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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Enabling A Sustainable Economy Through Energy Systems Modeling: Solar-Centric, Efficient, Integrated And Continuous Process Synthesis And Optimization, Emre Gencer
Open Access Dissertations
The expected increase in food, energy and water demand due to increase in population and change in consumption habits in conjunction with diminishing fossil fuel reserves and increasing greenhouse gas emissions urge the development and implementation of alternative energy conversion techniques using renewable energy for a sustainable economy. Among renewable energy sources, solar energy is prominent due to its abundance. A sustainable economy can be created by producing building blocks foundational to meeting all basic human needs of daily existence. However, intermittencies and limitations on land area dedicated to harness solar energy are the major obstacles on widespread implementation of …
Spectroscopic And Kinetic Characterization Of Catalytic Materials For The Conversion Of Biomass-Derived Compounds, Paul James Dietrich
Spectroscopic And Kinetic Characterization Of Catalytic Materials For The Conversion Of Biomass-Derived Compounds, Paul James Dietrich
Open Access Dissertations
As economies look to transition away from petroleum for social, economic, and political reasons, biomass will continue to attract attention as a renewable feedstock for the fuels and chemicals industry. In order to turn biomass into end use fuels and chemicals, the oxygen content must be lowered significantly, requiring large hydrogen inputs. For these processes to be completely renewable, the hydrogen must come from biomass or biomass-derived compounds. In this work, catalysts for the aqueous phase reforming (APR) of biomass-derived sugars were characterized by a combination of reaction kinetics, X-ray spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and theoretical computation to determine the active …