Using Biomass-derived Carbon Catalysts for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction

This dissertation explores the integration of clean energy and electrochemical CO2 reduction to address environmental issues. Metal-free nitrogen-doped carbon materials, derived from renewable biomass, emerge as efficient catalysts for CO2 reduction, offering sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Chapters delve into methods of N-doped biochar...

Adsorption of organic micropollutants by zeolite granules and subsequent ozone-based regeneration

Organic micropollutants (OMPs) that occur in the aquatic environment at trace levels are emerging concerns to society. Domestic wastewater is an important source. OMPs end up in surface water and groundwater via conventional municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), penetrating drinking water. Comprising pharmaceuticals, personal care...

Failure prevention and restoration in power systems

In typical power system operations, failures, e.g., caused by degradation, may result in service interruption and loss of power supply. Furthermore, low-occurrence-probability but high-impact extreme events, e.g., natural disasters and cyber-attacks, may also damage the power grid. This thesis aims to develop innovative strategies for handling...

Self healing in Fe-based systems: From model alloys to designed steels

When high-temperature steels are loaded under under industrially relevant conditions not only creep (i.e. a time dependent strain increase even under nominally constant loading conditions) occurs, but also local damage is formed. At relatively short exposure times quasi-spherical micron-sized cavities form preferentially at the grain boundaries...

On the powder metallurgy, additive manufacturing and welding of oxide dispersion strengthened Eurofer steel

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steels are promising candidates for use as structural materials in the next generation fission and fusion reactors. Compared to conventional ferritic or martensitic steels, ODS steels exhibit improved high-temperature creep properties and irradiation resistance. Favourable properties are mainly attributed to...

Evidence-based development and evaluation of haptic interfaces for manual control

At present, the rapid development of automation technologies allows robots remarkable precision and endurance, as well as the strength in accomplishing repetitive tasks. Despite this, manual control is still indispensable in many domains where robots and humans play complementary roles, as humans demonstrate superior competence in improvisation...

Quantum Control Architecture: Bridging the Gap between Quantum Software and Hardware

Quantum computers can accelerate solving some problems which are inefficiently solved by classical computers, such as quantum chemistry simulation. To date, quantum computer engineering has focused primarily at opposite ends of the required system stack: devising high-level programming languages and compilers to describe and optimize quantum...

Efficient wireless networked control: Towards practical event-triggered implementations

Wireless networked control systems, as the name indicates, employ wireless networks to interconnect their components, e.g. sensors, computing units, and actuators, in their implementation. Removing wires from control system implementations, the components can be more easily installed in spatial positions that are hard to access, and facilitate...

Improving volcanic ash forecasts with ensemble-based data assimilation

The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption had serious consequences to civil aviation. This has initiated a lot of research on volcanic ash forecasting in recent years. For forecasting the volcanic ash transport after eruption onset, a volcanic ash transport and diffusion model (VATDM) needs to be run with Eruption Source Parameters (ESPs) such...

Traffic engineering and quality of service in the internet