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Wood biomass is turned into industrial fuel through chipping. The efficiency of chipping depends on many factors, including chipper knife wear. Chipper knife wear was determined through a long-term follow-up study, conducted at a waste wood recycling yard. Knife wear determined a sharp drop of productivity (>20%) and a severe decay in product quality. Dry sharpening with a grinder mitigated this effect, but it could not replace proper wet sharpening. Increasing the frequency of wet sharpening sessions determined a moderate increase of knife depreciation cost, but it could drastically enhance machine performance and reduce biomass processing cost. Since benefits largely exceed costs, increasing the frequency of wet sharpening sessions may be an effective measure for reducing overall chipping cost. If the main goal of a chipper operator is to increase productivity and/or decrease fuel consumption, then managing knife wear should be a primary target. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We report the properties of a shape-persistent tetra-terpyridine ligand whose coordination to transition metal ions guides its three-dimensional self-assembly in two steps: at first, nanoscale objects form, which with time, self-assemble into micrometer structures. This work highlights the potential for control of the molecular self-assembly of molecules on the nanoscale, and the successive self-assembly of the formed supramolecular nanosystems to yield mesoscopic objects.

With concerns of energy shortages, China, like the United States, European Union, and other countries, is promoting the development of biofuels. However, China also faces high future demand for food and feed, and so its bioenergy program must try to strike a balance between food and fuel. The goals of this paper are to provide an overview of China's current bioethanol program, identify the potential for using marginal lands for feedstock production, and measure the likely impacts of China's bioethanol development on the nation's future food self-sufficiency. Our results indicate that the potential to use marginal land for bioethanol feedstock production is limited. Applying a modeling approach based on highly disaggregated data by region, our analysis shows that the target of 10 million t of bioethanol by 2020 seems to be a prudent target, causing no major disturbances in China's food security. But the expansion of bioethanol may increase environmental pressures due to the higher levels of fertilizer use. This study shows also that if China were able to cultivate 45% of its required bioethanol feedstock on new marginal land, it would further limit negative effects of the bioethanol program on the domestic and international economy, but at the expense of having to apply another 750 thousand t of fertilizer.

A new series of transparent gel polymer electrolytes are prepared by adding various weight percent of thiourea coupled with poly(ethylene oxide) for the application of dye-sensitized solar cells. Coupling of thiourea in the presence of iodine undergoes dimerization reaction to produce formamidine disulfide. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy shows that the interactions of thiourea and formamidine disulfide with electronegative ether linkage of poly(ethylene oxide) results in conformational changes of gel polymer electrolytes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and linear sweep voltammetry experiments reveal an increment in ionic conductivity and tri-iodide diffusion coefficient, for thiourea modified gel polymer electrolytes. Finally, the prepared electrolytes are used as a redox mediator in dye-sensitized solar cells and the photovoltaic properties were studied. Apart from transparency, the gel polymer electrolytes with thiorurea show higher photovoltaic properties compared to bare gel polymer electrolyte and a maximum photocurrent efficiency of 7.17% is achieved for gel polymer electrolyte containing 1 wt% of thiourea with a short circuit current of 11.79 mA cm-2 and open circuit voltage of 834 mV. Finally, under rear illumination, almost 90% efficiency is retained upon compared to front illumination.

The use of bio-plastic-based packaging as an alternative to conventional plastic packaging is increasing. Among the plethora of different bio-based plastics, the most relevant ones are those that, at the end of their life, can be treated with the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. Even in these cases, their impact on the waste processing and recycling is not always positive. This study aim to assess on a laboratory scale the influence on combined anaerobic digestion and composting industrial processes of a bio-based plastic film, namely cellulose acetate (CA), in pure and modified (additions of additive) forms. CA films were mixed with organic waste and subjected to: (i) anaerobic digestion; (ii) active composting and (iii) two stages of curing composting. Anaerobic digestion and composting were monitored through methane yield and oxygen uptake respectively; additionally, the bio-plastics degree of disintegration was assessed during all the processes. The final disintegration of pure and modified CA was 73.82% and 54.66%, respectively. Anaerobic digestion contributes to the disintegration of the material, while aerobic treatment appears to be nearly ineffective, especially for modified CA. The presence of cellulose acetate during anaerobic digestion of food waste increased the methane yield by about 4.5%. Bioassay confirmed the absence of possible toxic effects on the final compost from the bio-plastic treatment. Although bio-based materials are not the only solution to plastic pollution, the findings confirm the need to upgrade the organic waste treatment plants and the necessity to revise the requirements for the use of compost in agriculture.

