High Energy Cost Research Articles

Core-Shell, Critical-Temperature-Suppressed V Alloy-Pd Alloy Hydrides for Hydrogen Storage—A Technical Evaluation

Hydrogen storage for energy applications is of significant interest to researchers seeking to enable a transition to lower-pollution energy systems. Two of the key drawbacks of using hydrogen for energy storage are the low gas-phase storage density and the high energy cost of the gas-phase compression. Metal hydride materials have the potential to increase hydrogen storage density and decrease the energy cost of compression by storing the hydrogen as a solid solution. In this article, the technical viability of core-shell V90Al10-Pd80Ag20 as a hydrogen storage material is discussed. LaNi5, LaNi5/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer mixtures, core-shell V-Pd, and core-shell V90Al10-Pd80Ag20 are directly compared in terms of reversible hydrogen-storage content by weight and volume. The kinetic information for each of the materials is also compared; however, this work highlights missing information that would enable computational dynamics modelling. Results of this technical evaluation show that V90Al10-Pd80Ag20 has the potential to increase gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen capacity by 1.4 times compared to LaNi5/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer mixtures. In addition, the literature shows that Pd80Ag20 and V90Al10 both have similarly good hydrogen permeabilities, thermal conductivities, and specific heats. In summary, this evaluation demonstrates that core-shell V90Al10-Pd80Ag20 could be an excellent, less-expensive hydrogen storage material with the advantages of improved storage capacity, handleability, and safety compared to current AB5-polymer mixtures.

Industry Winners and Losers in a Lower-Carbon Economy: A Structural Model

The authors model a viable low-carbon economy using global input-output tables along with emissions data for 54 industries in 57 countries. Some high-emitting industries such as air transport and retailing support a wide range of otherwise low-carbon goods and services and are predicted to fare well. Apparently green industries such as health care and banks appear more vulnerable because of their reliance on high-emission sectors such as construction. To test the model, the authors use high historical energy prices to proxy more stringent carbon regulation. Industries that their model classifies as resilient perform well, whereas industries that are commonly viewed as green significantly underperform in the face of high energy costs.

Development of a novel induction-heated reactor to enhance the performance of waste tires pyrolysis

Waste tire pyrolysis (WTP) is well-known as a promising technique for waste tires (WTs) management. However, the requirements of high cost and intense energy, as well as steel wire stripping remain the major drawbacks for the widespread applications of WTP technologies. In this research, a novel induction-heated pyrolysis (IHP) reactor has been developed to enhance the performance of WTP and the results were compared with a conventional fixed bed pyrolysis (FBP) reactor. The performance of the IHP reactor has been evaluated using three different feedstocks of sidewall (no steel wire), tread section (20% steel wire), and real mode (14% steel wire) at two different sizes of A and B. The results revealed that the presence of steel wire in the IHP reactor not only reduced the effect of WTs particles size, but also improved the average heat and oil production rate up to 36 % and 60 %, respectively through better heat distribution. The minimum REC (13.03 KJ/g) was achieved for the tread section after 12 min of the IHP process. The comparison of the results of the IHP reactor and the FBP reactor proved that using IHP reactor could significantly improve the performance WTP in terms of optimum heating time, heat rate, REC and power consuming cost up to 68 %, 44 %, 56 % and 61 % respectively. The findings of this study suggest IHP reactor which eliminates the need of stripping steel wires as novel and promising approach for sustainable WTs management.

Analysis and modeling of innovation factors to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources - Evidence from European Union enterprises

In previous years, much research has been carried out to specify eco-innovations determinants. In most studies, eco-innovation was analyzed at a general level. From the perspective of climate change and the aim of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal objectives, the issue of innovations that replace the share of fossil fuel energy with renewable energy sources in the European Union appears to be particularly important. Therefore, this paper has two purposes. First, using a systematic literature review, it examines the key factors driving decisions taken by European Union enterprises to create innovations with environmental benefits. Second, it estimates the impact of these factors on introducing innovations that replace the share of fossil fuel energy with renewable energy sources. Specifically, using the logistic regression model, it analyses microdata from thirteen European Union Member States collected during the 2014 Community Innovation Survey. The effects show that six out of seven drivers under assessment positively affect the introduction of innovations that replace fossil fuel energy with renewable energy sources. These are (1) the high cost of energy, water, or materials, (2) environmental regulations or taxes expected in the future, (3) existing environmental taxes, charges, or fees, (4) government grants, subsidies, or other financial incentives for environmental innovations, (5) current or expected market demand for environmental innovations, and (6) voluntary actions or initiatives for good environmental practice within a sector.

