The move towards a de-carbonized world, driven partly by climate science and partly by the business opportunities it offers, will need the promotion of environmentally friendly alternatives, if an acceptable Stabilization level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be achieved. This requires the harnessing and use of natural resources that produce no air pollution or greenhouse gases and provides comfortable coexistence of human, livestock, and plants. This article presents a comprehensive review of energy sources, and the development of sustainable technologies to explore these energy sources. It also includes potential renewable energy technologies, efficient energy systems, energy savings techniques and other mitigation measures necessary to reduce climate changes. There is strong scientific evidence that the average temperature of the earth’s surface is rising. This is a result of the increased concentration of carbon dioxide and other GHGs in the atmosphere as released by burning fossil fuels. This global warming will eventually lead to substantial changes in the world’s climate, which will, in turn, have a major impact on human life and the built environment. Therefore, effort has to be made to reduce fossil energy use and to promote green energy, particularly in the building sector. Energy use reductions can be achieved by minimising the energy demand, rational energy use, recovering heat and the use of more green energy. This study was a step towards achieving this goal. Globally, buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the total world annual energy consumption. Most of this energy is for the provision of lighting, heating, cooling, and air conditioning. Increasing awareness of the environmental impact of CO2, NOx and CFCs emissions triggered a renewed interest in environmentally friendly cooling, and heating technologies. Under the 1997 Montreal Protocol, governments agreed to phase out chemicals used as refrigerants that have the potential to destroy stratospheric ozone. It was therefore considered desirable to reduce energy consumption and decrease the rate of depletion of world energy reserves and pollution of the environment. This article discusses a comprehensive review of energy sources, environment and sustainable development. This includes all the renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency systems, energy conservation scenarios, energy savings and other mitigation measures necessary to reduce climate change.
The development of nanocomposite membranes for desalination and wastewater treatment has attracted significant interest in recent years. This exceptional growth is owed to the enhanced multi functionalities of the nanocomposite membranes in terms of permselectivity, thermal stability, electrical conductivity, and antifouling propensities. In the present work, we fabricated novel thin film nanocomposite (TFN) polyamide membranes using indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles. The thin film composite (TFC) membranes were synthesized by interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction using m-phenylenediamine (MPD)-aqueous solution and trimesoyl chloride (TMC)-ITO heptane solution. The addition of ITO nanoparticles to the polyamide layer significantly improved the water flux from 25.3 LMH for the pristine TFC membrane to 43.5 LMH for the ITO-modified TFN membrane with a slight reduction in salt rejection from 98% to 97% during the treatment of saline water (2000 ppm NaCl). Also, TFN membranes demonstrated superior antifouling propensity than the pristine and commercial membranes during filtration of oil sands produced water to remove organic matter. The improved fouling resistance of TFN membranes was mainly attributed to their enhanced surface wettability as the contact angle decreased from ~82° for the pristine TFC to ~65° for TFN membranes.
This short commentary mentions some reports of immobilization of enzymes by encapsulation into the structure of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and adsorption on the surface of the MOFs. Improvements in thermal stability, storage stability, and reusability were also observed. The ability to improve the function of enzymes while maintaining their stability will lead to cost reduction. In addition, there are possible applications in the fields of biosensing and cancer treatment.
With the development of smart materials and the requirement of multifunctional systems, coatings were developed with the aim to improve and optimize many properties and especially in the electrical field (resistivity, conductivity, permittivity,..) Relative to the electrical conductivity, the need is growing in many activity areas with the recent tendencies (green technology and energy). Recently, the sol-gel route to process coatings was investigated for its ability to develop innovative multifunctional coatings. Because the sol-gel matrix is known to be completely insulating, the conductivity can be brought by the development of a composite material, with the incorporation of conductive fillers into the insulating network. The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the sol-gel coatings, dedicated to the electrical conduction, started in the 2000’s. A rapid introduction will set the context including many “standard” applications of sol-gel coatings. Then, studies are gathered according to the fillers incorporated in the sol-gel formulation (Tables 1-3). Each coating is described in detailed. Correlations and tendencies are identified and discussed. The lowest surface electrical resistance is obtained using metallic fillers (145 mΩâ?i), but the carbon fillers are very promising taking benefit of their various form factors. After an exhaustive presentation of the state of the art in this field, some new quantitative examples of coatings recently developed are presented. Various systems and architectures are detailed with associated applications. The major results show a surface electrical resistance comparable to the best values listed in the literature (around 130 mΩâ?i), but with carbon fillers against metallic fillers. Furthermore, the combination of carbon fillers and the capability to develop a sol-gel multi-layer is demonstrated. Finally, a key point is relative to the application of these conductive sol-gel coatings on a complex shape substrate.
In this work, the impact of the substrate annealing temperature on the thickness and roughness of La2Ti2O7 thin films was verified. A group of LTO Thin films was grown on Si (100) substrates successfully via pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) at various annealing temperatures with a constant numbers of pulses and energy per pulse. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) were used to investigate the thickness and roughness of the deposited La2Ti2O7 thin films. The average thickness of the thin films was decreased due to the increasing in the annealing temperature linearly; the maximum thickness was found (231 nm) when LTO thin film deposited at 500°C. The root mean square roughness was increased linearly with increasing the substrate Temperatures. The minimum roughness was found (0.254 nm) when LTO deposited at (500°C). From the obtained results, its clear evidence that the annealing temperature has an influence on the thickness and roughness of the LTO thin films.
