Spin field-effect transistors (SpinFETs) are promising candidates for future integrated microelectronic circuits. A SpinFET is composed of two ferromagnetic contacts (source and drain), which sandwich a semiconductor channel. Current modulation is achieved by electrically tuning the gate voltage dependent strength of the spin-orbit interaction in the semiconductor region. We investigated the properties of SpinFETs for various parameters - the band mismatch, the barrier height between the contacts and the channel and the strength of the spin-orbit coupling, for various temperatures. We demonstrated that the creation of Schottky barriers between the channel and the contacts guarantees a pronounced modulation of the magnetoresistance sufficient to open a possibility to operate SpinFETs at room temperature. We also demonstrated that silicon fins with [100] orientation exhibit a stronger dependence on the value of the spin-orbit interaction and are thus preferable for practical realization of silicon-based SpinFETs.
In this work we use an analytical technique to analyse the effect of a vertical uniform magnetic field on the onset of steady Benard-Marangoni convection in a horizontal layer of electrically conducting fluid subject to a uniform vertical temperature gradient in the asymptotic limit short waves. We found that in the limit of short waves, the leading order expression for the marginal curve is not affected by the magnetic field.
Dalam makalah ini kesan medan magnet menegak seragam ke atas lengkung sut permulaan olakan mantap Benard-Marangoni dalam lapisan bendalir mengufuk berpengalir elektrik dikaji tertakluk kepada kecerunan suhu yang seragam dalam had asimptot gelombang pendek. Kami dapati medan magnet tidak memberi kesan kepada sebutan utama lengkung sut dalam had gelombang pendek.
We report the formation of macropores in n-Si (100) substrates for different etching times of 20, 40 and 60 min at a constant current density of 25 mA/cm2 under front-side illumination in HF:ethanol (1:4) solution. After etching for 20 min, four-branch-shaped pores of various sizes were observed at discrete locations. Etching time of 40 min led to the formation of highly connected four-branch-shaped pores as the branches of adjacent pores appeared to connect to each other. As the etching time was increased further to 60 min, the density of interconnected branches increased remarkably. The macropore formation process occurred in three consecutive phases. The current burst model was used to discuss this process. Formation of four-branch-shaped pores at random locations were observed because current bursts are more likely to nucleate where other current bursts took place initially.
Pretreatment of microalgal biomass possessing rigid cell wall is a critical step for enhancing the efficiency of microalgal biorefinery. However, the conventional pretreatment processes suffer the drawbacks of complex processing steps, long processing time, low conversion efficiency and high processing costs. This significantly hinders the industrial applicability of microalgal biorefinery. The innovative electricity-aid pretreatment techniques serve as a promising processing tool to extensively enhance the release of intracellular substances from microalgae. In this review, application of electric field-based techniques and recent advances of using electrical pretreatments on microalgae cell focusing on pulsed electric field, electrolysis, high voltage electrical discharges and moderate electric field are reviewed. In addition, the emerging techniques integrating electrolysis with liquid biphasic flotation process as promising downstream approach is discussed. This review delivers broad knowledge of the present significance of the application of these methods focusing on the development of electric assisted biomolecules extraction from microalgae.
We report on the observation of quantum transport and interference in a graphene device that is attached with a pair of split gates to form an electrostatically-defined quantum point contact (QPC). In the low magnetic field regime, the resistance exhibited Fabry-Pérot (FP) resonances due to np'n(pn'p) cavities formed by the top gate. In the quantum Hall (QH) regime with a high magnetic field, the edge states governed the phenomena, presenting a unique condition where the edge channels of electrons and holes along a p-n junction acted as a solid-state analogue of a monochromatic light beam. We observed a crossover from the FP to QH regimes in ballistic graphene QPC under a magnetic field with varying temperatures. In particular, the collapse of the QH effect was elucidated as the magnetic field was decreased. Our high-mobility graphene device enabled observation of such quantum coherence effects up to several tens of kelvins. The presented device could serve as one of the key elements in future electronic quantum optic devices.
