Herein, a vertical contact-separated triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) composed of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and graphene oxide nanosheets (GO) is prepared. The effect of GO on PVDF nanofibers is analyzed to find the optimal mass fraction of GO. The morphology, structure, and output performance of PVDF nanofibers are characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometer, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, and digital oscilloscope. The results show that PVDF/GO nanofiber films produce output voltage of about 450 V and short-circuit current of about 35 μA. The maximum peak power density of TENG consisting of PVDF/GO with cotton fibers is about 5.1 W m−2 under impedance-matching conditions. Addition with GO suppresses the formation of α-phase PVDF, thus facilitating the formation of β-phase PVDF in the crystal structure. Furthermore, doping with GO reduces the average diameter of PVDF nanofibers. The PVDF nanofibers prepared in combination with the electrospinning process yield larger effective contact areas for TENG, which can significantly improve the output performance of the TENG.

In this work, we examined the FTO/TiO2/Sb2S3/Au solar cell characteristics via SCAPS-1D modeling. The research begins with device modeling of the Sb2S3 conventional solar cell based on experimental data, which results in excellent agreement with the conversion efficiency (PCE) recorded in the literature of ∽4.72%. The influence of several factors on the characteristics of conventional solar cells is then investigated, including Sb2S3 thickness, carrier concentration, bulk and interface defects, and buffer layer type (TiO2, WS2, and CdS). An optimal efficiency of 9.97%, Voc of 0.96 V, Jsc of 19.69% FF of 52.26% was found for the FTO/WS2/Sb2S3/Au optimized solar cell. Finally, we investigated the influence of NiO as the back-surface field (BSF) and parasitic resistance (Rs and Rsh) on the performance of Sb2S3 solar cells. The innovative solar cell design (FTO/WS2/Sb2S3/NiO/Au) with NiO thickness of 20 nm, Rs 700 Ω.cm-2 yielded a high efficiency of more than 14.38%, FF > 68.93%, Voc > 1 V, and Jsc > 20.67 mA/cm2. These qualities allow for the large-scale manufacture of a solar cell by including it in a manufacturing workflow.

Recently, several studies have paved a way to nearly 100% selectivity of the electrochemical ammonia synthesis (EAS), which had been identified earlier as a main challenge. These results motivate us to benchmark the energy efficiency (EE) of EAS against the Haber–Bosch process for EAS works published in 2020, 2021, and 2022. A method is presented to estimate EE of EAS, which can be used by a broader audience. EAS studies historically suffered from reliability issues, and to avoid benchmarking of false-positive results, a method is established to calculate a reliability indicator to assess the measurement reliability of a published work. The EE of EAS is calculated for works that are assessed as reliable with the indicator. Several promising systems and strategies enabling higher selectivity and EE are identified and discussed. The EE of some aqueous EAS reports is up to 55%, and nonaqueous is below 15%. However, while nonaqueous media reports suffer from low energy efficiency, they demonstrate much higher technology readiness levels (TRL) and total ammonium produced. Aqueous media reports have a great potential for higher energy efficiency, but they are at much lower TRL and total ammonia quantities produced are low.

In photovoltaic (PV) modules, resistive solder bond (RSB) hotspots are the primary cause for a reduction in output power of over 25%. They may be the result of inadequate soldering between the busbars and/or between the busbars and the interconnector ribbon during the circuit assembly procedure for the PV module. This study proposes a straightforward, dependable, and rapid method for reducing RSB hotspots in PV modules using additional solder flux during the circuit soldering process. The soldering of PV modules is examined in accordance with actual conditions present in PV module manufacturers during the manufacture of circuits. Using the tab pull test and the damp heat test, respectively, the bonding strength and dependability of the soldered connectors are evaluated. Connectors soldered with flux have a void ratio of 10% that is five times lower than connectors soldered without flux. In addition, connectors with flux decrease soldering strength by a range of −1.54% to −7.69%, whereas connectors without flux decrease soldering strength by a range of −17.39% to −29.31%. During long-term reliability evaluations on repaired 370A and 370B samples, the RSB hotspots are substantially reduced by incorporating additional flux into the circuit process. In addition, the application of additional solder at the busbar to interconnetor ribbon soldering site prevents RSB hotspots effectively. The results are anticipated to provide comprehensive and straightforward solutions for significantly reducing RSB hotspot failures in commercial PV modules.

