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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

What You Don’T See, Brent Sturlaugson Sep 2018

What You Don’T See, Brent Sturlaugson

Architecture Faculty Publications

Follow the supply chains of architecture and you’ll find not just product manufacturers but also environmental polluters and elusive networks of financial power and political influence.


Electronic Effect Of Platinum Alloy Catalysts On Olefin Hydrogenation Kinetics, Colin Reedy, Jeff Miller, Stephen Purdy Aug 2018

Electronic Effect Of Platinum Alloy Catalysts On Olefin Hydrogenation Kinetics, Colin Reedy, Jeff Miller, Stephen Purdy

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Dehydrogenation of alkanes is the first step in transforming light hydrocarbons into liquid fuels and chemicals. This process has traditionally used platinum alloys as catalysts. Alloys are used industrially because they have a greater selectivity than monometallic platinum. Alloying platinum with an inactive promoter modifies the crystalline structure of the surface (geometric effect), and the 5d electrons in platinum responsible for chemistry (electronic effect); both have been suggested to be primarily responsible for dehydrogenation selectivity in platinum alloys. Alloy catalysts have been synthesized using early 3d transition metal promoters with the same Pt3M crystal structure. X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy …


Thermoelectrics And Thermoelectric Devices, Benjamin T. Erck May 2018

Thermoelectrics And Thermoelectric Devices, Benjamin T. Erck

Senior Theses

The field of thermoelectrics has many applications, and more are found in everyday systems. From its current studies, it is apparent that improving the figure of merit zT (which defines a good thermoelectric material) is important in the effectiveness of power generation. Another important part of thermoelectrics is the duality of these devices. They can both move heat and generate power, depending on their role in the system. In this thesis research, a process was made to test these thermoelectric relationships for a few Peltier devices in order to understand their efficiencies and what systems they can be applied to.


Lithium And The Foreseeable Future, Paolo Vargas May 2018

Lithium And The Foreseeable Future, Paolo Vargas

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper aims to clarify the uncertainties regarding worldwide lithium resource availability in the years to come. Previous studies made on the subject are presented with some ambiguity and this work intends to fill the gaps. The information and data presented throughout this script with respect to global lithium resources and reserves are mostly based on data released by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Lithium resource availability in the future is a point of paramount significance primarily for the automotive, portable electronics, and the power generation industry. Since, a change of supply would ultimately affect the price of lithium, …


Single-Stage, Venturi-Driven Desalination System, Brandon Proetto May 2018

Single-Stage, Venturi-Driven Desalination System, Brandon Proetto

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Water demand is increasing at a rapid pace due to population increase, industrial expansion, and agricultural development. The use of desalination technology to meet the high water demands has increased global online desalination capacity from 47 million m^3/d in 2007 to 92.5 million m^3/d as of June 2017 [49]. Membrane and thermal processes are the two mainstream desalination categories used worldwide for desalination plants. Reverse Osmosis (RO) is the most widely used membrane process and it has become the dominant technology for building desalination plants over recent decades. Thermal distillation, however, has become less and less competitive due to its …


Saving Olivet Money With Creation Care, Nicholas Boros Apr 2018

Saving Olivet Money With Creation Care, Nicholas Boros

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Universities throughout the United States are searching for ways to reduce overhead costs, to help combat rises in tuition costs. Typically, one would think that installing solar panels on campus to help generate electricity would cost Olivet money, especially since the University is located in the Midwest. While such an undertaking would require an upfront investment, we will discuss how solar panels could save the University as much as $500,000 to $800,000 per year after an approximate 10 year break even point. We will also briefly discuss how similar approaches could be applied to other businesses and homes for a …


Functionalized Nanoporous Carbon Scaffolds For Hydrogen Storage Applications, Christopher Carr Mar 2018

Functionalized Nanoporous Carbon Scaffolds For Hydrogen Storage Applications, Christopher Carr

Dissertations

Recent efforts have demonstrated confinement in porous scaffolds at the nanoscale can alter the hydrogen sorption properties of metal hydrides, though not to an extent feasible for use in onboard hydrogen storage applications, proposing the need for a method allowing further modifications. The work presented here explores how the functionalization of nanoporous carbon scaffold surfaces with heteroatoms can modify the hydrogen sorption properties of confined metal hydrides in relation to non-functionalized scaffolds (FS). Investigations of nanoconfined LiBH4and NaAlH4indicate functionalizing the carbon scaffold surface with nitrogen can shift the activation energy of hydrogen desorption in excess of …


Preventing Crossover In Redox Flow Batteries Through Active Material Oligomerization, Susan A. Odom Feb 2018

Preventing Crossover In Redox Flow Batteries Through Active Material Oligomerization, Susan A. Odom

Chemistry Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Construction Of Hierarchical Mose2 Hollow Structures And Its Effecton Electrochemical Energy Storage And Conversion, Sha Hu, Qingqing Jiang, Shuoping Ding, Ye Liu, Zuozuo Wu, Zhengxi Huang, Tengfei Zhou, Zaiping Guo, Juncheng Hu Jan 2018

Construction Of Hierarchical Mose2 Hollow Structures And Its Effecton Electrochemical Energy Storage And Conversion, Sha Hu, Qingqing Jiang, Shuoping Ding, Ye Liu, Zuozuo Wu, Zhengxi Huang, Tengfei Zhou, Zaiping Guo, Juncheng Hu

Australian Institute for Innovative Materials - Papers

Metal selenides have attracted increased attentionas promising electrode materials for electrochemical energy storageand conversion systems including metal-ion batteries and watersplitting. However, their practical application is greatly hindered bycollapse of the microstructure, thus leading to performance fading.Tuning the structure at nanoscale of these materials is an effectivestrategy to address the issue. Herein, we craft MoSe2withhierarchical hollow structures via a facile bubble-assistedsolvothermal method. The temperature-related variations of thehollow interiors are studied, which can be presented as solid, yolk−shell, and hollow spheres, respectively. Under the simultaneousaction of the distinctive hollow structures and interconnectionsamong the nanosheets, more intimate contacts between MoSe2and electrolyte can be …