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Abstract One factor that significantly limits blade service life and reliability in GT-100 power turbines is sulphide-oxide metal corrosion of guide and rotating blades. Application of coatings is the most efficient method to prevent corrosion failure. An electron beam physical vapour deposition CoCrAlY coating is used for high and low pressure turbine first-stage rotating blades made from E1 893 alloy. Studies of CoCrAlY-coated blades after different service periods (from 390 to 5900 h) showed that this coating most efficiently protects rotating blades in turbines which operate in northern regions of the country. Because of low temperature hot corrosion leakage, corrosion failure is observed in turbines operating in southern regions of the country. In order to improve corrosion resistance, a ceramic coating has been developed. These coatings increase the endurance of equipment and make it possible to save energy.

The paper proves the economic feasibility of using a local autonomous source of energy supply, which is formed from electrical equipment of other functional purposes based on an asynchronous machine with capacitive self-excitation. To assess the technical and economic indicators of the effectiveness of introducing a local autonomous source of energy supply, the discounted method is adopted, where an indicator of savings from possible losses due to the exclusion of labor resources from production is used as an additional influence factor.

AbstractDespite the rapid increase in the performance of perovskite solar cells (PSC), they still suffer from low lab‐to‐lab or people‐to‐people reproducibility. Aiming for a universal condition to high‐performance devices, we investigated the morphology evolution of a composite perovskite by tuning annealing temperature and precursor concentration of the perovskite film. Here, we introduce thermal annealing as a powerful tool to generate a well‐controlled excess of PbI2 in the perovskite formulation and show that this benefits the photovoltaic performance. We demonstrated the correlation between the film microstructure and electronic property and device performance. An optimized average grain size/thickness aspect ratio of the perovskite crystallite is identified, which brings about a highly reproducible power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.5 %, with a certified value of 19.08 %. Negligible hysteresis and outstanding morphology stability are observed with these devices. These findings lay the foundation for further boosting the PCE of PSC and can be very instructive for fabrication of high‐quality perovskite films for a variety of applications, such as light‐emitting diodes, field‐effect transistors, and photodetectors.

The electrochemical behavior of zirconium and boron and the synthesis of disperse zirconium diboride powders and coatings from the chloride-fluoride melts have been studied by voltammetry, galvanic and potentiostatic electrolysis, and X-ray phase analysis. It has been shown that the electrochemical reduction of Zr in the chloride-fluoride melts has the different mechanisms for the low and high concentration of the fluoride ion in the melt. In the first case, it proceeds according to the scheme of auto-inhibition; in the second case, the 4-electron reverse one-stage discharge process is observed. By adjusting the ratio [F-]: [Zr(IV ) ] in the melt, it is possible to find the conditions for the implementation of the one-stage 4-electron discharge process of zirconium and its diboride. During the electrometallurgical synthesis of ZrB2, the electro-active particles that formed as a result of the chemical interaction of zirconium- and boron-containing particles and that have different compositions than those formed in the partial zirconium- and boron-containing melts are discharged.

The model of resonance energy transfer (RET) in membrane systems containing donors randomly distributed over two parallel planes separated by fixed distance and acceptors confined to a single plane is presented. Factors determining energy transfer rate are considered with special attention being given to the contribution from orientational heterogeneity of the donor emission and acceptor absorption transition dipoles. Analysis of simulated data suggests that RET in membranes, as compared to intramolecular energy transfer, is substantially less sensitive to the degree of reorientational freedom of chromophores due to averaging over multiple donor-acceptor pairs. The uncertainties in the distance estimation resulting from the unknown mutual orientation of the donor and acceptor are analyzed.

Abstract A new technique is proposed for the calculation of the width W of space charge region and consequently the concentration of uncompensated acceptors NA–ND, which is based on the open-circuit analysis of thin film heterojunction solar cells illuminated by monochromatic light with the wavelength within photosensitivity region. The proposed method was simulated under different values of the theoretically considered parameters (ideality coefficient n, saturation current I0 and shunt resistance Rsh) of a CdS/CdTe heterojunction solar cell. The calculated values of W and NA–ND were established to be dependent on the mentioned above electrical parameters.

Abstract The photoelectrochemical behaviour of an Si anode coated with a film of mixed oxide of ruthenium and titanium (ORT) is studied in the reaction of photodecomposition of KCl and HCl solutions. Single-crystalline uniformly doped n-type silicon, as well as with p-n junction, was used as a substrate. The film is shown to protect the Si electrode against photocorrosion during the photoelectrolysis of the above solutions. The heights of the Schottky barrier at the n-Si/ORT contact is theoretically estimated using photoelectrochemical data to be up to 0.9 eV. The efficiency of a real electrode with Schottky barrier is significantly lower than the predicted value due to the destructive influence of a resistant interlayer formed during ORT film application to the silicon surface. The resistant interlayer formation may be prevented by implanting the silicon surface layer with boron, hence, by using an electrode with an n-Si/p + -Si junction as substrate. The efficiency of conversion of light energy into chemical energy in the n-Si/p + -Si/ORT/30% HCl/Pt cell is 6%.

Interaction of lava-like fuel-containing masses of Unit 4 at the Chernobyl NPP with structural concrete in the active phase of the accident of April 26, 1986, was studied. It was found that the fission fragments and the accumulated products contained in spent nuclear fuel penetrated the concrete from lava with different fractionation coefficients Kfr. The absolute values of Kfr were calculated, and this phenomenon was identified as a factor to be taken into account when estimating the total amount of radioactive waste for the Shelter.

Abstract Critical Infrastructure Protection is a relatively new scientific domain stemming from an American Presidential directive PDD-63 of May 1998. Critical Infrastructure (CI) performance and protection are national priorities for all European Union (EU) countries following the introduction of the EU Directive 2008/114/EC, which takes an all hazards approach. This paper has an international focus. At the global and European level, the interest in identifying the impacts of climate change on CIs and extreme weather events (EWE) has increased in the last decades, following several high-profile so-called natural disasters. Concern is evidenced by the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the EU Commission’s Staff Working Document on Risk Assessment and Mapping; Guidelines for Disaster Management, SEC (2010) 1626. This paper presents and discusses scientific work which has been published in this area, with a focus on energy CI. The impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on energy CI are initially identified. Important aspects in CI protection such as risk assessment, interdependencies with other sectors, and adaptation/resilience options are subsequently presented and discussed.