The energy and costs required to reliquefy the boil-off gas (BOG) produced in liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanks are enormous. At the same time, LNG releases large amounts of cold energy during the regasification process. To recover both the BOG and the LNG cold energy for power generation, herein, a novel system consisting of a supercritical carbon dioxide recompression Brayton cycle, an ammonia–water mixture Kalina cycle, a BOG combustion turbine cycle, and a natural gas turbine cycle is presented. The genetic algorithm with multiple elite saving is used to optimize the system thermoeconomic performance, and the maximum energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, and net present value of 65.49%, 33.88%, and 7.374 × 107 $ are obtained respectively. The nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II is implemented to achieve the multiobjective optimization, and the comprehensive performance analysis is carried out on this basis. The results show that heat exchangers and turbines account for the highest exergy destruction and total cost proportion with the value of 76.5% and 81.1% respectively. The heat transfer curves between LNG and working fluids are well matched, and the cooling capacity for ammonia liquefaction is the largest, accounting for 66.66%, which also generates 581.2 kW of power generation. The results also indicate that the LNG cold energy cascade utilization system combined with BOG combustion has excellent thermodynamic performance and can obtain ideal economic benefits.

Hybrid perovskite light-harvesting materials offer a high absorption coefficient, solution-based synthesis techniques, and tunable bandgap, making them ideal for high-performance renewable energy devices. The primary focus of current investigations is the design and comparative numerical investigation of solar cells. Key aspects with a substantial influence on device output, such as quantum efficiency, surface depth, bandgap tuning, interfacial defect densities, thicknesses of structural layers, temperature, carrier generation, and recombination rates, are explored and optimized. The investigation of Cu-based hole-transport layers (HTLs) has revealed that Cu2O (power conversion efficiency [PCE] = 22.60%), CuCrO2 (PCE = 22.25%), and CuI (PCE = 21.54%) have shown remarkable photovoltaic parameters with high carrier generation and reduced recombination rates. CuCrO2 has shown significant electrical parameters, which are further incorporated into the module simulation software PVsyst. Calculations are performed with a combination of 72 cells in series for a solar module of standard weight 27 kg and dimensions 2.20 m × 1.10 m in Islamabad, Pakistan. The module has shown an impressive power output of 523.40 W and an annual performance ratio of 88.6%. Simulated results endorse a viable and technically feasible route to incorporate Cu-based HTLs into the design of perovskite absorber-based solar cells and modules to increase their efficiency and maximize power production.

The spent catalysts discarded during chemical manufacturing can be a source of pollution and are classified as hazardous waste. Looking at the bright sides of the mission of waste management, such as recycling and reducing, reuse such types of the spent catalyst can be chemically treated to extract valuable salts and metals. Such a process not only reduces waste disposal issues but also promotes a circular economy ecosystem. This present study aims to extract MoO3 from the spent petroleum catalyst, Mo–Ni/Al2O3, and further processing of Mo-metal organic framework (MOF) particles using extracted MoO3 and imidazole acting as an organic binder. The structural, morphology, and thermal properties of Mo-MOF are evaluated. The surface roughness and positive surface potential of the Mo-MOF are achieved. The Mo-MOF/Kapton-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) generate a 148 V voltage, 470 nA current, and 17 nC charge. Further, TENG is utilized to charge the capacitors, and powering of the electronic devices is demonstrated. The repetition of the boxing punches and exercises can be monitored using TENGs and paves the way toward intelligent sports or healthcare.

In order to be able to continue using internal combustion engines in a sustainable manner, it must be ensured that these engines are operated exclusively with renewable, CO2-neutral fuels (e-fuels). An elegant way ito proof this is the use of a fluorescence sensor in the vehicle in combination with fuels that are labeled with a fluorescence marker. In this study we show that the benzophenonexazine compound Nile red proves to be a suitable fluorescence marker for fuel labeling, since the emission spectrum of fuels labeled with Nile red is in a suitable range of λem ∽ 600 nm - 700 nm for sensory detection. Moreover, the fluorescence spectrum of this fluorescence marker proves to be stable to thermo-oxidative aging over 192 h. Additionally, we discovered that, based on the exemplary aging of two monoalcohols, Nile red shows an antioxidant effect with respect to fuel aging of at least 33%.

