Faster Rate Research Articles

Study on electro-optical dual-control color-changing and energy-storage device based on Mo-WO3 and Al-TiO2 thin film electrode

Under optical and electrical control, a multifunctional electro-optical dual-control color-changing and energy-storage device not only realizes quick color conversion, but also achieves good storage performance. In this work, Mo doped WO3 (Mo-WO3) films were synthesized through one-step hydrothermal method and N719/Al doped TiO2 (N719/Al-TiO2) films were synthesized by hydrothermal and dip-dyeing method. Eventually, choosing Mo-WO3 as cathode and N719/Al-TiO2 film as anode, a multifunctional electro-optical dual-control Mo-WO3@N719/Al-TiO2 color-changing and energy-storage device was constructed. Under electrical control, the device shows excellent coloration efficiency (73.99 cm2/C), fast color switching rate (coloring/ bleaching time is 3.6 s/1.4 s), obviously improved area capacitance (about 82.6 mF/cm2) and excellent cycle stability. Under optical control, the device also shows shortened response time (coloring/ bleaching is 64.3 s/143.4 s), outstanding coloration efficiency (70.49 cm2/C), better area capacitance (about 58.6 mF/cm2) and excellent photoelectric conversion efficiency (10.56 %).

Robustness of multilayer interdependent higher-order network

In real-world complex systems, most networks are interconnected with other networks through interlayer dependencies, forming multilayer interdependent networks. In each system, the interactions between nodes are not limited to pairwise but also exist in a higher-order interaction composed of three or more individuals, thus inducing a multilayer interdependent higher-order network (MIHN). First, we build four types of artificial MIHN models (i.e., chain-like, tree-like, star-like and ring-like), in which the higher-order interactions are described by the simplicial complexes, and the interlayer dependency is built via a one-to-one matching dependency link. Then, we propose a cascading failure model on MIHN and suggest a corresponding percolation-based theory to study the robustness of MIHN by investigating the giant connected components (GCC) and percolation threshold. We find that the density of the simplicial complexes and the number of layers of the network affect its penetration behavior. When the density of simplicial complexes exceeds a certain threshold, the network has a double transition, and the increase in network layers significantly enhances the vulnerability of MIHN. By comparing the simulation results of MIHNs with four types, we observe that under the same density of simplicial complexes, the size of the GCC is independent of the topological structures of MIHN after removing a certain number of nodes. Although the cascading failure process of MIHNs with different structures is different, the final results tend to be the same. We further analyze in detail the cascading failure process of MIHN with different structures and elucidate the factors influencing the speed of cascading failures. Among these four types of MIHNs, the chain-like MIHN has the slowest cascading failure rate and more stable robustness compared to the other three structures, followed by the tree-like MIHN and star-like MIHN. The ring-like MIHN has the fastest cascading failure rate and weakest robustness due to its ring structure. Finally, we give the time required for the MIHN with different structures to reach the stable state during the cascading failure process and find that the closer to the percolation threshold, the more time the network requires to reach the stable state.

Painless Stochastic Conjugate Gradient for Large-Scale Machine Learning.

Conjugate gradient (CG), as an effective technique to speed up gradient descent algorithms, has shown great potential and has widely been used for large-scale machine-learning problems. However, CG and its variants have not been devised for the stochastic setting, which makes them extremely unstable, and even leads to divergence when using noisy gradients. This article develops a novel class of stable stochastic CG (SCG) algorithms with a faster convergence rate via the variance-reduced technique and an adaptive step size rule in the mini-batch setting. Actually, replacing the use of a line search in the CG-type approaches which is time-consuming, or even fails for SCG, this article considers using the random stabilized Barzilai-Borwein (RSBB) method to obtain an online step size. We rigorously analyze the convergence properties of the proposed algorithms and show that the proposed algorithms attain a linear convergence rate for both the strongly convex and nonconvex settings. Also, we show that the total complexity of the proposed algorithms matches that of modern stochastic optimization algorithms under different cases. Scores of numerical experiments on machine-learning problems demonstrate that the proposed algorithms outperform state-of-the-art stochastic optimization algorithms.