Dendrite‐free and Stable Zn‐ion Energy Storage Devices Enabled by a Three‐dimensional Sn−Cu Foam Hosted Zn Anode

AbstractZn ion energy storage devices have received widespread attention because of their high safety, environmental friendliness, low cost, and high energy density. However, Zn metal anodes usually suffer from disadvantages such as dendrite growth, low coulombic efficiency, and volume expansion during plating/stripping, which severely hampers the practical applications. Here, we construct 3D Zn frameworks by exploring different conductive hosts and modify 3D hosts by plating Sn to suppress Zn dendrites and side reactions. The electrode which optimized by electroplating Zn after chemically plating Sn on Cu foam (Sn−Cu foam@Zn) exhibits stable polarization voltage distribution and almost 100% coulombic efficiency over 200 cycles of Zn plating/stripping. Furthermore, when pairing with V2O5 cathode, the full cell showed fast reaction kinetics and a capacity of 113 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at a current density of 1 A g−1, which is 90.4% of the initial capacity. This work provides a new strategy for the development of high‐performance Zn anodes.

Electrochemical oxidation of phenol in chloride containing electrolyte using a carbon-coated Ti4O7 anode

Magnéli-phase Ti4O7 is an excellent anode material for electrochemical advanced oxidation process (EAOP). However, the development of Ti4O7 electrodes is always limited by the high cost and high energy consumption in their preparation process. In this study, the carbon-coated Ti4O7 electrode was successfully synthesized by an in-situ pyrolysis method, which exhibited high specific surface area (143.8 m2 g−1) and efficient electron transfer (47.3 Ω). The accelerated service life was measured to be 102.5 h, demonstrating its excellent stability. EAOP performance of the C-coated Ti4O7 electrode was evaluated under various operating conditions. The result showed that a complete degradation of phenol (100 mg L−1) was obtained in 60 min, under the condition of 0.1 M NaCl electrolyte and 20 mA cm−2 current density. Owing to the high oxygen evolution potential (OEP, 2.25 V vs. RHE) of the C-coated Ti4O7 electrode, high TOC removal ratio (68.9%) and low energy consumption (113.8 kWh kg−1TOC) were achieved under the optimal condition. Moreover, the mechanism of phenol degradation was investigated by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and free radical scavenging experiments. The results indicated that the degradation of phenol can be mainly attributed to the synergistic effects between adsorbed ·OH (M(·OH)) and Cl−, rather than the direct electron transfer process (DET) on the surface of the C-coated Ti4O7 electrode. This study provides an efficient strategy for the mineralization of phenolic wastewater by the C-coated Ti4O7 electrode.

A Traffic-Aware Fair MAC Protocol for Layered Data Collection Oriented Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Underwater acoustic channels are characterized by long propagation delay, limited available bandwidth and high energy costs. These unique characteristics bring challenges to design media access control (MAC) protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). Especially in data-collection-oriented UASNs, data generated at underwater nodes are transmitted hop-by-hop to the sink node. The traffic loads undertaken by nodes of different depths are different. However, most existing MAC protocols do not consider the traffic load imbalance in data-collection-oriented UASNs, resulting in unfairness in how the nodes transmit their own generated data. In this paper, we propose a novel traffic-aware fair MAC protocol for layered data-collection-oriented UASNs, called TF-MAC. TF-MAC accesses a medium by assigning time slots of different lengths to each layer via different traffic loads to achieve traffic fairness of nodes. To improve throughput and avoid collision in the network, an overlapping time slot division mechanism for different layers and multi-channel allocation scheme within each single layer is employed. Considering the time-varying traffic loads of the nodes, an adaptive packet length algorithm is proposed by taking advantage of the spatial-temporal uncertainty of underwater channels. A sea experiment was conducted to prove the spatial-temporal uncertainty of UASNs, which provides a feasibility basis for the proposed algorithm. Simulation results show that TF-MAC can greatly improve the network performance in terms of throughput, delay, energy consumption, and fairness in the layered data-collection-oriented UASNs.