AbstractA metal‐free organic sensitizer, suitable for the application in dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), has been designed, synthesized and characterized both experimentally and theoretically. The structure of the novel donor–acceptor–π‐bridge–acceptor (D–A–π–A) dye incorporates a triphenylamine (TPA) segment and 4‐(benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazol‐4‐ylethynyl)benzoic acid (BTEBA). The triphenylamine unit is widely used as an electron donor for photosensitizers, owing to its nonplanar molecular configuration and excellent electron‐donating capability, whereas 4‐(benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazol‐4‐ylethynyl)benzoic acid is used as an electron acceptor unit. The influences of I3−/I−, [Co(bpy)3]3+/2+ and [Cu(tmby)2]2+/+ (tmby=4,4′,6,6′‐tetramethyl‐2,2′‐bipyridine) as redox electrolytes on the DSSC device performance were also investigated. The maximal monochromatic incident photon‐to‐current conversion efficiency (IPCE) reached 81 % and the solar light to electrical energy conversion efficiency of devices with [Cu(tmby)2]2+/+ reached 7.15 %. The devices with [Co(bpy)3]3+/2+ and I3−/I− electrolytes gave efficiencies of 5.22 % and 6.14 %, respectively. The lowest device performance with a [Co(bpy)3]3+/2+‐based electrolyte is attributed to increased charge recombination.

This paper provides an empirical analysis of energy-productivity convergence across 56 developed and developing countries, in 10 manufacturing sectors, for the period 1971-1995. We find that, except for the non-ferrous metals sector, cross-country differences in absolute energy-productivity levels tend to decline, particularly in the less energy-intensive industries. Testing for the catch-up hypothesis using panel data confirms that in all manufacturing sectors energy-productivity growth is, in general, relatively high in countries that initially lag behind in terms of energy-productivity levels. At the same time, cross-country differences in energy-productivity performance seem to be persistent; convergence is found to be local rather than global, with countries converging to different steady states and several failing to catch up. Finally, we find that country-specific factors, such as energy price and investment ratio, do explain the observed cross-country differences in energy-productivity performance, but only to a very limited extent.

Abstract Magnesium chloride hexahydrate and magnesium nitrate hexahydrate were tested for their thermal energy storage in a mixture with carbon materials. The graphite, graphene and zeolite-templated carbon replicas were used as a nucleating agent to supress supercooling. The addition of any type of carbon into magnesium chloride hexahydrate did not lead to a decrease in the supercooling and a significant decrease of the enthalpy of fusion and crystallisation was observed. The mixtures after cycling were apparently wet, indicating that some of the magnesium chloride was dissolved in its structural water. In the case of magnesium nitrate hexahydrate, the addition of carbon replicas of zeolite beta, mordenite or faujasite lead to a decrease in supercooling. Nevertheless, graphite and graphene provided the highest supercooling suppression from about 30 to 2.2 K within the fifty cycles. The thermal conductivity measurement of pressed tablets of magnesium nitrate hexahydrate with carbon materials at 2 MPa showed a significant increase of 9% and 15% for the addition of 3 mass% of graphene and 3 mass% of graphite, respectively. Mixing of magnesium nitrate hexahydrate with graphene or graphite improved heat transfer and significantly reduced unwanted supercooling, which is necessary for its use in thermal energy accumulation.