Experimental Study on High Conductivity and Slow Acid Fracturing in Deep Ultra-high Temperature Carbonate Reservoirs

Abstract Acid fracturing is a commonly used method for increasing production and injection and transformation measure for carbonate reservoirs. However, deep carbonate reservoirs generally have high temperature and closure pressure, low maintenance of acid etched fracture conductivity after acid fracturing, and fast rate of production decline. The experimental study investigated the acid rock etching morphology and acid etched fracture conductivity of hydrochloric acid, gelling acid, authigenic acid, polymer-surfactant acid, and chelating acid when injected alone or alternately at 200 °C and optimized the optimal injection displacement and injection time for different acid solution systems. Experimental research has found that polymer-surfactant acid has the best non-uniform etching effect in a 200 °C environment, with the highest maintenance of acid etched crack conductivity. The non-uniform etching effect of chelating acid is poor, but its conductivity is maintained high under high closing pressure, and it can deepen the etching effect along existing etching cracks. The alternating injection of polymer surfactant acid and chelating acid will form grooved etching channels on the rock wall, which still have high conductivity after crack closure. The secondary alternating injection of polymer-surfactant acid and chelating acid can increase the conductivity of acid etched fractures by 60%. The recommended alternate injection of polymer-surfactant acid and chelating acid into acid fracturing can significantly improve the effectiveness of acid fracturing modification. This study provides new research directions and data support for the selection of acid fracturing working fluid systems in ultra-high temperature carbonate reservoirs.

The Impact of AI on Real-Time Payments (RTP) for Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises' Performance in the United States of America

This study evaluated the impact of Ai on real time payment (RTP) for small and medium scale enterprises performance in United States of America with the aim of answering the research questions on how AI technologies adopted by US SMEs have facilitated access of payment rate, the extent at which AI technology impact the performance of US SMEs using a literature review approach. Findings from the analysed data confirmed that the rate of digital payments transactions in the US is growing on a fast rate which was also confirmed by recent empirical studies conducted after 2020 period stressing that the adoption of AI technologies by U.S. SMEs significantly impacts their access to payment rates particularly during the periods after the pandemic. This study also revealed that the impact of AI on the performance of SMEs in the United State appears to be unstable with the sampled periods of 2019 to 2024 with larger percentage of the sampled respondents in 2024 indicating that their business was in a favourable condition. On the final note, the findings revealed that the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology significantly enhances risk management for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the US majorly in terms of influencing informed decision making, operational efficiency and response to market fluctuations. This study thereby recommended that SMEs in US should keep adopting AI technology for transaction processing, decision making, market forecast, fraud detection, compliance processes, credit risk management, data quality monitoring and operational resilience.

Extraction of Bacterial Pigments and Evaluation of its Antioxidant Activity

Carotenoid are pigment that exist in a wide variety of plant and microorganism they are characterized by red, yellow or orange coloration .These important pigment play significant role in animal and human health .In contrast to plant production, the advantages of microbial fermentation of carotenoids were lower media cost, fast growth rate of microorganism and the ease of culture control . When the microbial cells are used to produce the color the term refers to ‘microbial pigments’. Different types of pigments extracted from different microbes. In this study, soil and water samples were collected from different areas of MGM University, Chh. Sambhajinagar .Different pigmented colonies were observed on nutrient agar plate .Out of these, the orange and yellow colonies were selected and sub-cultured further to obtain their pure cultures. These samples were inoculated onto nutrient agar plates, and after an incubation period of 24 hours, different colonies were observed on the plates. Out of these, the orange and yellow isolated were selected and sub-cultured further to obtain their pure cultures. After production of the pigment in liquid medium, it was further processed for the extraction of these pigments. Further, antioxidant assay by radical scavenging activity of DPPH was carried out, which revealed that the pigment had an radical scavenging activity of 60% as compared to that of the standard ascorbic acid, which showed radical scavenging activity of 33 %. Thus, the current study can be a useful step for large-scale production of pigments, their purification and application in cosmetic industries

Multifunctional HxMoO3-y-MoO2/Carbon Composite Particles for Water Remediation.