Nanomaterial-based sensors with high sensitivity, fast response and recovery time, large detection range, and high chemical stability are in immense demand for the detection of hazardous gas molecules. Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) which have exceptional electrical, physical, and chemical properties can fulfil all of these requirements. The detection of gas molecules using gas sensors, particularly in medical diagnostics and safety applications, is receiving particularly high demand. GNRs exhibit remarkable changes in their electrical characteristics when exposed to different gases through molecular adsorption. In this paper, the adsorption effects of the target gas molecules (CO and NO) on the electrical properties of the armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR)-based sensor are analytically modelled. Thus, the energy dispersion relation of AGNR is developed considering the molecular adsorption effect using a tight binding (TB) method. The carrier velocity is calculated based on the density of states (DOS) and carrier concentration (n) to obtain I-V characteristics and to monitor its variation in the presence of the gas molecules. Furthermore, the I-V characteristics and energy band structure of the AGNR sensor are simulated using first principle calculations to investigate the gas adsorption effects on these properties. To ensure the accuracy of the proposed model, the I-V characteristics of the AGNR sensor that are simulated based both on the proposed model and first principles calculations are compared, and an acceptable agreement is achieved.
The investigation into new sources of energy with the highest efficiency which are derived from existing energy sources is a significant research area and is attracting a great deal of interest. Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting is a promising alternative for obtaining energy for wireless devices directly from RF energy sources in the environment. An overview of the energy harvesting concept will be discussed in detail in this paper. Energy harvesting is a very promising method for the development of self-powered electronics. Many applications, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), smart environments, the military or agricultural monitoring depend on the use of sensor networks which require a large variety of small and scattered devices. The low-power operation of such distributed devices requires wireless energy to be obtained from their surroundings in order to achieve safe, self-sufficient and maintenance-free systems. The energy harvesting circuit is known to be an interface between piezoelectric and electro-strictive loads. A modern view of circuitry for energy harvesting is based on power conditioning principles that also involve AC-to-DC conversion and voltage regulation. Throughout the field of energy conversion, energy harvesting circuits often impose electric boundaries for devices, which are important for maximizing the energy that is harvested. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) is described as the ratio between the rectifier's output DC power and the antenna-based RF-input power (before its passage through the corresponding network).
A low-profile high-directivity, and double-negative (DNG) metamaterial-loaded antenna with a slotted patch is proposed for the 5G application. The radiated slotted arm as a V shape has been extended to provide a low-profile feature with a two-isometric view square patch structure, which accelerates the electromagnetic (EM) resonance. Besides, the tapered patch with two vertically split parabolic horns and the unit cell metamaterial expedite achieve more directive radiation. Two adjacent splits with meta units enhance the surface current to modify the actual electric current, which is induced by a substrate-isolated EM field. As a result, the slotted antenna shows a 7.14 dBi realized gain with 80% radiation efficiency, which is quite significant. The operation bandwidth is 4.27-4.40 GHz, and characteristic impedance approximately remains the same (50 Ω) to give a VSWR (voltage Standing wave ratio) of less than 2, which is ideal for the expected application field. The overall size of the antenna is 60 × 40 × 1.52 mm. Hence, it has potential for future 5G applications, like Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare systems, smart homes, etc.
