Researchers around the world are discovering a variety of benefits resulting from installation of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems on farms and ranch lands, as well as the use of solar energy to power pumps for irrigation systems.
Delivering water, energy and food for all in a sustainable and equitable way is a major challenge faced by society. The water-energy-food nexus concept aims to address this by better understanding how interactions between water, energy and food are shaped by environmental, economic, social and political changes and how the synergies and trade-offs among them can be better planned and managed.
Intra‐ and intermolecular ordering greatly impacts the electronic and optoelectronic properties of semiconducting polymers. The interrelationship between ordering of alkyl sidechains and conjugated backbones has yet to be fully detailed, despite much prior effort.
In this report, a high‐performance all‐polymer organic photodetector that is sensitive to linearly polarized light throughout the visible spectrum is demonstrated. The active layer is a bulk heterojunction composed of an electron donor polymer PBnDT‐FTAZ and acceptor polymer P(NDI2OD‐T2) that have complementary spectral absorption resulting in efficient detection from 350 to 800 nm.
While oil companies built seawalls and elevated their oil rigs to protect critical production infrastructure from the rising sea level, they concealed from the public the knowledge that burning fossil fuels could have catastrophic impacts on the biosphere.
From California to Texas, recent droughts and declining groundwater levels require more pumping to provide irrigation water for crops.
Fluorinated molecule 2,3,5,6‐tetrafluoro‐7,7,8,8‐tetracyanoquinodimethane (F4‐TCNQ) and its derivatives have been used in polymer:fullerene solar cells primarily as a dopant to optimize the electrical properties and device performance. However, the underlying mechanism and generality of how F4‐TCNQ affects device operation and possibly the morphology is poorly understood, particularly for emerging nonfullerene organic solar cells.
Breweries are quite creative these days when it comes to saving energy. Double Mountain Brewery in Oregon uses refillable beer bottles, Five & 20 Spirits and Brewing turns its waste grain and water into compost for aquaculture, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company recovers carbon dioxide from the fermentation cycle.
The human population has reached 7.6 billion and could number 9 billion or 10 billion by midcentury. All those people will need to eat. A sobering report published Wednesday in the journal Nature argues that a sustainable food system that doesn’t ravage the environment is going to require dramatic reforms, including a radical change in dietary habits.
Increased populations in cities may lead to greater efficiency, as a team of Penn State researchers discovered when they analyzed the water footprint of 65 mid- to large-sized U.S. cities.
Building on our previous works that compared the efficacy of terpolymers vs. ternary blends in improving the performance of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells, the final piece of this series of studies focuses on comparing terpolymer and ternary blends constructed with two polymers with structurally similar backbones (monoCNTAZ and FTAZ) yet markedly different open circuit voltage (Voc) values. Terpolymers and ternary blends of five different ratios were studied and the results demonstrate that while the overall performance of both the systems is similar, the ternary blends exhibit higher short circuit current (Jsc) values, while the terpolymers exhibit higher Voc values.
Two-dimensional (2D) perovskites, with a formula of (RNH3)2MAn–1PbnI3n+1, have shown impressive photovoltaic device efficiency with improved stability. The operating mechanism of such photovoltaic devices is under debate and the scope of incorporated organic cations (RNH3+) is limited.
Polymer conductors that are solution-processable provide an opportunity to realize low-cost organic electronics. However, coating sequential layers can be hindered by poor surface wetting or dissolution of underlying layers.
As populations grow and climate change shrinks freshwater stores, water scarcity takes center stage
Being hailed as the greatest mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by the tractor, center pivot irrigation systems irrigate crops with a significant reduction in both labor and water needs compared to traditional irrigation methods, such as flood irrigation. In the last few decades, the deployment of center pivot irrigation systems has increased dramatically throughout the United States. Monitoring the installment and operation of the center pivot systems can help: (i) Water resource management agencies to objectively assess water consumption and properly allocate water resources, (ii) Agro-businesses to locate potential customers, and (iii) Researchers to investigate land use change.
Sabo et al. presented an empirically derived algorithm defining the socioecological response of the Tonle Sap Dai fishery in the Cambodian Mekong to basin-scale variation in hydrologic flow regime. Williams suggests that the analysis leading to the algorithm is flawed because of the large distance between the gauge used to measure water levels (hydrology) and the site of harvest for the fishery.
We report 4 fused-ring electron acceptors (FREAs) with the same end-groups and side-chains but different cores, whose sizes range from 5 to 11 fused rings. The core size has considerable effects on the electronic, optical, charge transport, morphological, and photovoltaic properties of the FREAs.
Irrigation modifies land-surface water and energy budgets, and also influences weather and climate. However, current earth-system models, used for weather prediction and climate projection, are still in their infancy stage to consider irrigation effects. This study used long-term data collected from two contrasting (irrigated and rainfed) nearby maize-soybean rotation fields, to study the effects of irrigation memory on local hydroclimate.
In bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSC), the molecular-level mixing between conjugated polymer donors and small-molecule acceptors plays a crucial role in obtaining a desirable morphology and good device stability. It has been recently shown that the thermodynamic limit of this mixing can be quantified by the liquidus miscibility, the composition of the small-molecule acceptor in amorphous phases in the presence of small-molecule crystals, and then converted to the Flory–Huggins interaction parameter χ.