The ground-source heat pump heating and cooling system is currently the most important development and utilization method of shallow geothermal resources, but its key component is the ground heat exchanger system. Herein, a new type of ground heat exchanger, the soil-cement energy pile, is proposed. The similarity model comparison experiments of the soil-cement energy piles and the soil energy pile in summer and winter were conducted respectively, and the 3D numerical models of heat transfer of the two kinds of energy piles are established, their related thermal properties are verified. Then the heat transfer calculation methods of the soil-cement energy pile are presented and validated. The research has shown that the soil-cement energy pile has good thermodynamic performance, which effectively reduces the largest thermal resistance in the heat transfer system of the energy pile, the thermal resistance of pile body material, and the heat transfer per linear meter of the soil-cement energy pile is 21.20%–55.60% higher than that of the soil energy pile. The soil-cement energy pile is of great significance to improve the thermal efficiency of the ground-source heat pump system and can reduces the overall project cost.

The lithium–sulfur battery is a promising electrochemical storage solution, especially for aviation and aeronautical applications, due to its high-gravimetric energy density (specific energy) and the abundance of sulfur. In recent years, the number of reported prototype cells and their realized energy have increased. This underlines the progress of technology readiness of the lithium–sulfur system. However, the influence of the cathode porosity as well as the porosity of the carbon material on the performance of prototype cells is still not fully understood. Consequently, in this study, the porosity of solvent-free processed cathodes is investigated, with varying carbon matrix composition, via mercury intrusion porosimetry and synchrotron tomography. Moreover, the swelling behavior of the S/C dry-film cathodes is investigated and mitigated. These cathodes are then electrochemically evaluated at pouch cell level with ether-based electrolytes with varying E/S ratios. The combination of the gained findings in pouch cells enables specific energies of 425 Wh kg−1 and 558 Wh L−1 at cell level.

The flexible energy conversion in piston engines offers one possibility for storing energy from renewable sources. This work theoretically explores the engine-based dry methane reforming converting mechanical energy into chemical energy. The endothermic, endergonic reforming process is activated by the temperature increase during the compression stroke, assisted by a reduction of the heat capacity through dilution with argon. This leads to an increase in chemical exergy, as higher-exergy species are produced with small exergy losses while simultaneously consuming CO2. The engine-based homogenous dry reforming serves as a flexible power-to-gas process and energy storage solution, presenting an alternative to catalytic processes. The piston engine is simulated using a time-dependent single-zone model with detailed chemical kinetics, followed by an analysis of thermodynamics and kinetics. With inlet temperatures ranging from 423–473 K and argon dilutions of 91–94 mol%, CH4 and CO2 conversion are between 50%–90% and 30%–80%, respectively, resulting in synthesis gas yields of 45–55%. Additionally, higher hydrocarbons such as C2H2, C2H4, and C6H6 are produced with yields of up to 20%, 10%, and 10%. So, this power-to-gas process allows for exergy storage of up to 3.35 kW L−1 per cycle with an efficiency of up to 75%.

Solar-driven evaporation technology is rejuvenated by multifunctional photothermal materials into complimentary energy conversion applications. These multifunctional materials endow broadband solar absorptions, chemical/physical stability, porous, and active sites for in -situ photodegradation with exceptional solar-to-vapor conversion efficiencies. The structural configuration of evaporation structures is significantly improved by effective thermal management and salt-resistant water channels with balanced relation between evaporation flux and water intake. These attributes lead this technology to higher evaporation rates and complimentary applications such as waste heat recovery to thermoelectricity, salt collection from seawater, and micro-organism disinfection from wastewater. This review comprehensively reports the recent advances in state-of-the-art multifunctional materials, novel evaporation designs with significant structural optimization, and their small-scale prototypes. The current challenges, origins, and possible solutions are provided. This systematic review inspires the nanoresearch community to push forward solar-driven evaporation technology with superb complimentary energy conversion applications.