Solving a scarcity of freshwater resources is an urgent global challenge by a safe and sustainable approach using renewable energy. We demonstrate the multifunctional catalyst of HxMoO3-y-MoO2/carbon composite particles toward highly efficient water remediation. A one-step mechanochemical reaction successfully upgraded the composites from commercially available MoO3-polypropylene (PP) powders without introducing hydrogen gas. The composite particles exhibited broad light absorption in the UV-visible (Vis)-near-infrared (NIR) region (200-2000 nm), with an optical band-gap narrowing to 1.03 eV. The plasmonic properties of HxMoO3-y-MoO2 allowed a fast water evaporation rate (3.29 kg m-2 h-1) with a photothermal conversion efficiency of 88.8%. In addition, the HxMoO3-y-MoO2 heterojunction dominated wide-spectrum activity under Vis and NIR light irradiation, up to 3 orders of magnitude higher than pristine MoO3 in the photocatalytic degradation of azo-dye pollutants. Furthermore, the byproduct carbon with abundant oxygen-containing groups efficiently eliminated water pollutants as a Brønsted acid catalyst and performed exceptional adsorption capacities of heavy metal ions in the dark.

Comprehensive Study on Hydrogeological Conditions and Suitability Evaluation of In Situ Leaching for Sandstone-Hosted Uranium Deposit in Erlian Basin

As a strategic mineral and energy resource, the enrichment and metallogenic mechanism of sandstone-hosted uranium deposits are highly dependent on hydrogeological conditions. However, the relationship between sandstone uranium mineralization and hydrogeological conditions has not received sufficient attention yet. The pumping test, hydrogeological parameters and hydrochemical characteristics were employed to analyze the change characteristics of hydrogeological conditions and evaluate the suitability of in situ leaching (ISL). The results showed that the study area in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region could be divided into two groundwater subsystems, namely Quanzha-Engeriyin and Luhai-Zhendai. The latter with relatively high water richness is confined and a main ore-bearing aquifer, which consists of four orebodies. The well discharge (Q) and hydraulic conductivity (K) of Orebody II ranged from 98.40 to 867.36 m3/d and 0.25 to 5.64 m/d, respectively, indicating the aquifer is suitable for the migration, enrichment and mineralization of uranium due to relatively high permeability and fast flow rate. The water storage of Orebodies III-IV gradually deteriorated from east to west in a stepped pattern. And the highest values of Q and K in Orebodies III-IV decreased from 1200 m3/d to 120 m3/d and 1.75 m/d to 0.035 m/d, respectively, suggesting these were conducive to a reduction in and accumulation of uranium under poor hydrodynamic conditions. Additionally, the study area would be defined as three grades, including favorable, relatively favorable and unfavorable areas of ISL according to a comprehensive evaluation. This study provided a scientific basis for evaluating the possibility of in situ leaching for sandstone-hosted uranium deposit.

A multi-step calibration strategy for reliable parameter determination of salt rock mechanics constitutive models

The storage of renewable hydrogen in salt caverns requires fast injection and production rates to cope with the imbalance between energy production and consumption. This raises concerns about the mechanical stability of salt caverns under such operational conditions. The use of appropriate constitutive models for salt mechanics is an important step in investigating this issue, therefore many constitutive models with several parameters have been presented in the literature. However, a robust calibration strategy to reliably determine which model and parameter set represents the given rock, based on stress–strain data sets, remains an unsolved challenge. In this paper, for the first time in the community, we present a multi-step strategy to determine a single parameter set based on many deformation data sets for salt rocks. Towards this end, we first develop a comprehensive constitutive model able to capture all relevant nonlinear deformation physics of transient, reverse, and steady-state creep. The determination of the single set of representative material parameters is then achieved by framing the calibration process as an optimization problem, for which the global Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is employed. To allow for dynamic data integration, a multi-step calibration strategy is developed for a situation where experiments are included one at a time, as they become available. Additionally, due to the existing mild heterogeneity in the experimental rock samples, our optimization strategy is made flexible to allow for this slight heterogeneity. The devised optimization strategy, based on the multi-physics comprehensive constitutive modeling framework, results in a single set of representative material properties of all the deformation data sets. As a rigorous mathematical analysis for the presented method and the lack of relevant experimental data sets, we consider a wide range of synthetic experimental data sets, inspired by the existing sparse relevant data in the literature. The results of our performance analyses show that the proposed calibration strategy is robust. Moreover, the results become increasingly more accurate as more data sets become available.