This study presents a novel feature-engineered-natural gradient descent ensemble-boosting (NGBoost) machine-learning framework for detecting fraud in power consumption data. The proposed framework was sequentially executed in three stages: data pre-processing, feature engineering, and model evaluation. It utilized the random forest algorithm-based imputation technique initially to impute the missing data entries in the acquired smart meter dataset. In the second phase, the majority weighted minority oversampling technique (MWMOTE) algorithm was used to avoid an unequal distribution of data samples among different classes. The time-series feature-extraction library and whale optimization algorithm were utilized to extract and select the most relevant features from the kWh reading of consumers. Once the most relevant features were acquired, the model training and testing process was initiated by using the NGBoost algorithm to classify the consumers into two distinct categories ("Healthy" and "Theft"). Finally, each input feature's impact (positive or negative) in predicting the target variable was recognized with the tree SHAP additive-explanations algorithm. The proposed framework achieved an accuracy of 93%, recall of 91%, and precision of 95%, which was greater than all the competing models, and thus validated its efficacy and significance in the studied field of research.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) explodes in real-time and causes critical damage within a short period to not only electric devices, but also to national infrastructures. In terms of EMP shielding rooms, metal plate has been used due to its excellent shielding effectiveness (SE). However, it has difficulties in manufacturing, as the fabrication of welded parts of metal plates and the cost of construction are non-economical. The objective of this study is to examine the applicability of the arc thermal metal spraying (ATMS) method as a new EMP shielding method to replace metal plate. The experimental parameters, metal types (Cu, Zn-Al), and coating thickness (100-700 μm) used for the ATMS method were considered. As an experiment, a SE test against an EMP in the range of 103 to 1010 Hz was conducted. Results showed that the ATMS coating with Zn-Al had similar shielding performance in comparison with metal plate. In conclusion, the ATMS method is judged to have a high possibility of actual application as a new EMP shielding material.
This review provides the alternative routes towards the valorization of dark H2 fermentation effluents that are mainly rich in volatile fatty acids such as acetate and butyrate. Various enhancement and alternative routes such as photo fermentation, anaerobic digestion, utilization of microbial electrochemical systems, and algal system towards the generation of bioenergy and electricity and also for efficient organic matter utilization are highlighted. What is more, various integration schemes and two-stage fermentation for the possible scale up are reviewed. Moreover, recent progress for enhanced performance towards waste stabilization and overall utilization of useful and higher COD present in the organic source into value-added products are extensively discussed.
The photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) system was developed in order to study the effect of several operating parameters in degradation of Reactive Black 5 (RB5) and its electricity generation. Light irradiation, initial dye concentration, aeration, pH and cathode electrode are the operating parameters that might give contribution in the efficiency of PFC system. The degradation of RB5 depends on the presence of light irradiation and solar light gives better performance to degrade the azo dye. The azo dye with low initial concentration decolorizes faster compared to higher initial concentration and presence of aeration in PFC system would enhance its performance. Reactive Black 5 rapidly decreased at higher pH due to the higher amount of OH generated at higher pH and Pt-loaded carbon (Pt/C) was more suitable to be used as cathode in PFC system compared to Cu foil and Fe foil. The rapid decolorization of RB5 would increase their voltage output and in addition, it would also increase their Voc, Jsc and Pmax. The breakage of azo bond and aromatic rings was confirmed through UV-Vis spectrum and COD analysis.
In recent years, off-site volumetric construction has been promoted as a viable strategy for improving the sustainability of the construction industry. Most prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction (PPVC) structures are composed of either steel or concrete; thus, it is imperative to carry out life cycle assessments (LCAs) for both types of structures. PPVC is a method by which free-standing volumetric modules-complete with finishes for walls, floors, and ceilings-are prefabricated and then transferred and erected on-site. Although many studies have examined these structures, few have combined economic and environmental life cycle analyses, particularly for prefinished volumetric construction buildings. The purpose of this study is to utilize LCA and life cycle cost (LCC) methods to compare the environmental impacts and costs of steel and concrete PPVCs "from cradle to grave." The results show that steel necessitates higher electricity usage than concrete in all environmental categories, while concrete has a higher emission rate. Steel outperforms concrete by approximately 37% in non-renewable energy measures, 38% in respiratory inorganics, 43% in land occupation, and 40% in mineral extraction. Concrete, on the other hand, performs 54% better on average in terms of measures adopted for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Steel incurs a higher cost in the construction stage but is ultimately the more economical choice, costing 4% less than concrete PPVC owing to the recovery, recycling, and reuse of materials. In general, steel PPVC exhibits better performance, both in terms of cost and environmental factors (excluding GHG emissions). This study endeavors to improve the implementation and general understanding of PPVC.
