Influence of impurities on the use of Fe-based powder as sustainable fuel.

Sustainable energy production, inherently transient and non-uniformly distributed around the world, requires the rapid development of sustainable energy storage technologies. Recently, pure iron powder was proposed as a high-energy density carrier. While promising, challenges are faced, such as nanoparticle emissions, micro-explosions or cavitation.

Cost-competitive decentralized ammonia fertilizer production can increase food security.

The current centralized configuration of the ammonia industry makes the production of nitrogen fertilizers susceptible to the volatility of fossil fuel prices and involves complex supply chains with long-distance transport costs. An alternative consists of on-site decentralized ammonia production using small modular technologies, such as electric Haber-Bosch or electrocatalytic reduction. Here we evaluate the cost-competitiveness of producing low-carbon ammonia at the farm scale, from a solar agrivoltaic system, or using electricity from the grid, within a novel global fertilizer industry.

The Suitability of RNA from Positive SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Tests for Whole Virus Genome Sequencing and Variant Identification to Maintain Genomic Surveillance.

Unlabelled: The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed laboratory management, with a surge in demand for diagnostic tests prompting the adoption of new diagnostic assays and the spread of variant surveillance tools. Rapid antigen tests (RATs) were initially used only for screening and later as suitable infection assessment tools. This study explores the feasibility of sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 genome from the residue of the nasopharyngeal swab extraction buffers of rapid antigen tests (RATs) to identify different COVID-19 lineages and sub-lineages.

Global land and water limits to electrolytic hydrogen production using wind and solar resources.

Proposals for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 include scaling-up electrolytic hydrogen production, however, this poses technical, economic, and environmental challenges. One such challenge is for policymakers to ensure a sustainable future for the environment including freshwater and land resources while facilitating low-carbon hydrogen production using renewable wind and solar energy. We establish a country-by-country reference scenario for hydrogen demand in 2050 and compare it with land and water availability.

Optimizing upside variability and antifragility in renewable energy system design.

Despite the considerable uncertainty in predicting critical parameters of renewable energy systems, the uncertainty during system design is often marginally addressed and consistently underestimated. Therefore, the resulting designs are fragile, with suboptimal performances when reality deviates significantly from the predicted scenarios. To address this limitation, we propose an antifragile design optimization framework that redefines the indicator to optimize variability and introduces an antifragility indicator.