Effect of LPG Emission on the Performance of Glass Bending Furnace

The extant research design LPG give a good temperature distribution for a specific burner design of low consumption burners and relays to a method for bending the glass sheets, in which method the swirl burner LPG is used in a small furnace. Using LPG fuel gives more stability in the combustion process, the LPG is a gaseous fuel that helps to have easy control of the combustion rate and the temperature behavior inside the combustion zone by increasing and decreasing the mixing ratio with air. The heat flux from the flame moves in the front direction due to the momentum of the fuel mixture and the design of the burner rim, which keep the flow adhesive, such behavior leads to creating different temperature zone since the combustion process is a continuous process. The main result is that clean or low emission combustion of LPG fuel will increase the gained temperature and give a good temperature distribution for a specific burner design of low consumption burners and the clean combustion will reduce the unwanted deformation of soot on melting glass surface. Generally, high energy cost and the environmental pollution are the major issues in the glass industries which must be reduced through reduce the fuel consumption of the glass furnaces. For these reasons, this type of furnace can be used in other applications, not only in melting glass.

A predictive target tracking framework for IoT using CNN–LSTM

This paper addresses the issue of tracking a mobile target, through a data-driven active sensor selection mechanism in the Internet of Things (IoT) sensing applications. IoT networks have proved their usefulness in environmental monitoring applications, including target tracking, thanks to their ease of deployment, scalability, and ability to provide real-time monitoring. Nevertheless, IoT-based target tracking approaches usually sacrifice either the accuracy of the approach or the energy efficiency. In this work, we present a predictive target tracking approach, capable of tracking a mobile target with high accuracy and low overall energy cost. A convolutional long short-term memory (CNN–LSTM) model that can extract both spatial and temporal patterns is proposed to predict the mobility of a source using time-delayed data readings obtained from the IoT sensors. The predicted location is used to dynamically select a set of sensors that can carry out continuous tracking. Moreover, a mechanism to detect possible target loss and its subsequent recovery is also proposed. A use-case of tracking a radioactive source carried by a walking person, in varying settings and for different benchmarks, is used to validate the proposed approach performance. The results demonstrate accurate prediction of the target’s location, and efficient tracking which saves up to 90% of the network’s energy.

International Trade, Labour Market and Economic Growth in Long Term

General global trend in advanced economies indicates decreasing working hours and increasing labour productivity. The aim of the research is to examine the existing relationships between hours worked, labour productivity and international trade in the long-term. In the study, OECD and more in detail, some EU countries (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany) are selected. The research period is 1995–2021. The results indicate that employees are working fewer hours, receiving more and generating larger economic output per person employed. This relation is detected in many EU countries. In the long term, advanced and stable economies (such as Germany) differ from emerging and previously so-called transition economies (Poland, Latvia etc.) in the EU. More efficient use of labour resources is linked with both application of modern technologies and the growing importance of high-tech industries that lead to higher economic output. High energy costs impact the selection of technologies, replacement to more efficient ones and innovations in the production process, transportation and storage. The results argue that high-tech exports are strongly linked with high-tech imports due to high import dependency. Faster well-balanced recovery and stable performance are expected in the majority of countries and market segments domestically in the post-COVID era.

Piezoceramic membrane equipped with superwetting interface and in-situ ultrasound performance for efficient oil/water emulsion separation

Piezoceramic membranes can generate in-situ ultrasound during filtration to mitigate fouling, but their developments are limited due to the lead-rich membrane material and high energy cost. Here, a high-performance lead-free piezoceramic membrane equipped with superwetting interface is presented. The novel membrane consists of a piezoceramic porous quartz support and a superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic nanofiber membrane. SiO2-Al2O3-MgO system was promoted in the quartz-based ceramic to obtain a porous support with mechanical strength of 23 MPa and ultrasound emission of 3.4 mV. Microfiltration membrane (pore size of 210 nm) with rough surface was constructed by the attapulgite nanofiber. The underwater oil contact angle of the membrane is 158° and the sliding angle is no more than 7°. The stationary permeance of the piezoceramic membrane was 217 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1 when dealing with soybean oil/water emulsion. Ascribed to the low adhesion between oil droplets and the superwetting membrane, its permeance increased by 25.3 % when an in-situ ultrasound at low intensity was applied, while the rejection remained above 99.7 %. The outstanding performance of this superwetting piezoceramic membrane provided a new strategy to develop high-efficient and low energy consumption membrane.