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) seem to have emerged in recent years to degrade the organic pollutants from wastewater. The current research also focused on phenol biodegradation using MFCs. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), phenol is a priority pollutant to remediate due to its potential adverse effects on human health. At the same time, the present study focused on the weakness of MFCs, which is the low generation of electrons due to the organic substrate. The present study used rotten rice as an organic substrate to empower the MFC's functional capacity to degrade the phenol while simultaneously generating bioenergy. In 19 days of operation, the phenol degradation efficiency was 70% at a current density of 17.10 mA/m2 and a voltage of 199 mV. The electrochemical analysis showed that the internal resistance was 312.58 Ω and the maximum specific capacitance value was 0.00020 F/g on day 30, which demonstrated mature biofilm production and its stability throughout the operation. The biofilm study and bacterial identification process revealed that the presence of conductive pili species (Bacillus genus) are the most dominant on the anode electrode. However, the present study also explained well the oxidation mechanism of rotten rice with phenol degradation. The most critical challenges for future recommendations are also enclosed in a separate section for the research community with concluding remarks.
The imminent need for transition to a circular biorefinery using microbial fuel cells (MFC), based on the valorization of renewable resources, will ameliorate the carbon footprint induced by industrialization. MFC catalyzed by bioelectrochemical process drew significant attention initially for its exceptional potential for integrated production of biochemicals and bioenergy. Nonetheless, the associated costly bioproduct production and slow microbial kinetics have constrained its commercialization. This review encompasses the potential and development of macroalgal biomass as a substrate in the MFC system for L-lactic acid (L-LA) and bioelectricity generation. Besides, an insight into the state-of-the-art technological advancement in the MFC system is also deliberated in detail. Investigations in recent years have shown that MFC developed with different anolyte enhances power density from several µW/m2 up to 8160 mW/m2. Further, this review provides a plausible picture of macroalgal-based L-LA and bioelectricity circular biorefinery in the MFC system for future research directions.
A newly developed waste-to-energy system using a biomass combined energy system designed and taken into account for electricity generation, cooling, and freshwater production has been investigated and modeled in this project. The investigated system incorporates several different cycles, such as a biomass waste integrated gasifier-gas turbine cycle, a high-temperature fuel cell, a Rankine cycle, an absorption refrigeration system, and a flash distillation system for seawater desalination. The EES software is employed to perform a basic analysis of the system. They are then transferred to MATLAB software to optimize and evaluate the impact of operational factors. Artificial intelligence is employed to evaluate and model the EES software's analysis output for this purpose. By enhancing the flow rate of fuel from 4 to 6.5 kg/s, the cost rate and energy efficiency are reduced by 51% and increased by 6.5%, respectively. Furthermore, the maximum increment in exergetic efficiency takes place whenever the inlet temperature of the gas turbine rises. According to an analysis of three types of biomasses, Solid Waste possesses the maximum efficiency rate, work output, and expense. Rice Husk, in contrast, has the minimum efficiency, work output, and expense. Additionally, with the change in fuel discharge and gas turbine inlet temperature, the system behavior for all three types of biomasses will be nearly identical. The Pareto front optimization findings demonstrate that the best mode for system performance is an output power of 53,512 kW, a cost of 0.643 dollars per second, and a first law efficiency of 42%. This optimal value occurs for fuel discharge of 5.125 and the maximum inlet temperature for a gas turbine. The rates of water desalination and cooling in this condition are 18.818 kg/s and 2356 kW, respectively.