This work discusses a study of the disruptive design of a thermal power plant implemented by several power units coupled in cascade aiming at increase the heat utilizations factor. Thus, the study addresses the phases prior to the implementation of a prototype of a heat-to-work converter and analyzes the performance using a vacuum carried out by cooling. Vacuums have been used in steam engines according to open processes with changes of state for several centuries. In the case under study, a disruptive technique is proposed by which a vacuum is used in closed processes without a change of phase. Likewise, a plant structure based on the cascading coupling of three thermal cycles is designed to achieve a high heat utilization factor. Although the average thermal efficiency obtained in this study is 59.8 for air and 66.7 for helium as working fluids, the most relevant criterion deals with plant performance, for which the heat utilization factor surpasses 85% for air and 96% for helium as a working fluid. Despite the unprecedentedly high heat utilization factor, this study indicates some potential to further increase the heat utilization factor because the power plant can be implemented using heat regeneration strategies.

A CNN-SVM method based on multi-channel feature fusion is used for progressive fault diagnosis of offshore oil & gas wells. The excellent classification performance of CNN is attributed to its ability to extract feature representations from large amounts of easily distinguishable data. However, the capability of CNN is severely constrained by the noisy and small sample amount of the electric submersible pump fault data to be studied in this paper. Firstly, 12 representative statistical features are extracted from the raw data to reduce the noise. Then the feature mapping model is designed based on CNN migration learning. Finally, SVM is used instead of softmax function to adopt representative features directly from the mapping model for fault classification. Comparative experimental results show that the accuracy of fault diagnosis using feature-extracted samples is better than using the raw samples directly. The proposed CNN-SVM approach has the best classification results compared to SVM,BPNN,CNN,BPNN-SVM,CNN-Attention,CNN-LSTM and CNN-LSTM-Attention, which implies that manual feature extraction is still an indispensable tool in the fault diagnosis process.

P-type mono PERC solar cell, the backbone of industrial manufacturing of solar cells for the past two years, has a roadmap for achieving >24% efficiency. The decrease of the recombination of minority carriers brought about by turning from full-area rear metal contact to partial rear contact (<10%) accounts for the majority of the increase in efficiency of PERC solar cells over Al-BSF solar cells which reached its maximum efficiency around 19.5%. P-type TOPCon solar cells have achieved further improvement in efficiency ≥ 25% by completely removing the partial rear metal contact and introducing a thin tunneling oxide layer at the rear. But high lifetime of p-type wafers and controlled porosity of the thin tunneling oxide layer and p-type polysilicon conductivity are major challenges for P-type TOPCon solar cells. Thus passivating the partial rear and front metal contacts using SiOx/poly-Si tunnelling layer stacks and using SiNx on the front side and an AlOx/SiNx stack on the back to passivate the remaining areas might lead to further advancements in PERC solar cells. Therefore, by integrating TOPCon and PERC architectures, as originally proposed by Fraunhofer lab, a modified design known as TOPerc solar cell has been studied in depth in this paper. Using 3D Sentaurus TCAD simulation software, a thorough numerical simulation of a p-TOPerc solar cell has been performed. It is shown that efficiency of 25.2% and 26.0% is obtained for a P-type wafer of bulk lifetime of 400µs and 5.0ms respectively.

Climate change impacts due to unprecedented rising concentrations of greenhouse gas (GHG) are intensifying and widespread, making extreme climate events more widespread, frequent, and severe. To mitigate the worst consequences of climate warming, in this study we investigated how the global community can collectively achieve a large-scale, sustained reduction in GHG emissions, and how to effectively move away from a predominantly fossil fuel-based economy to one dominated by renewable energy? This transition is necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG) of United Nations (UN) to ensure resilient and healthy environment for present and future generations, especially the SDG7 of UN, 'Affordable and Clean Energy', set up to achieve global development of modern renewable energy systems. Investment policies and patterns of developed and developing countries in transitioning to energy productions primarily from renewable sources and obstacles such as scale-up challenges, innovations in new energy systems, policies, financing mechanisms, and implementation strategies are examined. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview of the present global status of hydropower, wind and solar, the three most significant renewable electricity technologies, as well as their basic operating principles, costs, and potential is conducted. Hydroelectric, wind and solar power had grown from 3429, 346 and 34 TWh yr-1 in 2010 to 4274, 1598 and 846 TWh yr-1 in 2020, a growth of about 1.25, 4.60, and 24.9 times in a decade, respectively. Strategies to achieve energy systems that are of or near net zero GHG emissions by 2050s through the deployment of renewable energy systems are also investigated.