Design and techno–economic analysis of levulinic acid production process from biomass by using co-product formic acid as a catalyst with minimal waste generation

Levulinic acid (LA) is an essential biomass-derived platform chemical that can be converted into value–added chemicals such as polymers, fertilisers, and pharmaceuticals. However, the high energy demand and cost required in the separation process are significant issues in the LA production process. Recently, formic acid (FA), the co–product in biomass–LA reaction, has been focused on as a catalyst for both biomass pretreatment and LA production. This study designed and numerically simulated a novel process for producing LA from wheat straw (feed rate: 100 kg/h) using an FA aqueous catalyst system (60, 70, and 80 wt%). The reaction data were referred to previous kinetics studies in order to evaluate the feasible reaction time from an economic perspective. The minimised waste generation process was designed by recovering the FA catalyst and using solid residues (lignin and humins) as heat sources. Another byproduct, furfural, was utilised as an extractant for purifying the LA and recovering unreacted products. The minimum selling price (MSP) of the LA and furfural was calculated with an internal rate of return of 6.1% for 20 years. The MSPs were calculated to be 9.59–12.8 USD/kg–products, which was higher than the market price and previous studies. However, the net required energy in this process was − 5.37 to − 32.1 MJ/kg–LA, indicating that the combustion of the solid residue can supply all of the energy required for the process. Our novel concept based on the byproduct utilisation for heat source and extractant can be an effective strategy for an implication of the biorefinery process that can circulate energy with minimum waste generation.

Performance Analysis of Charging Infrastructure Sharing in UAV and EV-Involved Networks

Electric vehicles (EVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) show great potential in modern transportation and communication networks, respectively. However, with growing demands for such technologies, the limited energy infrastructure becomes the bottleneck for their future growth. It might be of high cost and low energy efficiency for all the operators to each have their own dedicated energy infrastructure, such as charging stations. In this paper, we analyze a wireless charging infrastructure sharing strategy in UAV and EV-involved networks. We consider a scenario where UAVs can charge in EV charging stations and pay for the sharing fee. On the EVs' side, sharing infrastructure can earn extra profit but their service quality, such as waiting time, might slightly reduce. On the UAVs' side, if renting EV charging stations can achieve an acceptable system performance, say high coverage probability, while considering the cost, they may not need to build their dedicated charging stations. In this case, we use tools from stochastic geometry to model the locations and propose an optimization problem that captures the aforementioned trade-offs between cost or profit and quality of service. Our numerical results show that sharing infrastructure slightly increases the waiting time of EVs, say within 5 min, but dramatically decreases the waiting time of drones, say more than 50 min, and deploying more charging stations do achieve better performances, but all these better performances are expected to cost more.

An Energy and Carbon Footprint Analysis of Distributed and Federated Learning

Classical and centralized Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods require moving data from producers (sensors, machines) to energy hungry data centers, raising environmental concerns due to computational and communication resource demands, while violating privacy. Emerging alternatives to mitigate such high energy costs propose to efficiently distribute, or federate, the learning tasks across devices, which are typically low-power. This paper proposes a novel framework for the analysis of energy and carbon footprints in distributed and federated learning (FL). The proposed framework quantifies both the energy footprints and the carbon equivalent emissions for vanilla FL methods and consensus-based fully decentralized approaches. We discuss optimal bounds and operational points that support green FL designs and underpin their sustainability assessment. Two case studies from emerging 5G industry verticals are analyzed: these quantify the environmental footprints of continual and reinforcement learning setups, where the training process is repeated periodically for continuous improvements. For all cases, sustainability of distributed learning relies on the fulfillment of specific requirements on communication efficiency and learner population size. Energy and test accuracy should be also traded off considering the model and the data footprints for the targeted industrial applications.

