• Energy Research
• Open Access close
• Restricted close
• natural sciences close
• AE close

Abstract This study investigates the viability of novel green solvents for carbon capture. Three different types of amine based deep eutectic solvents were synthesized at three different molar ratio. The selected amines represent the primary (monoethanolamine), secondary (diethanolamine) and tertiary (methyldiethanolamine) amines, respectively. The CO 2 absorption was conducted with a solvent screening set-up (SSS) and the CO 2 loading was measured with an ‘Elementar’ total organic carbon (TOC) analyzer. Thereafter, FTIR of the samples was conducted in order to determine the qualitative analysis for tracking the appearance, disappearance and stability of different functional groups (400-1600 cm-1). The solubility experiments were performed based on the conditions of the absorber in the post-combustion capture process (P CO2 = 15kPa and T = 40 o C). Results revealed that amine-based DESs have absorption capacity that is much higher than both 30wt% aqueous amine solutions and conventional DESs. The FTIR broadening of the O–H and N–H stretching of MEA and ChCl individual components, indicates the formation of hydrogen bonds between the two of them in the ChCl-MEA 1:6 before CO2 absorption.

The influence of the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) topography was studied on the performance of a silicon oxide intermediate reflector layer (IRL) in a-Si/μc-Si tandem cells, both experimentally and by 3-D optical simulations. Therefore, cells with varying IRL thickness were deposited on three different types of TCOs. Clear differences were observed regarding the performance of the IRL as well as its ideal thickness, both experimentally and in the simulations. Optical modeling suggests that a small autocorrelation length is essential for a good performance. Design rules for both the TCO topography and the IRL thickness can be derived from this interplay.

Higher power conversion efficiencies for photovoltaic devices can be achieved through simple and low production cost processing of APbI3(A=CH3NH3,CHN2H4,…) perovskites. Due to their limited long-term stability, however, there is an urgent need to find alternative structural combinations for this family of materials. In this study, we propose to investigate the prospects of cation-substitution within the A-site of the APbI3 perovskite by selecting nine substituting organic and inorganic cations to enhance the stability of the material. The tolerance and the octahedral factors are calculated and reported as two of the most critical geometrical features, in order to assess which perovskite compounds can be experimentally designed. Our results showed an improvement in the thermal stability of the organic cation substitutions in contrast to the inorganic cations, with an increase in the power conversion efficiency of the Hydroxyl-ammonium (NH3OH) substitute to η = 25.84%.

Abstract A search for a chargino-neutralino pair decaying via the 125 GeV Higgs boson into photons is presented. The study is based on the data collected between 2015 and 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess over the expected background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level for a massless $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0 $$ χ ˜ 1 0 are set on several electroweakino production cross-sections and the visible cross-section for beyond the Standard Model processes. In the context of simplified supersymmetric models, 95% confidence-level limits of up to 310 GeV in $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }/{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 ± / χ ˜ 2 0 , where $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 0 = 0.5 GeV, are set. Limits at 95% confidence level are also set on the $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0 $$ χ ˜ 1 ± χ ˜ 2 0 cross-section in the mass plane of $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }/{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 ± / χ ˜ 2 0 and $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 0 , and on scenarios with gravitino as the lightest supersymmetric particle. Upper limits at the 95% confidence-level are set on the higgsino production cross-section. Higgsino masses below 380 GeV are excluded for the case of the higgsino fully decaying into a Higgs boson and a gravitino.