Naphthalene is a very common and hazardous environmental pollutant, and its biodegradation has received serious attention. As demonstrated in this study, naphthalene-contaminated wastewater can be biodegraded using a microbial fuel cell (MFC). Furthermore, the potential of MFC for electricity generation appears to be a promising technology to meet energy demands other than those produced from fossil fuels. Nowadays, efforts are being made to improve the overall performance of MFC by integrating biowaste materials for anode fabrication. In this study, palm kernel shell waste was used to produce palm kernel shell-derived graphene oxide (PKS-GO) and palm kernel shell-derived reduced graphene oxide (PKS-rGO), which were then fabricated into anode electrodes to improve the system's electron mobilization and transport. The MFC configuration with the PKS-rGO anode demonstrated greater energy production potential, with a maximum power density of 35.11 mW/m2 and a current density of 101.76 mA/m2, compared to the PKS-GO anode, which achieved a maximum power density of 17.85 mW/m2 and a current density of 72.56 mA/m2. Furthermore, there is simultaneous naphthalene biodegradation with energy production, where the biodegradation efficiency of naphthalene with PKS-rGO and PKS-GO is 85.5%, and 79.7%, respectively. In addition, the specific capacitance determined from the cyclic voltammetry curve revealed a value for PKS-rGO of 2.23 × 10-4 F/g, which is also higher than the value for PKS-GO (1.57 × 10-4 F/g) on the last day of operation. Anodic microbial analysis shows that electrogens thrive in the MFC process. Finally, a comparison with previous literature and the future prospects of the study are also presented.
This paper presents the design and evaluation of a high force density fishbone shaped electrostatic comb drive actuator. This comb drive actuator has a branched structure similar to a fishbone, which is intended to increase the capacitance of the electrodes and hence increase the electrostatic actuation force. Two-dimensional finite element analysis was used to simulate the motion of the fishbone shaped electrostatic comb drive actuator and compared against the performance of a straight sided electrostatic comb drive actuator. Performances of both designs are evaluated by comparison of displacement and electrostatic force. For both cases, the active area and the minimum gap distance between the two electrodes were constant. An active area of 800 × 300 μm, which contained 16 fingers of fishbone shaped actuators and 40 fingers of straight sided actuators, respectively, was used. Through simulation, improvement of drive force of the fishbone shaped electrostatic comb driver is approximately 485% higher than conventional electrostatic comb driver. These results indicate that the fishbone actuator design provides good potential for applications as high force density electrostatic microactuator in MEMS systems.
Energy is an indispensable factor for the economic growth and development of a country. Energy consumption is rapidly increasing worldwide. To fulfill this energy demand, alternative energy sources and efficient utilization are being explored. Various sources of renewable energy and their efficient utilization are comprehensively reviewed and presented in this paper. Also the trend in research and development for the technological advancement of energy utilization and smart grid system for future energy security is presented. Results show that renewable energy resources are becoming more prevalent as more electricity generation becomes necessary and could provide half of the total energy demands by 2050. To satisfy the future energy demand, the smart grid system can be used as an efficient system for energy security. The smart grid also delivers significant environmental benefits by conservation and renewable generation integration.
This study presents a new modulation method for multidirectional matrix converter (MDMC), based on the direct duty ratio pulse width modulation (DDPWM). In this study, a new structure of MDMC has been proposed to control the power flow direction through the stand-alone battery based system and hybrid vehicle. The modulation method acts based on the average voltage over one switching period concept. Therefore, in order to determine the duty ratio for each switch, the instantaneous input voltages are captured and compared with triangular waveform continuously. By selecting the proper switching pattern and changing the slope of the carriers, the sinusoidal input current can be synthesized with high power factor and desired output voltage. The proposed system increases the discharging time of the battery by injecting the power to the system from the generator and battery at the same time. Thus, it makes the battery life longer and saves more energy. This paper also derived necessary equation for proposed modulation method as well as detail of analysis and modulation algorithm. The theoretical and modulation concepts presented have been verified in MATLAB simulation.