Energy-Efficient and Self-Powered Green Ammonia Synthesis by Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction Combined with Hydrazine Oxidation.

To achieve the global goal of carbon neutrality, recently, emphasis has been placed on developing green ammonia production method to replace the Haber-Bosch process. Nitrate reduction reaction (NO3 RR) has received considerable attention, especially for electrochemically producing ammonia from nitrate and simultaneously purifying wastewater. This study first demonstrates that the combination of NO3 RR with hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) is an energy efficient green ammonia production method, which overcomes the sluggish water oxidation limitation. Tungsten phosphide (WP) nanowires (NWs) are prepared as cathode NO3 RR electrocatalysts, which exhibit a high Faradaic efficiency in both neutral (≈93%) and alkaline (≈85%) media. Furthermore, they show a high bifunctional activity in anodic reactions and exhibit a low potential 0.024 V for generating a current density of 10 mA cm-2 in HzOR. The overall NO3 RR-HzOR required an impressively low potential of 0.24 V for generating a current density of 10 mA cm-2 ; this potential is much lower than those required for NO3 RR-OER (1.53 V) and NO3 RR-UOR (1.31 V). A self-powered ammonia production system, prepared by assembling an NO3 RR-HzOR with a perovskite solar cell, displays a high ammonia production rate of 1.44 mg cm-2  h-1 . A single PV cell provides enough driving voltage in the PV-EC due to low required potential. This system facilitates unassisted green ammonia synthesis with a low energy consumption and also allows upcycling of wastewater to produce useful fuel.

Comparison of Various Frequency Matching Schemes for Geometric Correction of Geostationary Ocean Color Imager.

Current precise geometric correction of Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) image slots is performed by shoreline matching. However, it is troublesome to handle slots with few or no shorelines, or slots covered by clouds. Geometric correction by frequency matching has been proposed to handle these slots. In this paper, we further extend previous research on frequency matching by comparing the performance of three frequency domain matching methods: phase correlation, gradient correlation, and orientation correlation. We compared the performance of each matching technique in terms of match success rate and geometric accuracy. We concluded that the three frequency domain matching method with peak search range limits was comparable to geometric correction performance with shoreline matching. The proposed method handles translation only, and assumes that rotation has been corrected. We need to do further work on how to handle rotation by frequency matching.

Profiling of remote skeletal muscle gene changes resulting from stimulation of atopic dermatitis disease in NC/Nga mouse model.

Although atopic dermatitis (AD) is known to be a representative skin disorder, it also affects the systemic immune response. In a recent study, myoblasts were shown to be involved in the immune regulation, but the roles of muscle cells in AD are poorly understood. We aimed to identify the relationship between mitochondria and atopy by genome-wide analysis of skeletal muscles in mice. We induced AD-like symptoms using house dust mite (HDM) extract in NC/Nga mice. The transcriptional profiles of the untreated group and HDM-induced AD-like group were analyzed and compared using microarray, differentially expressed gene and functional pathway analyses, and protein interaction network construction. Our microarray analysis demonstrated that immune response-, calcium handling-, and mitochondrial metabolism-related genes were differentially expressed. In the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology pathway analyses, immune response pathways involved in cytokine interaction, nuclear factor-kappa B, and T-cell receptor signaling, calcium handling pathways, and mitochondria metabolism pathways involved in the citrate cycle were significantly upregulated. In protein interaction network analysis, chemokine family-, muscle contraction process-, and immune response-related genes were identified as hub genes with many interactions. In addition, mitochondrial pathways involved in calcium signaling, cardiac muscle contraction, tricarboxylic acid cycle, oxidation-reduction process, and calcium-mediated signaling were significantly stimulated in KEGG and Gene Ontology analyses. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the genome-wide transcriptional changes of HDM-induced AD-like symptoms and the indicated genes that could be used as AD clinical biomarkers.

Geometric Correction for the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager from a Combination of Shoreline Matching and Frequency Matching.

Geometric correction is fundamental in producing high quality satellite data products. However, the geometric correction for ocean color sensors, e.g., Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), is challenging because the traditional method based on ground control points (GCPs) cannot be applied when the shoreline is absent. In this study, we develop a hybrid geometric correction method, which applies shoreline matching and frequency matching on slots with shorelines and without shorelines, respectively. Frequency matching has been proposed to estimate the relative orientation between GOCI slots without a shoreline. In this paper, we extend our earlier research for absolute orientation and geometric correction by combining frequency matching results with shoreline matching ones. The proposed method consists of four parts: Initial sensor modeling of slots without shorelines, precise sensor modeling through shoreline matching, relative orientation modeling by frequency matching, and generation of geometric correction results using a combination of the two matching procedures. Initial sensor modeling uses the sensor model equation for GOCI and metadata in order to remove geometric distortion due to the Earth's rotation and curvature in the slots without shorelines. Precise sensor modeling is performed with shoreline matching and random sample consensus (RANSAC) in the slots with shorelines. Frequency matching computes position shifts for slots without shorelines with respect to the precisely corrected slots with shorelines. GOCI Level 1B scenes are generated by combining the results from shoreline matching and frequency matching. We analyzed the accuracy of shoreline matching alone against that of the combination of shoreline matching and frequency matching. Both methods yielded a similar accuracy of 1.2 km, which supports the idea that frequency matching can replace traditional shoreline matching for slots without visible shorelines.

Study on thermal evolution of the CuSe phase in nanoparticle-based absorber layers for solution-processed chalcopyrite photovoltaic devices.

Nanoparticle-based, solution-processed chalcopyrite photovoltaic devices have drawn tremendous attraction for the realization of low-cost, large-area solar cell applications. In particular, it has been recently demonstrated that the CuSe phase plays a critical role in allowing the formation of device-quality, nanoparticle-based chalcopyrite absorber layers. For further in-depth study, with the aim of understanding the thermal behavior of the CuSe phase that triggers the vigorous densification reaction, a requisite for high-performance chalcopyrite absorber layers, both multiphase (CuSe-phase including) and single-phase (CuSe-phase free) CISe nanoparticles are investigated from the viewpoint of compositional variation and crystalline structural evolution. In addition, with CuSe-phase including CISe particulate layers, the basic restrictions in thermal treatment necessary for activating effectively the CuSe-phase induced densification reaction are suggested, in conjunction with consideration on the thermal decomposition of organic additives that are inevitably incorporated in nanoparticle-based absorber layers.