomer (?)CH(2)OH(2)(+). Other early studies of PTC also deal with catalyzing 1,2-H shifts in association reactions. This short review focuses on more recent combined experimental and computational studies of catalysis in HBRCs. Mechanisms involving both proton and H atom transfers have been proposed for a variety of systems of H-shift isomers. It has also become clear that PTC is not confined to bimolecular reactions. It also features in the unimolecular chemistry of heteroatom- containing ions, which have a tendency to isomerize to HBRCs en route to their dissociation.     

Electron-electron interaction in the magnetoresistance of graphene

We investigate the magnetotransport in large area graphene Hall bars epitaxially grown on silicon carbide. In the intermediate field regime between weak localization and Landau quantization, the observed temperature-dependent parabolic magnetoresistivity is a manifestation of the electron-electron interaction. We can consistently describe the data with a model for diffusive (magneto)transport that also includes magnetic-field-dependent effects originating from ballistic time scales. We find an excellent agreement between the experimentally observed temperature dependence of magnetoresistivity and the theory of electron-electron interaction in the diffusive regime. We can further assign a temperature-driven crossover to the reduction of the multiplet modes contributing to electron-electron interaction from 7 to 3 due to intervalley scattering. In addition, we find a temperature-independent ballistic contribution to the magnetoresistivity in classically strong magnetic fields.     

Ueber Dr. C. Noellner's Salpeters?urebestimmung

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