scholarly journals Naturally Inspired Highly Stable Salt-Resisting Material for Solar Water Desalination

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1019
Author(s):  
Imran Ahmed Samo ◽  
Waqas Mughal ◽  
Kamran Ahmed Samo ◽  
Yang Zhong ◽  
Congtian Cheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evaporation Rate ◽  
High Salinity ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Salt Accumulation ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Water Pumping ◽  
Solar Desalination ◽  
Reduced Light

Solar desalination is a promising method for producing drinkable water, but salt accumulation on the evaporator surface leads to reduced light absorption. This study presents a nature-inspired self-driven salt-resistant material (NI-SRM) for a salt-free solar desalination system. The introduced material has great porosity to generate desirable capillary force to lift up water to the evaporator surface, which can function as water pumping channels. The concentration of salt solution in the absorber could not achieve saturation and produce salt via solar evaporation during the experiment. The NI-SRM had an evaporation rate of 3.02 kg-m−2 h−1 under 1 sun irradiation and outstanding long-term stability for the desalination of high-salinity brine with no apparent salt deposition. An 80% efficiency was achieved for 24 h under 1 sun (10 kW-m−2). Through control experiments, the multifunctional NI-SRM was found to play a critical role in preventing salt accumulation over the surface under 1 sun. The newly developed NI-SRM had a higher evaporation rate with higher stability in a high-salinity brine solution. The developed material is environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

Plasmonic chemically modified cotton nanocomposite fibers for efficient solar water desalination and wastewater treatment

Nanoscale ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (39) ◽  
pp. 18531-18539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiran D. Kiriarachchi ◽  
Fathi S. Awad ◽  
Amr A. Hassan ◽  
Julian A. Bobb ◽  
Andrew Lin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Water Desalination ◽  
Wastewater Purification ◽  
Solar Water ◽  
Chemically Modified ◽  
Highly Efficient ◽  
Solar Desalination ◽  
Low Weight ◽  
Nanocomposite Fibers

Highly efficient, flexible, low weight, and cost effective Plasmonic Functionalized Cotton (PFC) nanocomposites for efficient solar desalination and wastewater purification.

scholarly journals Free-standing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membrane for salt-rejecting solar desalination via size effect

Nanophotonics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (15) ◽  
pp. 4601-4608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengyu Zhuang ◽  
Hanyu Fu ◽  
Ning Xu ◽  
Bo Li ◽  
Jun Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Graphene Oxide ◽  
Reduced Graphene Oxide ◽  
Conversion Efficiency ◽  
High Salinity ◽  
Interlayer Spacing ◽  
Structural Instability ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Solar Desalination ◽  
Reduced Graphene

AbstractInterfacial solar vapor generation has revived the solar-thermal-based desalination due to its high conversion efficiency of solar energy. However, most solar evaporators reported so far suffer from severe salt-clogging problems during solar desalination, leading to performance degradation and structural instability. Here, we demonstrate a free-standing salt-rejecting reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membrane serving as an efficient, stable, and antisalt-fouling solar evaporator. The evaporation rate of the membrane reaches up to 1.27 kg m−2 h−1 (solar–thermal conversion efficiency ∼79%) under one sun, out of 3.5 wt% brine. More strikingly, due to the tailored narrow interlayer spacing, the rGO membrane can effectively reject ions, preventing salt accumulation even for high salinity brine (∼8 wt% concentration). With enabled salt-antifouling capability, flexibility, as well as stability, our rGO membrane serves as a promising solar evaporator for high salinity brine treatment.

scholarly journals Graph contextualized attention network for predicting synthetic lethality in human cancers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahui Long ◽  
Min Wu ◽  
Yong Liu ◽  
Jie Zheng ◽  
Chee Keong Kwoh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Lethality ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Design Feature ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Attention Network ◽  
New Genes ◽  
Lab Experiments ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Multiple Feature ◽  
Wet Lab