Hydrogen activation by rhodium under the cover of a copper oxide thin film

The activation of reactants by catalytically active metal sites at metal-oxide interfaces is important for understanding the effect of metal-support interactions on nanoparticle catalysts and for tuning activity and selectivity. Using a combined experimental and theoretical approach, we studied the activation of H2 and the effect of CO poisoning on isolated Rh atoms completely or partially covered by a copper oxide (Cu2O) thin film. Temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) experiments conducted in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) show that neither a partially nor a fully oxidized Cu2O layer grown on a Rh/Cu(111) single-atom alloy can activate hydrogen in UHV. However, in situ ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) experiments performed at elevated H2 pressures reveal that Rh significantly accelerates the reduction of these Cu2O thin films by hydrogen. Remarkably, the fastest reduction rate is observed for the fully oxidized sample with all Rh sites covered by Cu2O. Both TPD and AP-XPS data demonstrate that these covered Rh sites are inaccessible to CO, indicating that Rh under Cu2O is active for H2 dissociation but cannot be poisoned by CO. In contrast, an incomplete oxide film leaves some of the Rh sites exposed and accessible to CO, and hence prone to CO poisoning. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate that unlike many reactions in which hydrogen activation is rate limiting, the rate-determining step in the dissociation of H2 on thin-film Cu2O with Rh underneath is the adsorption of H2 on the buried Rh site, and once adsorbed, the dissociation of H2 is barrierless. These calculations also explain why H2 can only be activated at higher pressures. Together, these results highlight how different the reactivity of atomically dispersed Rh in Cu can be depending on its accessibility through the oxide layer, providing a way to engineer Rh sites that are active for hydrogen activation but resilient to CO poisoning.

Recent replenishment of aliphatic organics on Ceres from a large subsurface reservoir.

Ceres hosts notable aliphatic-organic concentrations, ranging from approximately 5 to >30 weight % in specific surface areas. The origins and persistence of these organics are under debate due to the intense aliphatic organic signature and radiation levels in Ceres' orbit, which would typically lead to their destruction, hindering detection. To investigate this, we conducted laboratory experiments to replicate how the signature of the organic-rich regions would degrade due to radiation. Our findings indicate a fast degradation rate, implying the exposure of buried organics within the past few million years. This degradation rate, coupled with observed quantities, implies that the aliphatics must be present in substantial quantities within the shallow subsurface. Our estimates suggest an initial aliphatic abundance 2 to 30 times greater than currently observed, surpassing significantly the levels found in carbonaceous chondrites, indicating either a significant concentration or remarkable purity.

Enhanced removal of tetracycline by vitamin C-modified cow manure biochar in water

Vitamin C (VC), due to its chemical properties, can provide more oxygen-containing functional groups such as hydroxyl groups for biochar (BC), which promotes the adsorption of tetracycline on biochar. Therefore, in this study, cow dung biochar (CDBC) was modified with VC and VC-modified CDBC (CDBC-VC) was synthesized. The modified biochar was characterized and related factors, adsorption kinetics, isotherms and adsorption mechanisms were investigated. Adsorption kinetics indicate a fast rate of adsorption. The adsorption isotherms showed that the maximum adsorption capacity was 31.72 mg/g (CDBC) and 50.90 mg/g (CDBC-VC), respectively, and the adsorption process was inhomogeneous with multiple molecular layers and the adsorbent has a higher affinity. Mechanistic studies showed that hydrogen bonding interactions, π-π electron donor-acceptor interactions, hydrophobic interactions, and electrostatic interactions were the key to the adsorption process. The analysis of adsorbent regeneration showed that CDBC-VC had good adsorption performance. CDBC and CDBC-VC showed the best performance in simulated industrial wastewater with removal rates of 78.81% and 93.69%. The adsorption mechanism was comprehensively analyzed using six machine learning models. The extreme gradient boosting model gave the best fit. Analysis of the weights of the input variables for predicting adsorption efficiency showed that the ratio of initial TC concentration to BC dosage (29.8%), specific surface area (23%), isoelectric point (8.8%), and ash content (7.7%) had a significant effect on the predicted results.