English

The evolution of blockchain technology has drastically altered the provision of banking services. Businesses are currently transitioning to a paperless environment. Robots are taking over labor-intensive jobs, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is assisting in tracking any massive disaster, and biotech is assisting in curing multiple illnesses in a matter of seconds. Blockchain, one of the most important inventions of our time, is poised to assist individuals in reaching new heights of innovation in almost all domains. However, like other technologies, blockchain is confronting unique hurdles that must be overcome before widespread adoption particularly in Ghana and in Africa as a whole. This paper sought to examine the opportunities and challenges of the adoption of blockchain technology in Ghana. A qualitative technique in data gathering was employed for the purpose of this paper. The study used an interview-based technique, aimed to identify and communicate the problems that the banking sector in Ghana experiences in adopting blockchain technology. The interview took place in Ghana's capital, Accra. One representative from the Ghanaian Central Bank and nine from Commercial banks were interviewed. The paper concludes that the implementation of blockchain technology in Ghana's banking sector is being hampered by a lack of international norms or laws, high energy costs, a lack of intermediaries, poverty, corruption, a lack of infrastructure, and a lack of technical support.   Key words: Adoption, banking sector, blockchain technology, financial industry, opportunities, challenges.

Turning Recycled Cardboard Container-Derived Lignin-Containing Cellulose Nanofibrils into a Robust Gas Barrier UV-Shielding Film

Self-standing cellulose nanofibril (CNF) films are regarded as one of the promising alternatives to current petroleum-based packaging materials mostly due to their ability to form dense self-assembled structures exhibiting high gas barrier properties. Nonetheless, one of the major obstacles to the commercialization of these materials in packaging applications is the high cost of raw materials and production energy. In this study, we created self-standing films of lignin-containing cellulose nanofibrils (LCNFs) derived from a recycled old corrugated cardboard (OCC) pulp that costs less than bleached softwood Kraft (BSK) pulp and requires half as much energy for refining to obtain the same quality of material. The low zeta potential (−3.83 mV) of OCC-derived LCNFs (OCC-LCNFs) resulted in aggregation of the fibrils in aqueous suspension, leading to considerable unpredictability in oxygen permeability (OP) values (coefficient of variation 36%). The addition of 3 wt % (based on the dry weight of LCNFs) carboxymethyl cellulose lowered the coefficient of variation to 16% with an average OP of 1478 (cc.μm/m2.atm.day) at 80% relative humidity. Because the OP was higher than that of the CNF film made from BSK-derived CNF (BSK-CNFs), we demonstrated that ionic crosslinking with trivalent aluminum ion or covalent crosslinking with polyamide epichlorohydrin decreased the OP by 30% at 23 °C and 80% relative humidity while also significantly enhancing the tensile strength and modulus. In addition, the presence of lignin in OCC resulted in a relatively lower water vapor permeability value in OCC-LCNF films compared to BSK-CNF films. Moreover, OCC-LCNF films showed complete UV-shielding (200–400 nm) property. Overall, this work provides a new opportunity to exploit a recycled and inexpensive source of CNFs to produce robust gas barrier materials for packaging applications.

Ferroelastic and 90∘ ferroelectric domains in Bi2WO6 single crystals

High-quality single crystals of [Formula: see text] are grown using a flux method. With different flux growth recipes, we aim to control the crystallization temperature to be lower and higher than the ferroelectric transition temperature, resulting in mono-domain and multi-domain [Formula: see text] crystals, respectively. Abundant ferroelastic orthorhombic twin domains are observed in the multi-domain crystals under an optical microscope. PFM studies unveil the 90[Formula: see text] polarization change across those ferroelastic domain walls, as well as the absence of 180[Formula: see text] ferroelectric domains in the as-grown multi-domain crystals, indicating a high energy cost of 180[Formula: see text] ferroelectric domains. Moreover, a 45[Formula: see text] tilt of the 90[Formula: see text] ferroelectric domain walls is discovered, and this tilt creates a new type of charged 90[Formula: see text] ferroelectric walls, which have not been observed in other bulk ferroelectrics.

