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Integrated Two-Stage Alkaline–Oxidative Pretreatment of Hybrid Poplar. Part 2: Impact of Cu-Catalyzed Alkaline Hydrogen Peroxide Pretreatment Conditions on Process Performance and Economics
Two-stage alkaline/copper 2,2'-bipyridine-catalyzed alkaline hydrogen peroxide (Cu-AHP) pretreatment is an effective strategy for improving the enzymatic digestibility of hybrid poplar. To reduce the chemical inputs and processing costs associated with this process, we investigated the effect of increasing the temperature for both the alkaline pre-extraction and the Cu-AHP pretreatment stages. The results indicate that increasing the alkaline pre-extraction and the Cu-AHP pretreatment temperatures from 30 to 120 and 80 °C, respectively, allowed us to reduce both the pretreatment time of the Cu-AHP stage and the chemical loadings. Incubating alkaline pre-extracted hybrid poplar for 12 h with 10% NaOH (w/w biomass), 8% hydrogen peroxide (w/w biomass), and a Cu 2+ and 2,2'-bipyridine (bpy) concentration of 1 mM yielded monomeric sugar yields of approximately 77% glucose and 66% xylose (based on the initial sugar composition) following enzymatic hydrolysis. Technoeconomic analysis (TEA) indicates that these changes to the two-stage alkaline/Cu-AHP pretreatment process could potentially reduce the minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) by more than $\$1.00$ per gallon of biofuel compared to the reference case where both stages were conducted at 30 °C with higher chemical inputs.
Integrated Two-Stage Alkaline-Oxidative Pretreatment of Hybrid Poplar. Part 1: Impact of Alkaline Pre-Extraction Conditions on Process Performance and Lignin Properties
We previously demonstrated that a two-stage pretreatment comprising of an alkaline pre-extraction followed by a Cu-catalyzed alkaline–oxidative treatment is effective at pretreating hardwoods under relatively mild reaction conditions. In this work, we focus on characterizing how biomass source and reaction conditions used during the alkaline pre-extraction impact the subsequent processing stages as well as lignin yields and properties. Specifically, three hybrid poplars were subjected to the first stage alkaline pre-extraction under various conditions including differences in time (15–300 min), temperature (95–155 °C), and alkali loadings (50–200 mg NaOH/g biomass), and the impact on total mass solubilization, lignin recovery, and lignin purity was determined. Empirical correlations were developed between reaction conditions and mass solubilization and lignin recovery during the pre-extraction stage. For select conditions, lignin properties were assessed and include β-O-4 content determined by 13C NMR, molecular mass distributions as determined by gel permeation chromatography, and susceptibility to depolymerization to aromatic monomers using thioacidolysis and formic acid catalyzed depolymerization. We found alkaline pre-extraction performed at higher temperatures generated lignins exhibiting lower contamination by polysaccharides, lower aromatic monomer yields from depolymerization, lower molar masses, and lower β-O-4 contents relative to the lower temperature pre-extractions. Lastly, the pre-extracted biomass from select conditions was assessed for its response to the subsequent Cu-catalyzed alkaline–oxidative treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. It was demonstrated that minor differences in delignification during pre-extraction have quantifiable impacts on the subsequent efficacy of the second stage of pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis with improved lignin removal during the first pre-extraction stage resulting in improved hydrolysis yields.
Quantum Simulations of Vibrational Strong Coupling via Path Integrals
A quantum simulation of vibrational strong coupling (VSC) in the collective regime via thermostated ring-polymer molecular dynamics (TRPMD) is reported. For a collection of liquid-phase water molecules resonantly coupled to a single lossless cavity mode, the simulation shows that as compared with a fully classical calculation, the inclusion of nuclear and photonic quantum effects does not lead to a change in the Rabi splitting but does broaden polaritonic line widths roughly by a factor of 2. Moreover, under thermal equilibrium, both quantum and classical simulations predict that the static dielectric constant of liquid water is largely unchanged inside vs outside the cavity. Furthermore, this result disagrees with a recent experiment demonstrating that the static dielectric constant of liquid water can be resonantly enhanced under VSC, suggesting either limitations of our approach or perhaps other experimental factors that have not yet been explored.