Incorporating narrow‐bandgap near‐infrared absorbers as the third component in a donor/acceptor binary blend is a new strategy to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic photovoltaics (OPV). However, there are two main restrictions: potential charge recombination in the narrow‐gap material and miscompatibility between each component.
Due to technical and budget limitations, there are inevitably some trade-offs in the design of remote sensing instruments, making it difficult to acquire high spatiotemporal resolution remote sensing images simultaneously. To address this problem, this paper proposes a new data fusion model named the deep convolutional spatiotemporal fusion network (DCSTFN), which makes full use of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to derive high spatiotemporal resolution images from remotely sensed images with high temporal but low spatial resolution (HTLS) and low temporal but high spatial resolution (LTHS).
Appendix CMembrane pore wetting is a unique and important technical challenge for membrane distillation (MD). While the general principle of pore wetting is well known, the detailed mechanism of pore wetting induced by surfactants that can actively adsorb onto membrane pore surface has not been theoretically elucidated. In this study, we developed a theoretical model, based on surfactant transport in a partially wetted membrane pore under the pseudo-steady state assumption, to quantify the kinetics of pore wetting.
Thermal and hydrothermal treatments are promising techniques for sewage sludge management that can potentially facilitate safe waste disposal, energy recovery, and nutrient recovery/recycling. Content and speciation of heavy metals in the treatment products affect the potential environmental risks upon sludge disposal and/or application of the treatment products.
Tight interconnections exist between water, energy, and food systems. As stresses on these
resource systems continue to increase, there is a growing need to better quantify and
understand the trade-offs associated with their future planning and management (Figure 1).
Water is used to produce hydropower and to cool thermal power plants. Groundwater is
impacted by hydraulic fracturing: the extraction of oil and gas carries the collateral danger of
contaminating neighbouring aquifers and affecting the supply of water for drinking . . .
Proposing solutions to address different resource hotspots must be multi-faceted and need to acknowledge the multiple dimensions of the biophysical water, energy, and food systems, and the players connected with them. This commentary first explores the multiple dimensions of water, energy, and food systems as these relate to government, business, and society. It then identifies contemporary critical questions at the interface of these stressed resource systems.
Pore wetting is a unique and important technical challenge that can lead to process failure in membrane distillation (MD) using hydrophobic membranes. While it is well known that both low-surface-tension and water miscible liquids, such as alcohols, and amphiphilic molecules, such as surfactants, are effective wetting agents, the detailed mechanisms for these agents to induce pore wetting remain unclear. In particular, the role of surface adsorption in surfactant-induced wetting remains to be elucidated.
Polyphosphates are a group of phosphorus (P) containing molecules that are produced by a wide range of microorganisms and human activities. Although polyphosphates are ubiquitous in aquatic environments and are of environmental significance, little is known about their transformation and cycling. This study characterized the polyphopshate-hydrolysis mechanisms of several representative phosphatase enzymes and evaluated the effects of polyphosphate chain length, light condition, and calcium (Ca2+).
LucidEnergy—a Portland-based startup that launched in 2007—has discovered a way to use the city’s drinking water to generate electricity without any negative environmental impacts.
We choose the high-performance nonfullerene acceptor ITIC-Th as an example, and incorporate electron-donating methoxy and electron-withdrawing F groups onto the terminal group 1,1-dicyanomethylene-3-indanone (IC) to construct a small library of four fused-ring electron acceptors. With this series, we systematically investigate the effects of the substituents on the end-groups on the electronic properties, charge transport, film morphology, and photovoltaic properties of the ITIC-Th series.
The commercialization of nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs) critically relies on the response under typical operating conditions (for instance, temperature and humidity) and the ability of scale‐up. Despite the rapid increase in power conversion efficiency (PCE) of spin‐coated devices fabricated in a protective atmosphere, the efficiencies of printed nonfullerene OSC devices by blade coating are still lower than 6%.
An all-polymer bulk heterojunction (BHJ) active layer that removes the use of commonly used small molecule electron acceptors is a promising approach to improve the thermomechanical behavior of organic solar cells. However, there has been limited research on their mechanical properties.
We compared an indacenodithiophene(IDT)-based fused-ring electron acceptor IDIC1 with its counterpart IHIC1 in which the central benzene unit is replaced by a naphthalene unit, and investigated the effects of the benzene/naphthalene core on the optical and electronic properties as well as on the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs). Compared with benzene-cored IDIC1, naphthalene-cored IHIC1 shows a larger π-conjugation with stronger intermolecular π–π stacking.
Research by: Jingshuai Zhu Zhifan Ke Qianqian Zhang Jiayu Wang Shuixing Dai Yang Wu Ye Xu Yuze Lin Wei Ma Wei You Xiaowei Zhan Abstract:
Black carbon (BC) is ubiquitous in the environments and participates in various biogeochemical processes. Both positive and negative effects of BC (especially biochar) on the ecosystem have been identified, which are mainly derived from its diverse physicochemical properties.
A novel Janus membrane integrating an omniphobic substrate and an in-air hydrophilic, underwater superoleophobic skin layer was developed to enable membrane distillation (MD) to desalinate hypersaline brine with both hydrophobic foulants and amphiphilic wetting agents.
This website was created with the cooperation of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville under the supervision of Dr. Jie (Joe) Zhuang, Dr. Frank Loeffler, and Dr. Gary Sayler.
This project was funded by a research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a program called Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS). Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.
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