Abstract Motivation Synthetic Lethality (SL) plays an increasingly critical role in the targeted anticancer therapeutics. In addition, identifying SL interactions can create opportunities to selectively kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. Given the high cost of wet-lab experiments, in silico prediction of SL interactions as an alternative can be a rapid and cost-effective way to guide the experimental screening of candidate SL pairs. Several matrix factorization-based methods have recently been proposed for human SL prediction. However, they are limited in capturing the dependencies of neighbors. In addition, it is also highly challenging to make accurate predictions for new genes without any known SL partners. Results In this work, we propose a novel graph contextualized attention network named GCATSL to learn gene representations for SL prediction. First, we leverage different data sources to construct multiple feature graphs for genes, which serve as the feature inputs for our GCATSL method. Second, for each feature graph, we design node-level attention mechanism to effectively capture the importance of local and global neighbors and learn local and global representations for the nodes, respectively. We further exploit multi-layer perceptron (MLP) to aggregate the original features with the local and global representations and then derive the feature-specific representations. Third, to derive the final representations, we design feature-level attention to integrate feature-specific representations by taking the importance of different feature graphs into account. Extensive experimental results on three datasets under different settings demonstrated that our GCATSL model outperforms 14 state-of-the-art methods consistently. In addition, case studies further validated the effectiveness of our proposed model in identifying novel SL pairs. Availability Python codes and dataset are freely available on GitHub (https://github.com/longyahui/GCATSL) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/4522679) under the MIT license.

scholarly journals DNA aptamer-based detection of prostate cancer

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawan Jolly ◽  
Nello Formisano ◽  
Pedro Estrela
Keyword(s):  
Prostate Cancer ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
Specific Antigen ◽  
Analytical Techniques ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Dna Aptamer ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Gradual Transition ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Promising Tool

AbstractThe use of aptamers in biosensing has attracted considerable attention as an alternative to antibodies because of their unique properties such as long-term stability, cost-effectiveness and adjustability to various applications. Among cancers, the early diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the greatest concerns for ageing men worldwide. One of the most commonly used biomarkers for PCa is prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which can be found in elevated levels in patients with cancer. This review presents the gradual transition of research from antibody-based to aptamerbased biosensors, specifically for PSA. A brief description on aptamer-based biosensing for other PCa biomarkers is also presented. Special attention is given to electrochemical methods as analytical techniques for the development of simple, sensitive and cost-effective biosensors. The review also focuses on the different surface chemistries exploited for fabrication and their applications in clinical samples. The use of aptamers represents a promising tool for the development of point-ofcare biosensors for the early detection of prostate cancer. In view of the unmatched upper hand of aptamers, future prospects are also discussed, not only in the point-of-care format but also in other novel applications.

Carbonized cattle manure-based photothermal evaporator with hierarchically bimodal pores for solar desalination in high-salinity brines

Desalination ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 520 ◽  
pp. 115345
Author(s):  
Yanpei Tian ◽  
Xiaojie Liu ◽  
Ziqi Wang ◽  
Andrew Caratenuto ◽  
Fangqi Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Salinity ◽  
Cattle Manure ◽  
Solar Desalination

Solar Photovoltaic Water Pumping to Alleviate Drought in Remote Locations

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kala Meah ◽  
Steven Fletcher ◽  
Yu Wan ◽  
Sadrul Ula
Keyword(s):  
Performance Monitoring ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Solar Water ◽  
Small Water ◽  
Water Pumping ◽  
Western Us ◽  
Water Right ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The University

Many parts of the western US is rural in nature and consequently do not have electrical distribution lines in many parts of farms and ranches. Distribution line extension costs can run from $15,000 to $25,000 per mile, thereby making availability of electricity to small water pumping projects economically unattractive. Solar photo-voltaic (PV) powered water pumping is more cost effective in these small scale applications. Many western states including Wyoming are passing through fifth year of drought with the consequent shortages of water for many applications. Wyoming State Climatologist is predicting a possible 5–10 years of drought. Drought impacts the surface water right away, while it takes much longer to impact the underground aquifers. To mitigate the effect on the livestock and wildlife, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal initiated a solar water pumping initiative in cooperation with the University of Wyoming, County Conservation Districts, Rural Electric Cooperatives, and ranching organizations. Solar water pumping has several advantages over traditional systems; for example, diesel or propane engines require not only expensive fuels, they also create noise and air pollution in many remote pristine areas. Solar systems are environment friendly, low maintenance and have no fuel cost. In this paper the design, installation and performance monitoring of the solar system for small scale remote water pumping will be presented.

