A Mini Review on Sewage Sludge and Red Mud Recycling for Thermal Energy Storage

Sewage sludge and red mud, as common industrial waste, have become a research hotspot in the field of achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, reducing carbon emissions, and solving environmental problems. However, their treatment and disposal have always been a difficult problem in the environmental field. Utilizing these two materials for thermal energy storage can not only improve energy utilization efficiency but also further reduce carbon emissions during their treatment process, providing a new approach for sustainable development in the industrial sector. This article summarizes the research progress for the resource recovery of sewage sludge and red mud for direct thermal energy recovery and composite phase change energy storage. After proper treatment, sludge and red mud can be directly used as energy storage materials. In addition, sludge and red mud can be combined with phase change materials to prepare composite materials with an excellent energy storage performance. This composite has broad application prospects in fields such as solar energy utilization and building energy efficiency. However, there are still some challenges and issues in this resource recovery and utilization, such as potential environmental pollution during the treatment process, the long-term stability of energy storage materials, and cost-effectiveness, which require further research and resolution. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential of sewage sludge and red mud as energy storage materials, to explore their feasibility and advantages in practical applications, and to reveal the research progress, technical challenges, and future development directions of these two materials in the field of thermal energy storage

Preparation of N-, O-, and S-tri-doped biochar through one-pot pyrolysis of poplar and urea formaldehyde and its enhanced removal of tetracycline from wastewater

In this study, biochar was prepared via hybrid doping of N, O, and S by applying one-pot pyrolysis of poplar wood and S-containing urea formaldehyde at 900 °C. Different doping ratios were adopted, and the contents of O, N, and S were in the ranges of 2.78 – 5.56 %, 2.16 – 4.92 %, and 1.42 – 4.98 %, respectively. This hybrid doping significantly enhanced the efficiency of the removal of tetracycline (40 mg/L) from wastewater to 71.84 % in comparison with that attained by using normal poplar biochar (29.45 %). The adsorption kinetics and isotherms indicated that the adsorption process was favorable and was dominated by chemisorption instead of physisorption; the dominant adsorption process may be justified by the existence of abundant functional groups. The adsorption capacity was barely related to the surface area (R2 = 0.478), while it was closely related to the concentration of graphitic N (R2 = 0.985) because graphitic N enhanced the π–π interactions. The adsorption capacity was also highly related to the proportion of oxidized N and oxidized S owing to hydrogen bonding, which may have overlapped with the contribution of O-containing functional groups. This study presents a simple hybrid doping method for biochar modification and provides fundamental insights into the specific effects of O-, N- and S-containing functional groups on the performance of biochar for tetracycline removal

Effects of Water Content and Particle Size on Yield and Reactivity of Lignite Chars Derived from Pyrolysis and Gasification

Water inside coal particles could potentially enhance the interior char–steam reactions during pyrolysis and gasification. This study aims to examine the effects of water contents on the char conversion during the pyrolysis and gasification of Shengli lignite. The ex-situ reactivities of chars were further analyzed by a thermo gravimetric analyzer (TGA). Under the pyrolysis condition, the increase in water contents has monotonically decreased the char yields only when the coal particles were small (\u3c75 μm). In contrast, the water in only large coal particles (0.9–2.0 mm) has clearly favored the increase in char conversion during the gasification condition where 50% steam in argon was used as external reaction atmosphere. The waved reactivity curves for the subsequent char–air reactions were resulted from the nature of heterogeneity of char structure. Compared to the large particles, the less interior char–steam reactions for the small particles have created more differential char structure which showed two different stages when reacting with air at the low temperature in TGA

The Exploration and Evaluation of Generating Affective 360∘^\circ Panoramic VR Environments Through Neural Style Transfer

Affective virtual reality (VR) environments with varying visual style can impact users' valence and arousal responses. We applied Neural Style Transfer (NST) to generate 360$^\circ$ VR environments that elicited users' varied valence and arousal responses. From a user study with 30 participants, findings suggested that generative VR environments changed participants' arousal responses but not their valence levels. The generated visual features, e.g., textures and colors, also altered participants' affective perceptions. Our work contributes novel insights about how users respond to generative VR environments and provided a strategy for creating affective VR environments without altering content

A review on N-doped biochar for oxidative degradation of organic contaminants in wastewater by persulfate activation