Recovery of nickel from actual electroplating wastewater by integrated electrodeposition with adsorption pretreatment technique

The rapidly growing electroplating industry has led to the discharge of large amounts of wastewater containing heavy metals. Electrodeposition technique can recover metals from wastewater, however, its application involves high energy costs due to the high levels of inorganic and organic impurities, including metal ions, that are usually present in real effluents. Therefore, in the present work, integrated electrodeposition with adsorption pretreatment technique was employed to recover nickel from real electroplating wastewater in a cost-effective manner. The results showed that adsorption pretreatment technique could simplify the nature of the wastewater by removing 85% of TOC from real electroplating wastewater. Further, the pretreated wastewater was used for electrodeposition and the results indicated that the electrodeposition could reduce the ineffective energy consumption by 50% (from 44 kw∙h/kg to 35 kw∙h/kg) for actual wastewater, compared to the effective energy consumption of 28 kw∙h/kg for simulated wastewater which hinted that the pretreatment by adsorption technique had a positive effect on the deposition of nickel. Analysis of the deposits showed that the recovered nickel was mainly in the form of zero-valent nickel or oxides. The zero-valent nickel adhered tightly to the electrode plates, while the oxide form mainly adhered to the electrode plates or fell off into the electrolyte. Importantly, the findings of EDS and XRD showed that both simulated and actual wastewater yielded high-purity metallic nickel. Overall, this work provided an effective way to promote the application of integrated electrodeposition with adsorption pretreatment technique for the recovery of precious metals from real electroplating wastewater.

The Intersection of Fashion, Immersive Technology, and Sustainability: A Literature Review

Fashion industry emissions, resource use, and waste are attracting increasing consumer and government attention, with broad agreement that a new approach is required along the supply chain. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a move to digitalisation facilitated an accelerating interest in digital applications, including immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. This systematic literature review explores the intersecting topics of fashion, immersive technologies, and sustainability to determine the trends, examine the solutions offered, and discuss the implications of immersive technologies for sustainability. Four resources were consulted (Scholar, SCOPUS, WOS, and ProQuest), resulting in 74 articles for the review. Grey literature was included due to the currency of the topic and gaps in the available academic literature. The findings highlight immersive technology uses in the fashion industry, which are part of a move towards sustainability. These technologies are used to reduce online returns, educate consumers, reduce waste in design and manufacture, and remove the need for physical items. However, issues include high energy costs, consumer reluctance, and skill shortages. Results suggest future research and industry discussions should focus on empirical studies to measure the sustainability impact of immersive technologies, monitor technology diffusion and uptake, and measure the industry skills gap.

A novel magnetically oscillatory fluidized bed using micron-sized magnetic particles for continuous capture of emulsified oil droplets

Treatment of emulsions is frequently required for water environment protection and oil recovery. Breaking the emulsion structure and separating the emulsified oil are key stages. However, conventional emulsion separation methods suffer from high reagent and energy costs, and low batch capacity. In this study, a novel magnetically oscillatory fluidized bed (MOFB) was developed to realize cost-effective and continuously operated emulsion separation through the introduction of reusable micron-sized magnetic particles (MMPs) and a low-energy electromagnetic field. The emulsified oil droplets were continuously captured by MMPs in oscillatory motion driven by a periodic electromagnetic field. The constructed MOFB showed excellent separation efficiency at a high influent flow rate of 20 mL/min. And in the long-term operation of the MOFB, a higher treatment capacity for emulsified oil was obtained by the MMPs (11.1 g liquid paraffin oil /g MMPs) than by the commonly used nano-sized magnetic particles. The entire oil capture process by moved MMPs was confirmed via in situ observation using a high-speed camera. To further reveal the oil capture mechanisms, meshing and kinematics analyses were performed to construct an indicator termed dynamic bed voidage (εD). It was found that the value of εD could be regulated by the magnetic field strength and frequency, and a low value of εD (<30.3%) was crucial to maintain a highly efficient capture of emulsified oil droplets. This study provides insights into the design of a novel magnetic separator for continuous emulsion separation and promotes technological evolution toward economically competitive separation methods.