Mechanisms of Enhanced Optical Absorption for Ultrathin Silicon Solar Microcells with an Integrated Nanostructured Backside Reflector
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Integrated Nano-Domains of Disordered and Ordered Spinel Phases in LiNi 0.5 Mn 1.5 O 4 for Li-Ion Batteries
Recent calculations and experimental data suggest that understanding the local ordering behavior of Ni/Mn will be critical to optimize the electrochemical properties of LiNi 0.5 Mn 1.5 O 4 (LNMO) high voltage spinel. In this study, we systematically controlled the evolution of Ni and Mn ordering in LNMO samples by annealing them at 700 °C in air for different dwelling times, followed by quenching to room temperature. The long- and short-range ordering behavior of Ni and Mn were analyzed by combining neutron powder diffraction, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) data. The results show that the fraction of ordered phase increases rapidly during initial annealing at 700 °C for 6 h, and accompanied by decreasing amounts of secondary phases. Annealing longer than 6 h led to the growth in size of ordered domains (i.e., increased segregation of ordered and disordered domains) along with a slow increase in the fraction of ordered phase. The dependence of open circuit voltages (OCVs) of the LNMO on the degree of ordering agrees well with recent calculations using the density functional theory. The increase in the degree of ordering increases the open circuit voltage (OCV) and the initial capacity but reduces cycle life and rate capability. The LNMO delivered optimal battery performances (capacity, cycle life, and rate capability) after annealing at 700 °C for 2 h. This partially ordered sample showed the respective advantages from both disordered and ordered spinels: better spinel-phase purity (thus, higher initial capacity) from the ordered LNMO and better cycle life and rate capability from the disordered LNMO.
Integrated Process Configuration for High-Temperature Sulfur Mitigation during Biomass Conversion via Indirect Gasification
Sulfur present in biomass often causes catalyst deactivation during downstream operations after gasification. Early removal of sulfur from the syngas stream post-gasification is possible via process rearrangements and can be beneficial for maintaining a low-sulfur environment for all downstream operations. High-temperature sulfur sorbents have superior performance and capacity under drier syngas conditions. The reconfigured process discussed in this paper is comprised of indirect biomass gasification using dry recycled gas from downstream operations, which produces a drier syngas stream and, consequently, more-efficient sulfur removal at high temperatures using regenerable sorbents. A combination of experimental results from NREL's fluidizable Ni-based reforming catalyst, fluidizable Mn-based sulfur sorbent, and process modeling information show that using a coupled process of dry gasification with high-temperature sulfur removal can improve the performance of Ni-based reforming catalysts significantly.
Structure of an integral membrane sterol reductase from Methylomicrobium alcaliphilum
Abstract not provided
An integrated approach to realizing high-performance liquid-junction quantum dot sensitized solar cells
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Semitransparent organic photovoltaics for building-integrated photovoltaic applications
Not provided.
Synthetic bacteriochlorins with integral spiro-piperidine motifs
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Robust and well-controlled TiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 binary nanoarray-integrated ceramic honeycomb for efficient propane combustion
Well-tuned TiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 binary nanoarrays had been fabricated onto ceramic honeycombs and exhibited excellent robustness and catalytic activity for propane oxidation.
Harnessing solvent effects to integrate alkylamine into metal–organic frameworks for exceptionally high CO 2 uptake
Alkylamine modified MOF prepared with a less polar solvent (cyclohexane) has a higher alkylamine loading amount and higher CO 2 uptake than when prepared in a more polar solvent (dichloromethane).
Towards a Faddeev-AGS Description of (d, p) Reactions With Heavy Nuclei: Regularizing Integrals with Coulomb Functions
Abstract not provided.
How can a diverse set of integral and semi-integral measurements inform identification of discrepant nuclear data?
Nuclear data are used for a variety of applications, including criticality safety, reactor performance, and material safeguards. Despite the breadth of use-cases, the effective neutron multiplication factor, keff, of ICSBEP critical assemblies are primarily used for nuclear data validation; these are sensitive to specific energy regions and nuclides and are unable to uniquely constrain nuclear data. As a consequence, general-purpose nuclear data libraries, such as ENDF/B-VIII.0, may have deficiencies that, while not apparent in criticality applications, negatively impact other applications, such as non-destructive analysis of special nuclear material and neutron diagnosed subcritical experiments. Recent work by the Experiments Underpinned by Computational Learning for Improvements in Nuclear Data (EUCLID) project developed a machine learning tool, RAFIEKI, which uses random forests and the SHAP metric to determine which nuclear data contribute most to predicted bias between measured and simulated responses (e.g. keff). This paper contrasts RAFIEKI analysis applied to keff only against RAFIEKI analysis with keff paired with either LLNL pulsed sphere measurements or subcritical benchmarks. Two examples show that a) including pulsed sphere measurements substantially increases 9Be nuclear data importance to bias between 2 and 15 MeV, and b) including subcritical benchmarks has the potential for disentangling compensating errors between 240Pu (n,el) and (n,il) cross-sections between 0.1 and 10 MeV. These results show that RAFIEKI analysis applied to response sets that include, but go beyond, keff can aid nuclear data evaluators in identifying issues in nuclear data.
Path integral Monte Carlo with importance sampling for excitons interacting with an arbitrary phonon bath
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High aspect ratio nanoneedle probes with an integrated electrode at the tip apex
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