Generalisation bounds for kernel PCA through PAC‐Bayes learning

AbstractPrincipal component analysis(PCA) is a popular method for dimension reduction and has attracted an unfailing interest for decades. More recently, kernel PCA (KPCA) has emerged as an extension of PCA, but despite its use in practice, a sound theoretical understanding of KPCA is missing. We contribute several empirical generalisation bounds on the efficiency of KPCA, involving the empirical eigenvalues of the kernel Gram matrix. Our bounds are derived through the use of probably approximately correct (PAC)‐Bayes theory and highlight the importance of some desirable properties of datasets, expressed as variance‐typed terms, to attain fast rates, achievable for a wide class of kernels.

Pilot-scale capacitive deionization for water softening: Performance, energy consumption, and ion selectivity

Capacitive deionization (CDI) has emerged as an efficient process for hardness control than traditional water-softening technologies. However, few systematic studies have been conducted on water softening using pilot-scale CDI systems. For industrial applications, it is essential to investigate deionization performance, energy consumption, and selectivity for divalent cations through pilot-scale studies. In this study, we examined the deionization performance and energy consumption of a pilot-scale CDI process for effective water softening. The key operational variables analyzed were the applied voltage (200–300 V (i.e., 1.0–1.5 V per pair)), feed concentration (550–1250 mg/L), recovery ratio (50–80 %), flow rate (3–5 L/min), and adsorption/desorption time (80–180 s). Within this range, a high voltage, low feed concentration, low recovery ratio, high flow rate, and long adsorption/desorption times are advantageous for the total dissolved solids (TDS) removal ratio. In terms of energy efficiency, expressed as TDS removal per unit energy consumption, a low voltage, low feed concentration, low recovery ratio, fast flow rate, and long adsorption/desorption time are beneficial. Additionally, we investigated the selective removal of Ca2+ over Na+ under various operating conditions, as well as its impact on enhancing energy efficiency. The pilot CDI system achieved a Ca/Na selectivity coefficient of approximately 2.4 and it was analyzed to achieve up to 45 % energy-saving efficiency compared to nonselective systems (i.e., selectivity coefficient = 1). The results of this study are expected to provide valuable data for the application of CDI to water softening and hardness control processes.

Precision Electrochemical Micro-Machining of Molybdenum in Neutral Salt Solution Based on Electrochemical Analysis

Molybdenum is an important material in modern industry, widely used in extreme environments such as rocket engine nozzles and microelectrodes due to its high melting point, excellent mechanical properties, and thermal conductivity. However, as a difficult-to-machine metal, traditional machining methods struggle to achieve the desired microstructures in molybdenum. Electrochemical machining (ECM) offers unique advantages in manufacturing fine structures from hard-to-machine metals. Studies have shown that molybdenum exhibits a fast corrosion rate in alkaline or acidic solutions, posing significant environmental pressure. Therefore, this study investigates the electrochemical machining of molybdenum in neutral salt solutions to achieve high-precision microstructure fabrication. First, the polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of molybdenum in NaNO3 solutions of varying concentrations were measured to determine its electrochemical reaction characteristics. The results demonstrate that molybdenum exhibits good electrochemical reactivity in NaNO3 solutions, leading to favorable surface erosion morphology. Subsequently, a mask electrochemical machining technique was employed to fabricate arrayed microstructures on the molybdenum surface. To minimize interference between factors, an orthogonal experiment was used to optimize the parameter combination, determining the optimal machining process parameters. Under these optimal conditions, an array of micro-groove structures was successfully fabricated with an average groove width of 110 μm, a depth-to-width ratio of 0.21, an aspect ratio of 9000, and a groove width error of less than 5 μm.

