Water Resource Recovery Facilities Empower the Electrolytic Hydrogen Economy.

The global transition to net-zero emissions necessitates the integration of clean hydrogen as a key solution. To facilitate the required expansion of clean hydrogen production, sustainable water sources are required to support the electrolysis process. Utilizing nontraditional water sources such as water resource recovery facility (WRRF) effluents could potentially alleviate the water constraints and create cobenefits, but the real-world feasibility has not been explored in depth.

Decarbonizing the Coal-Fired Power Sector in China via Carbon Capture, Geological Utilization, and Storage Technology.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a critical technology to realize carbon neutrality target in the Chinese coal-fired power sector, which emitted 3.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2017. However, CCUS technology is often viewed as an "alternative technology" option owing to common perceptions of relatively high cost and potential risks.

Updated Hourly Emissions Factors for Chinese Power Plants Showing the Impact of Widespread Ultralow Emissions Technology Deployment.

Nationwide severe air pollution has prompted China to mandate the adoption of ultralow emissions (ULE) control technologies at all of its coal-fired power plants by 2020. This process has accelerated greatly since 2014 and, combined with operational adjustments related to overcapacity, has reduced the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO ), sulfur dioxide (SO), and particulate matter (PM). Yet the quantitative understanding of ULE benefits is poor.

Patterned nanorod arrays produced from hydrophobically masked templates.

A simple method to mask hydrophobically porous templates for patterned nanorod growth is described. Patterning was achieved by treating the template with an alkylsilane to render the pores hydrophobic, followed by irradiation with UV light to selectively degrade the alkyl siloxyl coating in the illuminated regions to produce a template with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic pores. Patterned arrays comprising a single metallic composition and multiple metallic compositions were electrodeposited in the hydrophobically masked template.

Electric-field-induced orientation of surfactant-templated nanoscopic silica.

While exhibiting a well-defined nanometer-level structure, surfactant-templated nanoscopic silicas produced via self-assembly do not always possess long-range order. We demonstrate that long-range order can be controlled by guiding the self-assembly of nanostructured silica-surfactant hybrids with low-strength electric fields (E approximately 200 V/m) to produce nanoscopic silica with both the micrometer- and nanometer-level structures oriented parallel to the applied field. Under the influence of the electric field, nanoscopic silica particles migrate, elongate, and merge into fibers with a rate of migration proportional to the applied field strength.

Evidence of ion transport through surface conduction in alkylsilane-functionalized nanoporous ceramic membranes.

Alkylsilane-modified nanoporous ceramic membranes exclude water from their pores yet exhibit transmembrane electrical conductivity in aqueous electrolyte solutions. That effect was studied using impedance spectroscopy and (29)Si NMR. Anodic aluminum oxide membranes with alkylsilane-functionalized pores exhibited a transmembrane electrical resistance that increased with the length of the hydrocarbon chain.

Mesoporous silica composites containing multiple regions with distinct pore size and complex pore organization.

Porous ceramics are of great interest for filtration, catalysis, and reactive separation processes. Performance in these applications is highly dependent on features such as pore size distribution and connectivity and wall composition. Here, we describe a method allowing the rational design and synthesis of mesoporous silica composites with controlled heterogeneous pore architectures and demonstrate its validity by producing structures with predetermined placement of regions having different pore size and pore organization.