1,468 research outputs found
Promoting hydrogen production and minimizing catalyst deactivation from the pyrolysis-catalytic steam reforming of biomass on nanosized NiZnAlOx catalysts
Hydrogen production from the thermochemical conversion of biomass was carried out with nano-sized NiZnAlOx catalysts using a two-stage fixed bed reactor system. The gases derived from the pyrolysis of wood sawdust in the first stage were catalytically steam reformed in the second stage. The NiZnAlOx catalysts were synthesized by a co-precipitation method with different Ni molar fractions (5, 10, 15, 25 and 35%) and a constant Zn:Al molar ratio of 1:4. The catalysts were characterized by a wide range of techniques, including N2 adsorption, SEM, XRD, TEM and temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) and reduction (TPR). Fine metal particles of size around 10–11 nm were obtained and the catalysts had high stability characteristics, which improved the dispersion of active centers during the reaction and promoted the performance of the catalysts. The yield of gas was increased from 49.3 to 74.8 wt.%, and the volumetric concentration of hydrogen was increased from 34.7 to 48.1 vol.%, when the amount of Ni loading was increased from 5 to 35%. Meanwhile, the CH4 fraction decreased from 10.2 to 0.2 vol.% and the C2–C4 fraction was reduced from 2.4 vol.% to 0.0 vol.%. During the reaction, the crystal size of all catalysts was successfully maintained at around 10–11 nm with lowered catalyst coke formation, (particularly for the 35NiZn4Al catalyst where negligible coke was found) and additionally no obvious catalyst sintering was detected. The efficient production of hydrogen from the thermochemical conversion of renewable biomass indicates that it is a promising sustainable route to generate hydrogen from biomass using the NiZnAl metal oxide catalyst prepared in this work via a two-stage reaction system
Majorana spintronics
We propose a systematic magnetic-flux-free approach to detect, manipulate and
braid Majorana fermions in a semiconductor nanowire-based topological Josephson
junction by utilizing the Majorana spin degree of freedom. We find an intrinsic
-phase difference between spin-triplet pairings enforced by the Majorana
zeros modes (MZMs) at the two ends of a one-dimensional spinful topological
superconductor. This -phase is identified to be a spin-dependent
superconducting phase, referred to as the spin-phase, which we show to be
tunable by controlling spin-orbit coupling strength via electric gates. This
electric controllable spin-phase not only affects the coupling energy between
MZMs but also leads to a fractional Josephson effect in the absence of any
applied magnetic flux, which enables the efficient topological qubit readout.
We thus propose an all-electrically controlled superconductor-semiconductor
hybrid circuit to manipulate MZMs and to detect their non-Abelian braiding
statistics properties. Our work on spin properties of topological Josephson
effects potentially opens up a new thrust for spintronic applications with
Majorana-based semiconductor quantum circuits.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, replaced with published versio
Regulatory Effect of Melatonin on Cytokine Disturbances in the Pristane-Induced Lupus Mice
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) develops in relation to many environmental factors. In our opinion, it is more important to investigate the effect of melatonin on the environmental- related SLE. In the present study, 0.5 ml pristane were used to induce SLE in female BALB/c mice. Melatonin (0.01, 0.1, 1.0 mg/kg) was orally administered immediately after pristane-injection for 24 weeks. IgM anti ssDNA and histone antibodies were detected after 0, 1, 2, 4, 8 weeks pristane injection. The levels of IL-2, IL-6 and IL-13 were detected after 24 weeks. Renal lesions were also observed. The results showed that melatonin antagonized the increasing levels of IgM anti ssDNA and histone autoantibodies. Melatonin could also decrease the IL-6 and IL-13 production and increase the IL-2 production. Besides, melatonin could lessen the renal lesions caused by pristane. These results suggested that melatonin has a beneficial effect on pristane-induced lupus through regulating the cytokines disturbances
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