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New zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc-TDA), peripherally functionalized with donor-acceptor conjugates was synthesized, and its optical, thermal, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties were studied. The black ZnPc-TDA exhibited both excellent solubility in common organic solvents, and broad absorption covering the range 300-900 nm. The photovoltaic devices with the configuration of ITO/PEDOT-PSS/ZnPc-TDA:PCBM/LiF/Al produced short circuit current densities of 2.26 mA/cm(2), the open circuit voltage of 0.68 V and power conversion efficiency of 0.4% under AM1.5G illumination. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The connection between Earth’s global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is one of the highest challenges in climate change science since there is some controversy about the real impact of CO2 emissions on the increase of global temperature. This work contributes to the existing literature by analyzing the relationship between CO2 emissions and the Earth’s global temperature for 61 years, providing a recent review of the emerging literature as well. Through a statistical approach based on maximum entropy, this study supports the results of other techniques that identify a positive impact of CO2 in the increase of the Earth’s global temperature. Given the well-known difficulties in the measurement of global temperature and CO2 emissions with high precision, this statistical approach is particularly appealing around climate change science, as it allows the replication of the original time series with the subsequent construction of confidence intervals for the model parameters. To prevent future risks, besides the present urgent decrease of greenhouse gas emissions, it is necessary to stop using the planet and nature as if resources were infinite.

Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

With China’s urban renewal, parks have developed into significant green recreational areas in cities. This paper analyzed social media texts and compared the evaluation outcomes of the 50 most popular urban parks in Beijing from various perspectives, such as the characteristics of various groups of people, park types, and the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of recreational activities. The importance–performance analysis method was used to analyze the main factors affecting visitors’ satisfaction with parks. The research found the following: (1) Positive evaluation of parks was related to environmental construction, event organization, etc., and negative evaluations focused on ticket supply, consumer spending, etc. (2) Visitors of different genders and from different regions focused on different aspects of parks. (3) In terms of traffic accessibility, historical and cultural display, parent–child activity organization, and ecological environment experience, people had diverse demands from various types of parks. (4) People were more likely to visit parks located within the range of all green belts in springs and parks located in the second green isolation belt in the fall. (5) The number of non-holiday reviews of parks was higher than that of holiday reviews. (6) Managers could improve visitor satisfaction by improving the infrastructure and management of parks.

The catalytic active sites of NiFe and NiFeCr (oxy)hydroxides are revealed byoperandospectroscopic techonologies for alkaline water oxidation.

Abstract High power pseudocapacitors are extremely relevant to answer specific needs in the current energy transition arena and to implement an efficient renewable energy society. However, literature shows that are still open gaps concerning improvement of their energy density at high power, conversion efficiency, cost and cycle life. Electrodes based on active transition metal compounds, and in particular metal sulphides, evidence high potential to meet these objectives. This work discusses the dependence on the synthesis route of the charge storage mechanism of manganese sulphide-based materials and relates the pseudocapacitive response of these electrodes with their polycrystalline nature. Results reveal that a manganese oxy-sulphide mixture can achieve a high specific capacitance of 231 F.g−1 at 0.5 A/g in a 0.65 V active window. These values represent a 31.5 % increase compared to pure rambergite, γ-MnS, and 436 % compared to pure hausmannite Mn3O4 prepared under the same conditions. Moreover, the results show that manganese oxy-sulphide electrodes are characterized by good charge retention (73%), and superior long term capacity retention (above 86%) after 5000 cycles, evidencing potential for high power energy storage applications.

AbstractHigh‐performance dye‐sensitized solar cell (DSSC) devices rely on photoanodes that possess excellent light‐harvesting capabilities and high surface areas for sufficient dye adsorption. In this work, morphologically controlled SnO2 microstructures were synthesized and used as an efficient light‐backscattering layer on top of a nanocrystalline TiO2 layer to prepare a double‐layered photoanode. By optimizing the thickness of both the TiO2 bottom layer and the SnO2 top layer, a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.8 % was achieved, an enhancement of approximately 38 % in the efficiency compared with that of a nanocrystalline TiO2‐only photoanode (5.6 %). We attribute this efficiency improvement to the superior light‐backscattering capability of the SnO2 microstructures.

Abstract Economically harvesting energy from a microbial fuel cell (MFC), increasing its electrical power production, and developing its role as a practical energy supply, needs a low-cost and high-performance design of the MFC compartments. According to this strategy, a novel monolithic membrane electrode assembly (MEA) was fabricated and evaluated as an air–cathode in a single-chamber MFC (SCMFC). The MEA was made of bacterial cellulose (BC), conductive multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT), and nano-zycosil (NZ). BC, as a nano-celluloses with oxygen barrier property, can maintain anaerobic conditions for the anode compartment. Binder-less CNT coating on BC avoids costly binders such as poly-tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE) and Nafion and decreases the MEA charge transfer resistance. NZ, as a very cheap modifier, not only prevents the anolyte leakage but also provides more MEA’s active sites for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The electrochemical performance of the MEA was compared to a PTFE- based gas diffusion electrode (GDE) in the SCMFC. The MEA cell provided a pulse power density of 1790 mW/m2, roughly twice as high as the pulse power density of GDE (920 mW/m2). SCMFC’s internal resistance decreased from 1.84 KΩ (with GDE) to 0.8 KΩ (with MEA). Also, the cell’s columbic efficiency increased from 4.2% (with GDE) to11.7% (with MEA). Additionally, the capacitance of the MEA (65 mF) was much higher than the value for GDE (0.73 mF). Thus, the MEA compared to the GDE showed higher performance in the SCMFC for electricity generation and wastewater treatment at a lower cost.