scholarly journals Rumen Sampling Methods Bias Bacterial Communities Observed

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill V. Hagey ◽  
Maia Laabs ◽  
Elizabeth A. Maga ◽  
Edward J. DePeters
Keyword(s):  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Feed Additives ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Stomach Tube ◽  
Fecal Samples ◽  
Rumen Microbes ◽  
Lower Abundance ◽  
The Family

AbstractThe rumen is a complex ecosystem that plays a critical role in our efforts to improve feed efficiency of cattle and reduce their environmental impacts. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene provides a powerful tool to survey shifts in the microbial community in response to feed additives and dietary changes. Oral stomach tubing a cow for a rumen sample is a rapid, cost-effective alternative to rumen cannulation for acquiring rumen samples. In this study, we determined how sampling method, as well as type of sample collected (liquid vs solid), bias the microbial populations observed. The abundance of major archaeal populations was not different at the family level in samples acquired via rumen cannula or stomach tube. Liquid samples were enriched for the order WCHB1-41 (phylum Kiritimatiellaeota) as well as the family Prevotellaceae and had significantly lower abundance of Lachnospiraceae compared with grab samples from the rumen cannula. Solid samples most closely resembled the grab samples; therefore, inclusion of particulate matter is important for an accurate representation of the rumen microbes. Stomach tube samples were the most variable and were most representative of the liquid phase. In comparison with a grab sample, stomach tube samples had significantly lower abundance of Lachnospiraceae, Fibrobacter and Treponema. Fecal samples did not reflect the community composition of the rumen, as fecal samples had significantly higher relative abundance of Ruminococcaceae and significantly lower relative abundance of Lachnospiraceae compared with samples from the rumen.

scholarly journals An approach for long-term, multi-probe Neuropixels recordings in unrestrained rats

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zhihao Luo ◽  
Adrian Gopnik Bondy ◽  
Diksha Gupta ◽  
Verity Alexander Elliott ◽  
Charles D Kopec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Neural Recordings ◽  
Chronic Recording ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Multiple Cycles ◽  
Single Unit Recordings ◽  
Freely Moving ◽  
High Yields

The use of Neuropixels probes for chronic neural recordings is in its infancy and initial studies leave questions about long-term stability and probe reusability unaddressed. Here, we demonstrate a new approach for chronic Neuropixels recordings over a period of months in freely moving rats. Our approach allows multiple probes per rat and multiple cycles of probe reuse. We found that hundreds of units could be recorded for multiple months, but that yields depended systematically on anatomical position. Explanted probes displayed a small increase in noise compared to unimplanted probes, but this was insufficient to impair future single-unit recordings. We conclude that cost-effective, multi-region, and multi-probe Neuropixels recordings can be carried out with high yields over multiple months in rats or other similarly sized animals. Our methods and observations may facilitate the standardization of chronic recording from Neuropixels probes in freely moving animals.

Sustainable Parking Planning for Smart Growth of Metropolitan Cities

2018 ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Ozge Yalciner Ercoskun ◽  
Ebru Vesile Ocalir Akunal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Smart Growth ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Government Decision ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Conventional Paradigm

This chapter identifies main problems of parking planning in demand-oriented conventional paradigm. Parking planning principles and cost-effective programs in supply-oriented sustainable paradigm are presented in the chapter listing many economic, social and environmental benefits. The chapter describes various parking strategies for developing a sustainable parking plan for smart growth of metropolitan cities, including cases of Istanbul and Vienna. A critical perspective is drawn for the parking planning policies for these city cases. Parking is recognized as an important factor influencing accessibility. Parking planning, parking policies and pricing play a critical role in local government decision making.

Sustainable Parking Planning for Smart Growth of Metropolitan Cities

2018 ◽  
pp. 301-320
Author(s):  
Ozge Yalciner Ercoskun ◽  
Ebru Vesile Ocalir Akunal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Smart Growth ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Government Decision ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Conventional Paradigm

This chapter identifies main problems of parking planning in demand-oriented conventional paradigm. Parking planning principles and cost-effective programs in supply-oriented sustainable paradigm are presented in the chapter listing many economic, social and environmental benefits. The chapter describes various parking strategies for developing a sustainable parking plan for smart growth of metropolitan cities, including cases of Istanbul and Vienna. A critical perspective is drawn for the parking planning policies for these city cases. Parking is recognized as an important factor influencing accessibility. Parking planning, parking policies and pricing play a critical role in local government decision making.

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