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As a relatively mature technology, biomass molded fuel (BMF) is widely used in distributed and centralized heating in China and has received considerable government attention. Although many BFM incentive policies have been developed, decreased domestic traditional fuel prices in China have caused BMF to lose its economic viability and new policy recommendations are needed to stimulate this industry. The present study built a regionalized net present value (NPV) model based on real production process simulation to test the impacts of each policy factor. The calculations showed that BMF production costs vary remarkably between regions, with the cost of agricultural briquette fuel (ABF) ranging from 86 US dollar per metric ton (USD/t) to 110 (USD/t), while that of woody pellet fuel (WPF) varies from 122 USD/t to 154 USD/t. The largest part of BMF’s cost composition is feedstock, which accounts for up 50%–60% of the total; accordingly a feedstock subsidy is the most effective policy factor, but in consideration of policy implementation, it would be better to use a production subsidy. For ABF, the optimal product subsidy varies from 26 USD/t to 57 USD/t among different regions of China, while for WPF, the range is 36 USD/t to 75 USD/t. Based on the data, a regional BMF development strategy is also proposed in this study.

Characteristics of Tm:YAG ceramic for high efficient 2-μm lasers are analyzed. Efficient diode end-pumped continuous-wave and Q-switched Tm:YAG ceramic lasers are demonstrated. At the absorbed pump power of 53.2W, the maximum continuous wave (cw) output power of 17.2 W around 2016 nm was obtained with the output transmission of 5%. The optical conversion efficiency is 32.3%, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 36.5%. For Q-switched operation, the shortest width of 69 ns was achieved with the pulse repetition frequency of 500 Hz and single pulse energy of 20.4 mJ, which indicates excellent energy storage capability of the Tm:YAG ceramic.

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.

Bioenergy is considered a sustainable substitute to fossil-fuel resources and the development of a prudent combination of renewable and innovative conversion technologies are essential for the valorization and effective conversion of biowaste to value-added commodities. Here, a negative pressure-induced carbonization process was proposed for the valorization of lignin-enriched biowaste precursor to bio-oil and environmental materials (biochar) at various temperatures. The high heating values (HHV) of the as-prepared biochars from the lignin enriched precursor under negative pressure (low-medium vacuum) were within 25.9-31.5 MJ/kg, which matched satisfactorily to the commercial charcoal. Whereas, the bio-oils produced from the lignin enriched precursor under vacuum conditions was a blend of complex aromatic and straight-chain hydro-carbons, including aldehyde, ketone, phenol, and furans, exhibiting ability as potential heating-oil with HHV within 21.2-28.2 MJ/kg. Moreover, the biochars produced under vacuum environments at higher temperature showed greater stability (22.5-35.9%) than those produced under N2 atmosphere.

The transition towards renewable energy is leading to an important strain on the energy grids. The question of designing and deploying renewable energy technologies in symbiosis with existing grids and infrastructure is arising. While current energy system models mainly focus on the energy transformation system or only investigate the effect on one energy vector grid, we present a methodology to characterize different energy vector grids and storage, integrated into the multi-energy and multi-sector modeling framework EnergyScope. The characterization of energy grids is achieved through a traditional energy technology and grid modeling approach, integrating economic and technical parameters. The methodology has been applied to the case study of a country with a high existing transmission infrastructure density, e.g., Switzerland, switching from a fossil fuel-based system to a high share of renewable energy deployment. The results show that the economic optimum with high shares of renewable energy requires the electric distribution grid reinforcement with 2.439 GW (+61%) Low Voltage (LV) and 4.626 GW (+82%) Medium Voltage (MV), with no reinforcement required at transmission level [High Voltage (HV) and Extra High Voltage (EHV)]. The reinforcement is due to high shares of LV-Photovoltaic (PV) (15.4 GW) and MV-wind (20 GW) deployment. Without reinforcement, additional biomass is required for methane production, which is stored in 4.8–5.95 TWh methane storage tanks to compensate for seasonal intermittency using the existing gas infrastructure. In contrast, hydro storage capacity is used at a maximum of 8.9 TWh. Furthermore, the choice of less efficient technologies to avoid reinforcement results in a 8.5%–9.3% cost penalty compared to the cost of the reinforced system. This study considers a geographically averaged and aggregated model, assuming all production and consumption are made in one single spot, not considering the role of future decentralization of the energy system, leading to a possible overestimation of grid reinforcement needs.

