Wax: A benign hydrogen-storage material that rapidly releases H2-rich gases through microwave-assisted catalytic decomposition

Hydrogen is often described as the fuel of the future, especially for application in hydrogen powered fuel-cell vehicles (HFCV’s). However, its widespread implementation in this role has been thwarted by the lack of a lightweight, safe, on-board hydrogen storage material. Here we show that benign, readily-available hydrocarbon wax is capable of rapidly releasing large amounts of hydrogen through microwave-assisted catalytic decomposition. This discovery offers a new material and system for safe and efficient hydrogen storage and could facilitate its application in a HFCV. Importantly, hydrogen storage materials made of wax can be manufactured through completely sustainable processes utilizing biomass or other renewable feedstocks

A Systematic Review of Modifications and Validation Methods for the Extension of the Keystroke-Level Model

The keystroke-level model (KLM) is the simplest model of the goals, operators, methods, and selection rules (GOMS) family. The KLM computes formative quantitative predictions of task execution time. This paper provides a systematic literature review of KLM extensions across various applications and setups. The objective of this review is to address research questions concerning the development and validation of extensions. A total of 54 KLM extensions have been exhaustively reviewed. The results show that the original keystroke and mental act operators were continuously preserved or adapted and that the drawing operator was used the least. Excluding the original operators, almost 45 operators were collated from the primary studies. Only half of the studies validated their model’s efficiency through experiments. The results also identify several research gaps, such as the shortage of KLM extensions for post-GUI/WIMP interfaces. Based on the results obtained in this work, this review finally provides guidelines for researchers and practitioners

Hydrogen bonds between methanol and the light liquid olefins 1-pentene and 1-hexene: From novel application to fundamental science

We have recently developed a new extraction process for significantly reducing the olefin content in commercial FCC gasoline. To gain insights into the origins of this process , we have investigated the dissolution of the light liquid olefins 1-pentene and 1-hexene in methanol through computer modelling together with NMR spectroscopy. We find two important hydrogen bonding modes for methanol olefin interactions – namely, O-H···π and C-H···O

Enhancing the production of light olefins from heavy crude oils: Turning challenges into opportunities

The large reserves of heavy crude oils and the significant demand of light olefins, particularly propylene, have created new opportunities for developing advanced catalyst and process technologies that efficiently upgrade asphaltenes-enriched crudes to high values chemicals. Indeed, many petrochemicals are produced during crude oil refining as side streams, because the primary goal of the crude oil refinery is the production of transportation fuel. This paper attempts to briefly review the properties of heavy crude oils, the major process technologies for the production of light olefins such as steam cracking and fluid catalytic cracking and finally the catalyst technology mainly focused on ZSM-5 and HY zeolites. We include not only the current understanding of the olefin production technologies, but also the challenges involved in the upgrading of unconventional crudes and residue with high content of heteroatoms and unsaturated poly-aggregate asphaltenes. A strategy for processing unconventional oil that involves the utilization of steam (catalytic) cracking process, in a FCC-type configuration, and enhanced cracking catalyst with high hydrothermal stability is also analyzed

Enhancing the production of light olefins from heavy crude oils: Turning challenges into opportunities

The large reserves of heavy crude oils and the significant demand of light olefins, particularly propylene, have created new opportunities for developing advanced catalyst and process technologies that efficiently upgrade asphaltenes-enriched crudes to high values chemicals. Indeed, many petrochemicals are produced during crude oil refining as side streams, because the primary goal of the crude oil refinery is the production of transportation fuel. This paper attempts to briefly review the properties of heavy crude oils, the major process technologies for the production of light olefins such as steam cracking and fluid catalytic cracking and finally the catalyst technology mainly focused on ZSM-5 and HY zeolites. We include not only the current understanding of the olefin production technologies, but also the challenges involved in the upgrading of unconventional crudes and residue with high content of heteroatoms and unsaturated poly-aggregate asphaltenes. A strategy for processing unconventional oil that involves the utilization of steam (catalytic) cracking process, in a FCC-type configuration, and enhanced cracking catalyst with high hydrothermal stability is also analyzed

Adaptive task allocation for multi-UAV systems based on bacteria foraging behaviour

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. The foraging behaviour of bacteria in colonies exhibits motility patterns that are simple and reasoned by stimuli. Notwithstanding its simplicity, bacteria behaviour demonstrates a level of intelligence that can feasibly inspire the creation of solutions to address numerous optimisation problems. One such challenge is the optimal allocation of tasks across multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs) to perform cooperative tasks for future autonomous systems. In light of this, this paper proposes a bacteria-inspired heuristic for the efficient distribution of tasks amongst deployed UAVs. The usage of multi-UAVs is a promising concept to combat the spread of the red palm weevil (RPW) in palm plantations. For that purpose, the proposed bacteria-inspired heuristic was utilised to resolve the multi-UAV task allocation problem when combating RPW infestation. The performance of the proposed algorithm was benchmarked in simulated detect-and-treat missions against three long-standing multi-UAV task allocation strategies, namely opportunistic task allocation, auction-based scheme, and the max-sum algorithm, and a recently introduced locust-inspired algorithm for the allocation of multi-UAVs. The experimental results demonstrated the superior performance of the proposed algorithm, as it substantially improved the net throughput and maintained a steady runtime performance under different scales of fleet sizes and number of infestations, thereby expressing the high flexibility, scalability, and sustainability of the proposed bacteria-inspired approach

The importance of inner cavity space within Ni@SiO2 nanocapsule catalysts for excellent coking resistance in the high-space-velocity dry reforming of methane

Metal sintering and carbon deposition are acknowledged to be the foremost critical issues in the important energy storage process of high temperature Dry Reforming of Methane (DRM). For that process, so-called “core-shell catalysts” have exhibited outstanding catalytic performance. However, the intrinsic confined geometric space of the host core-shell structure not only inevitably limits the ability of the catalyst system to facilitate the critical rapid infusion and diffusion of reacting gases, but also enhances the accompanying conversion of carbon intermediates to inert, catalyst-deactivating carbonaceous deposits under high-space-velocity conditions. Herein, we present a study highlighting the importance of the inner cavity space, now of a quasi-zero-dimensional, tubular, yolk-shell structured Ni@SiO2 nanocapsule catalyst, in the DRM process. The tubular yolk-shell structured Ni@SiO2 nanocapsule catalysts having controlled inner cavities (5.0–13.0 nm × 5.0–50.0 nm dimensions) were synthesised via a water-in-oil micro-emulsion method by employing different aging times (i.e. 3 h, 6 h and 12 h). Compared with corresponding Ni@SiO2 nanosphere catalysts, the tubular nanocapsule catalysts displayed both excellent catalyst activity, stability, and (metal) anti-sintering ability with, equally important, negligible carbon deposition during the operating DRM process under high space velocity conditions (60 L g−1 h−1), most relevant for application in real industrial processes