Implicit unified gas-kinetic scheme for steady state solution of hypersonic thermodynamic non-equilibrium flows

The unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS), designed to solve Boltzmann equation and its model equations, aims to accurately resolve multi-scale flow problems within a single computation framework. In this study, an implicit UGKS is proposed for the steady state solution of diatomic gas flows based on a multiple-temperature Boltzmann model equation with non-equilibrium among translational, rotational and vibrational modes (Zhang et al., 2023), utilizing a novel hybrid Cartesian-unstructured discrete velocity space (DVS) mesh approach. The multiple-temperature macroscopic equations corresponding to the Boltzmann model equation are simultaneously solved implicitly to address the stiffness and nonlinearity of the collision operator encountered when solving the Boltzmann model equation in isolation. Both macroscopic equations and Boltzmann model equation are solved by using the point relaxation symmetric Gauss–Seidel method to achieve a fast convergence rate. The efficiency of the implicit UGKS can be improved by about two orders of magnitude compared to the explicit one. Moreover, the hybrid Cartesian-unstructured DVS achieves a noteworthy reduction in both CPU-hours and memory consumption, requiring only 15%∼23% of the advanced unstructured DVS. It effectively alleviates the dimensional crisis of UGKS in solving three-dimensional hypersonic flows, and can be extended to other DVS-based methods. As a result, UGKS extends its applicable regime to simulations of hypersonic thermodynamic non-equilibrium flows with Mach numbers up to 30, achieving three-dimensional flow simulations of complex geometrical configurations with relatively low computational resources. A series of test cases, including normal shock structures, two-dimensional hypersonic flows around cylinder, blunt wedge and flat plate, and three-dimensional hypersonic flows around a sphere and an X38-like configuration vehicle, are conducted to validate the implicit UGKS with hybrid Cartesian-unstructured DVS. Overall, the proposed method shows advantages of unified multi-scale methods in terms of computational efficiency and capturing multi-scale solution of hypersonic thermodynamic non-equilibrium flows.

Rich active sites ZIF-8 base on imidazole-based deep eutectic solvents for rapid adsorption of acid fuchsin and competitive adsorption

MimDES-ZIF-8 with rich active sites as positive charges and metal coordination sites were prepared based on imidazole based deep eutectic solvent (MimDES) using interface permeation method. 2-Methylimidazole (2-Mim) simultaneously acted as a hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) in MimDES (hydrogen donner was 1,6-hexanediol) and an organic ligand in MimDES-ZIF-8, affecting the coordination of ZIF-8 during permeation. Four different zinc salt solutions (ZnCl2, Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, Zn(OAc)2·2H2O, ZnSO4·7H2O) were permeated into MimDES to obtain MimDES-ZIF-8 with different morphologies. All MimDES-ZIF-8 had higher Zn/N ration (>0.25), specific surface area and surface positive charges. The dye adsorption results indicated that MimDES-ZIF-8 showed high adsorption efficiencies for acid fuchsin (all exceeded 97.75 % under pH 7.5) and a fast adsorption rate (exceeding 93 % in 5 min and reaching equilibrium in 60 min). Among MimDES-ZIF-8, the adsorption capacity of ZIF-8-C was 4845.3 mg/g. After five cycles of adsorption, the AF removal efficiency of ZIF-8-C remained over 93.23 %. Moreover, ZIF-8-C also had good adsorption capacity for anionic dyes CR, cationic dyes MB and BB. The adsorption process aligned well with both the Langmuir model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Based on FTIR, XPS, and electrostatic potential calculation, the adsorption mechanism was elucidated.

Tikhonov regularized second-order plus first-order primal-dual dynamical systems with asymptotically vanishing damping for linear equality constrained convex optimization problems

In this paper, in the setting of Hilbert spaces, we consider a Tikhonov regularized second-order plus first-order primal-dual dynamical system with asymptotically vanishing damping for a linear equality constrained convex optimization problem. It is shown that convergence properties of the proposed inertial dynamical system depend upon the choice of the Tikhonov regularization parameter. When the Tikhonov regularization parameter decays rapidly to zero, we derive the fast convergence rates of the primal-dual gap, the objective residual, the feasibility violation and the gradient norm of the objective function along the generated trajectory. When the Tikhonov regularization parameter decreases slowly to zero, we prove the strong convergence of the primal trajectory of the Tikhonov regularized dynamical system to the minimal norm solution of the linear equality constrained convex optimization problem. Numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the efficiency of our approach.

