A Novel Low-Cost, Recyclable, Easy-to-Build Robot Blimp For Transporting Supplies in Hard-to-Reach Locations

Rural communities in remote areas often encounter significant challenges when it comes to accessing emergency healthcare services and essential supplies due to a lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. The situation is further exacerbated by poorly maintained, damaged, or flooded roads, making it arduous for rural residents to obtain the necessary aid in critical situations. Limited budgets and technological constraints pose additional obstacles, hindering the prompt response of local rescue teams during emergencies. The transportation of crucial resources, such as medical supplies and food, plays a vital role in saving lives in these situations. In light of these obstacles, our objective is to improve accessibility and alleviate the suffering of vulnerable populations by automating transportation tasks using low-cost robotic systems. We propose a low-cost, easy-to-build blimp robot (UAVs), that can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of local emergency responses.Comment: IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2023

Ionic liquids: Functionalization and absorption of SO2

Room-temperature ionic liquids (ILs), which have excellent properties, such as high gas absorption abilities, extremely low volatility and tunable structures, are regarded as environmentally-friendly absorbents and widely used in SO2 absorption and separation. As a result, a large number of ILs have been synthesized to capture SO2 from flue gas or simulated gas, but a part of them just have physical interaction with SO2 and can hardly absorb SO2 when the content of SO2 is very low. Hence, functional ILs, which can chemically absorb a large amount of SO2 with low contents, have been designed and synthesized for SO2 capture. Up to now, many kinds of functional ILs were investigated for SO2 absorption from flue gas. In this review, the functional ILs are classified into guanidinium based ILs, hydroxyl ammonium based ILs, imidazolium/pyridinium based ILs, quaternary ammonium based ILs, phosphonium based ILs, and other kinds of ILs according to their cations. The capacities of SO2 absorption in these ILs, the mechanism of the absorption, and the ways to enhance the absorption are briefly introduced. The prospect of functional ILs for their application in SO2 removal is presented. The present problems and the further studies are also discussed. Keywords: Ionic liquid, SO2, Absorption, Functionalizatio

Capture of Acidic Gases from Flue Gas by Deep Eutectic Solvents

Up to now, many kinds of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were investigated for the capture of acidic gases from flue gases. In this review, non-functionalized and functionalized DESs, including binary and ternary DESs, for SO2, CO2 and NO capture, are summarized based on the mechanism of absorption, physical interaction or chemical reaction. New strategies for improving the absorption capacity are introduced in this review. For example, a third component can be introduced to form a ternary DES to suppress the increase in viscosity and improve the CO2 absorption capacity. DESs, synthesized with halogen salt hydrogen bond acceptors (HBAs) and functionalized hydrogen bond donors (HBDs), can be used for the absorption of SO2 and NO with high absorption capacities and low viscosities after absorption, due to physicochemical interaction between gases and DESs. Emphasis is given to introducing the absorption capacities of acidic gases in these DESs, the mechanism of the absorption, and the ways to enhance the absorption capacity

SO₂ Absorption by Carboxylate Anion-Based Task-Specific Ionic Liquids: Effect of Solvents and Mechanism

Task-specific ionic liquids (TSILs) have been widely observed to effectively absorb low-concentration SO₂ from flue gas by chemical interaction. However, the interaction between SO₂ and TSILs is still unclear. The addition of solvents can decrease the viscosity of TSILs and promote mass transfer, but whether the solvents have an impact on absorption is unknown, as is the effect on absorption mechanism. To solve these issues, we synthesized several types of TSILs containing carboxylate anion to capture SO₂ from simulated flue gas. The mechanism of absorption of SO₂ by the TSILs was investigated in detail using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and ¹³C NMR. The results show that chemical interactions can be found between the carboxylate anions of TSILs and SO₂. Simultaneously, the effect of several solvents on SO₂ absorption capacity of TSILs was studied. The results indicate that ethylene glycol (EG) in TSILs has a strong influence on SO₂ absorption by guanidinium- and alkanolaminium-based TSILs, but for quaternary ammonium-based TSILs, EG has no effect. Finally, the interaction between EG and TSILs was investigated by FT-IR, and the absorption mechanism was studied. It has been found that the addition of EG can improve the basicity of guanidinium- and alkanolaminium-based TSILs to increase the absorption capacity

Separation of the Isomers of Benzene Poly(carboxylic acid)s by Quaternary Ammonium Salt via Formation of Deep Eutectic Solvents

Because of similar properties and very low volatility, isomers of benzene poly­(carboxylic acid)­s (BPCAs) are very difficult to separate. In this work, we found that isomers of BPCAs could be separated efficiently by quaternary ammonium salts (QASs) via formation of deep eutectic solvents (DESs). Three kinds of QASs were used to separate the isomers of BPCAs, including the isomers of benzene tricarboxylic acids (trimellitic acid, trimesic acid, and hemimellitic acid) and the isomers of benzene dicarboxylic acids (phthalic acid and isophthalic acid). Among the QASs, tetra­ethyl­ammonium chloride was found to have the best performance, which could completely separate BPCA isomers in methyl ethyl ketone solutions. It was found that the hydrogen bond forming between QAS and BPCA results in the selective separation of BPCA isomers. QAS in DES was regenerated effectively by the antisolvent method, and the regenerated QAS was reused four times with the same high efficiency