Recently, the participation of wind sources in electricity markets has become a severe challenge due to their intermittent nature. Reconfiguration of power systems can effectively reduce the negative effects of uncertainties. So, this article presents a new method for participating in wind power plants and uncertain customers in a day-ahead electricity market considering the reconfiguration process. This method tries to maximize social welfare through a two-level optimization problem. To this end, uncertainties are modeled using the empirical cumulative distribution function and the Monte–Carlo method, and a probabilistic analysis of the market is performed. Then, by defining some indices to evaluate the participants’ satisfaction and using the analytic hierarchy process method (AHP), a new objective function is proposed so that its minimization leads to planning the system configuration and market participants to optimize mentioned indices. The proposed methodology also assumes that the participation of uncertain participants in the spot market will eliminate the imbalances caused by uncertainties. The simulations are implemented using real data on an 8-bus sample network. The results confirm the efficiency of the proposed method in significantly reducing power producers’ and customers’ costs along with increasing total income and profit from the sale of energy.

The precise design and efficient development of nanoscale materials at the atomic level has enabled high-end renewable energy storage, conversion devices, and large-scale environmental governance equipment. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a new vapor-phase technology for precise surface thin-film preparation, and is outstanding with self-limiting reactions, large deposition area, adjustable film composition, film uniformity, angstrom thickness control and low temperature. With these characteristics, ALD plays an important role in many industry and research fields. This review briefly introduces the principle, main technical advantages and applications of ALD, including high-k gate dielectrics, solar cells, fuel cells, and photocatalysis. The progress of the ALD technology in preparation and application of photocatalyst is emphatically reviewed, and the large-scale application of ALD in photocatalytic thin-film materials is prospected.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are promising cost-effective energy harvesters useful to scavenge vibration or mechanical movements from various domains. Ranging from condition monitoring of machines to motion sensing of humans, its applications are enormous in the IoT scenario. Enhancing the performance of small-sized TENGs is of great demand, and pulsed laser-assisted texturing is an efficient and proven method to enhance the output of energy harvesters. This work studied simultaneous laser patterning of FEP dielectric material and the underneath Copper electrode with 3 different wavelengths (355, 532 and 1064 nm) of the Nd3+:YAG laser and the device’s electrical performance was analyzed. The maximum enhancement was observed in the case of 355 nm laser-assisted patterning on FEP and Cu electrode with a laser fluence of 10 J cm-2. The improvement was least in the case of 1064 nm laser-assisted patterning. Laser-patterning on the underlying electrode with this new approach was able to produce an enhancement in the TENG output. But, patterning on the FEP top surface is critical in the process.

Rational designing of electrode materials having high surface area can accomplish the enhanced charge-storing ability of the electrochemical energy storage devices. Therefore, the surface area of cobalt vanadium oxide (CVO) material is controlled by changing growth dynamics in successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) methods. Structural analysis confirms the formation of hydrous cobalt vanadium oxide nanoparticles (Co3V2O8.nH2O) thin film electrodes, and alteration in the surface area with change in growth dynamics is observed in BET analysis. The CVO1:1 thin film electrode prepared at optimal growth dynamics illustrates high specific capacitance (Cs) (capacity) of 793 F g-1 (396.7 C g-1) at 0.5 A g-1, respectively. Moreover, aqueous hybrid supercapacitor devices (AHSD) constructed using CVO1:1 as cathode exhibit high Cs of 133.5 F g-1 at 1.1 A g-1, specific energy (SE) of 47.7 Wh kg-1 with specific power (SP) of 0.90 kW kg-1. The solid-state hybrid supercapacitor devices (SHSD) also offer high Cs of 102.9 F g-1 at 0.3 A g-1, SE of 36.6 Wh kg-1 at SP of 0.30 kW kg-1. In the SILAR approach, the dipping time plays a critical role in improving the surface area of the material and, consequently, electrochemical performance, as the current work amply indicates.