This product used a machine learning approach (feed-forward neural network - FFNN) to reconstruct a high-resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) ocean subsurface (1–2000 m) salinity dataset for the period 1993–2018 by merging in situ salinity profile observations with high-resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) satellite remote sensing altimetry absolute dynamic topography (ADT), sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface wind (SSW) field data, and a coarse resolution (1° × 1°) gridded salinity product. The new 0.25° × 0.25° reconstruction shows more realistic spatial signals in the regions with strong mesoscale variations, e.g., the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Antarctic Circumpolar Current regions, than the 1° × 1° resolution product, indicating the efficiency of the machine learning approach in bringing satellite observations together with in situ observations. The large-scale salinity patterns from 0.25° × 0.25° data are consistent with the 1° × 1°gridded salinity field, suggesting the persistence of the large-scale signals in the high-resolution reconstruction.Time Range:1993.01-2018.12Region:GlobalLongitude:180°W~180°ELatitude:70°S~70°NParameters:SalinityHorizontal Resolution:0.25° × 0.25°Vertical Resolution:41 levels (1-2000 m)Temporal Resolution:monthlyStorage Format:netcdf This product used a machine learning approach (feed-forward neural network - FFNN) to reconstruct a high-resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) ocean subsurface (1–2000 m) salinity dataset for the period 1993–2018 by merging in situ salinity profile observations with high-resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) satellite remote sensing altimetry absolute dynamic topography (ADT), sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface wind (SSW) field data, and a coarse resolution (1° × 1°) gridded salinity product. The new 0.25° × 0.25° reconstruction shows more realistic spatial signals in the regions with strong mesoscale variations, e.g., the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Antarctic Circumpolar Current regions, than the 1° × 1° resolution product, indicating the efficiency of the machine learning approach in bringing satellite observations together with in situ observations. The large-scale salinity patterns from 0.25° × 0.25° data are consistent with the 1° × 1°gridded salinity field, suggesting the persistence of the large-scale signals in the high-resolution reconstruction.Time Range:1993.01-2018.12Region:GlobalLongitude:180°W~180°ELatitude:70°S~70°NParameters:SalinityHorizontal Resolution:0.25° × 0.25°Vertical Resolution:41 levels (1-2000 m)Temporal Resolution:monthlyStorage Format:netcdf

Triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) upconversion has shown promising potentials in the augmentation of solar energy conversion. However, challenging issues exist in improving TTA upconversion efficiencies in solid-states, one of which is the back energy transfer from upconverted singlet annihilators to sensitizers resulting in decreasing upconversion emission. Here we present a light-harvesting molecular wire consisting of dendrons with 9,10-diphenylanthracene derivatives (DPAEH) at the periphery and para-phenylene ethynylene oligomers (PPE) as the wire core. The peripheral DPAEH antenna funnels singlet excitonic energy to the wire on a 12 ps timescale. Incorporating the molecular wire into the TTA upconversion solid consisting of the DPAEH annihilator and the porphyrin sensitizer evidently improves the upconversion quantum yield from 1.5% to 2.7% upon 532 nm excitation by suppressing the back energy transfer from the singlet annihilator to the sensitizer. This finding offers a potential route to use singlet energy light-harvesting architecture for enhancing TTA upconversion. Triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) upconversion has shown promising potentials in the augmentation of solar energy conversion. However, challenging issues exist in improving TTA upconversion efficiencies in solid-states, one of which is the back energy transfer from upconverted singlet annihilators to sensitizers resulting in decreasing upconversion emission. Here we present a light-harvesting molecular wire consisting of dendrons with 9,10-diphenylanthracene derivatives (DPAEH) at the periphery and para-phenylene ethynylene oligomers (PPE) as the wire core. The peripheral DPAEH antenna funnels singlet excitonic energy to the wire on a 12 ps timescale. Incorporating the molecular wire into the TTA upconversion solid consisting of the DPAEH annihilator and the porphyrin sensitizer evidently improves the upconversion quantum yield from 1.5% to 2.7% upon 532 nm excitation by suppressing the back energy transfer from the singlet annihilator to the sensitizer. This finding offers a potential route to use singlet energy light-harvesting architecture for enhancing TTA upconversion.

Project: GCOS Earth Heat Inventory - A study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory (EHI), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period from 1960 to present. Summary: The file “GCOS_EHI_1960-2020_Earth_Heat_Inventory_Ocean_Heat_Content_data.nc” contains a consistent long-term Earth system heat inventory over the period 1960-2020. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere which is driving global warming. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system from this accumulated heat – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system - is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This dataset is based on a study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory published in von Schuckmann et al. (2020), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960-2020. The dataset also contains estimates for global ocean heat content over 1960-2020 for different depth layers, i.e., 0-300m, 0-700m, 700-2000m, 0-2000m, 2000-bottom, which are described in von Schuckmann et al. (2022). This version includes an update of heat storage of global ocean heat content, where one additional product (Li et al., 2022) had been included to the initial estimate. The Earth heat inventory had been updated accordingly, considering also the update for continental heat content (Cuesta-Valero et al., 2023).