The Persulfate-based advanced oxidation process is the most efficient and commonly used technology to remove organic contaminants in wastewater. Due to the large surface area, unique electronic properties, abundant N functional groups, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness, N-doped biochars (NBCs) are widely used as catalysts for persulfate activation. This review focuses on the NBC for oxidative degradation of organics-contaminated wastewater. Firstly, the preparation and modification methods of NBCs were reviewed. Then the catalytic performance of NBCs and modified NBCs on the oxidation degradation of organic contaminants were discussed with an emphasis on the degradation mechanism. We further summarized the detection technologies of activation mechanisms and the structures of NBCs affecting the PS activation, followed by the specific role of the N configuration of the NBC on its catalytic capacity. Finally, several challenges in the treatment of organics-contaminated wastewater by a persulfate-based advanced oxidation process were put forward and the recommendations for future research were proposed for further understanding of the advanced oxidation process activated by the NBC

Cognitive and Affective Correlates of Chinese Children’s Mathematical Word Problem Solving

Mathematical word problem solving (MWPS) involves multiple steps, including comprehending the problem statements, determining the arithmetic operations that have to be performed, and finding the answers. This study investigated the relative contributions of different cognitive and affective variables to children’s MWPS. To achieve this goal, 116 third-grade Chinese children were tested. Results showed that after controlling for age and non-verbal intelligence, the abilities to solve direct and indirect mathematical word problems were positively correlated with the working memory component of executive function, reading comprehension ability, math fact fluency and math anxiety. Moreover, math anxiety was found to fully mediate the relationships between reading anxiety and MWPS. Implications of the findings on how to promote children’s MWPS skills were discussed

The Role of Functional Electrical Stimulation in Brachial Plexus Injury Repair

Brachial plexus injury (BPI) is a type of peripheral nerve injury, which is mainly manifested as upper limb sensory and motor dysfunction. Although the injury will not endanger life, it can cause serious functional loss and high disability rate, and eventually lead to patients unable to live normally. At present, the treatment methods for BPI mainly include conservative treatment, such as limb massage, exercise, drug therapy, autonomous movement and strength training; In clinic, nerve repair, nerve transplantation and muscle transfer can also be used. Although surgical treatment can better restore the function of injured brachial plexus, there is a certain risk, so it is not the first choice of treatment. As a mature electrical stimulation method, functional electrical stimulation (FES) can play a good role in promoting injured nerve regeneration and preventing skeletal muscle denervation atrophy, so it can be widely used in the treatment and functional recovery of BPI. This article will review the research progress of FES in the treatment of BPI

Long-term trends in the burden of colorectal cancer in Europe over three decades: a joinpoint regression and age-period-cohort analysis

BackgroundThe burden of colorectal cancer (CRC) in Europe is at a high level, but the epidemiological features have not yet been systematically studied. This study aimed to provide a timely and reliable assessment of the burden and trends of CRC in Europe to provide a scientific basis for its prevention and treatment.MethodsWe analyzed data on CRC in 44 European countries between 1990 and 2019 from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) 2019. In addition, the joinpoint regression model was applied to reflect temporal trends. The age-period-cohort model was constructed to explore age, period, and birth cohort effects that influence the risk of morbidity and mortality.ResultsIn Europe, new cases, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and deaths of CRC rose by 70.01%, 22.88% and 38.04% from 1990 to 2019, respectively. The age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) has increased, while age-standardized DALY rate and age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR) have declined. We found that men experienced a significantly higher CRC burden than women. Age-period-cohort analysis showed that the risk of incidence and mortality increased with age and time; and it was lower in the later-born cohort than the earlier-born cohort.ConclusionASIR for CRC in Europe generally trended upwards from 1990 to 2019, stabilizing in recent years but still at a high level. CRC burden varied considerably in different countries. There was a pronounced gender difference in CRC burden, and middle-aged and older men should be a priority population for CRC prevention and treatment

Simulation study of BESIII with stitched CMOS pixel detector using ACTS

Reconstruction of tracks of charged particles with high precision is very crucial for HEP experiments to achieve their physics goals. As the tracking detector of BESIII experiment, the BESIII drift chamber has suffered from aging effects resulting in degraded tracking performance after operation for about 15 years. To preserve and enhance the tracking performance of BESIII, one of the proposals is to add one layer of thin CMOS pixel sensor in cylindrical shape based on the state-of-the-art stitching technology, between the beam pipe and the drift chamber. The improvement of tracking performance of BESIII with such an additional pixel detector compared to that with only the existing drift chamber is studied using the modern common tracking software ACTS, which provides a set of detector-agnostic and highly performant tracking algorithms that have demonstrated promising performance for a few high energy physics and nuclear physics experiments