Optimized Dehydrogenation of Magnesium Hydride with Fe and Cu Additives

Solid state hydrogen storage with the use of MgH2 has gained widespread attention because of its good reversible storage capacity. This metal hydride however slowly releases hydrogen at high temperatures ranging between 325 – 375 oC. An important feature required of MgH2 is its ability to commence hydrogen release at a fast rate and reduced temperature. Transition metal-containing alloys/compounds having either Fe or Cu as the principal element have been used to improve the dissociation of hydrogen from MgH2. Studies involving the use of each metal in its elemental form as an additive are minimal. This study investigated the catalytic effects of elemental Fe and Cu on the hydrogen release performance of MgH2 for potential applications in transportation and power generation. It was observed that MgH2/Fe had a better dehydrogenation performance; the temperature of onset of MgH2/Fe and MgH2/Cu dehydrogenation were 205, and 215 oC which were 98 and 88 oC lower than that for as-received MgH2. The highest amount, 1.9 wt. % H2 was released by MgH2/Fe while 1.44 wt. % H2 was released by MgH2/Cu. The activation energy for dehydrogenation was reduced from 150.5 kJ/mol for as-received MgH2 to 89.8 and 79.8 kJ/mol in MgH2/Cu and MgH2/Fe respectively. It took 18.8 min for as-received MgH2 to commence dehydrogenation while that for MgH2/Fe and MgH2/Cu composites started from 12.2 and 13.4 min respectively. The in-situ formed Fe and Cu in MgH2 after milling acted as active catalytic sites for its improved dehydrogenation with MgH2/Fe behaving better.

Photophysiological status of phytoplankton communities in different types of eddies during winter in the western Pacific Ocean

The Western Pacific Ocean (WPO) is one of the most active eddy regions in the world, where a variety of ocean processes are frequently observed, but little research has been conducted on the phytoplankton communities and their photosynthetic physiological status within the eddies in this region. The bio-optical parameters of phytoplankton communities and their physiological status within the warm core and cold core eddies of the WPO during the winter of 2021 were investigated based on fast repetition rate fluorometry (FRRF). In this paper, environmental factors, phytoplankton community parameters, chlorophyll a (Chl a), and various bio-optical parameters were investigated for two opposite types of eddies at the WPO. The results show the maximum [Fv/Fm, 0.18 to 0.26 (warm eddy), 0.14 to 0.28 (cold eddy)] and effective photosynthetic efficiency [Fq'/Fm', 0.11 to 0.23 (warm eddy), 0.10 to 0.27 (cold eddy)] of the DCM for both warm and cold eddies, the electron transport rates ETRRCII [0.002–6.18 mol e− mol RCII−1 s−1 (warm eddy), 0.002–4.94 mol e− mol RCII−1 s−1 (cold eddy)] and the primary production potential PPmax [0.68–118.19 mg C (mg Chl a)−1 day−1 (warm eddy), 2.47–243.49 mg C (mg Chl a)−1 day−1 (cold eddy)] for different types eddies. In warm eddy, temperature and Chl a concentrations had significant effects on Fv/Fm and Fq'/Fm', while in cold eddy the correlation of Fv/Fm and Fq'/Fm' with temperature was not significant, and Fv/Fm was significantly negatively correlated with DIP only. Light was the main variable affecting the electron transport capacity and primary production potential of the phytoplankton community in the eddies, while larger cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates contributed significantly to the primary production potential of the cold eddy. In addition, both eddies centers had higher primary production potentials, with the cold eddy had a higher primary production potential than the warm eddy, based on microscopic analysis this phenomenon may be due to differences in electron transfer rates between phytoplankton communities.