The controllability of mining is a key factor affecting the commercial application of methane hydrates, and the addition of chemical additives can significantly accelerate the mining process. However, the effect of additive concentration on hydrate decomposition is not yet well understood. In this study, we systematically investigate the effect of ethanol concentration on the decomposition of methane hydrate under varying thermodynamic conditions using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. To quantitatively characterize the decomposition process and mechanism of methane hydrates, the combination of angular order parameter (AOP), radial distribution function (RDF), mean square displacement (MSD), diffusion coefficients and system energy was for the first time used. The results showed that the addition of ethanol contributed to the formation of methane bubbles and accelerated the decomposition of hydrates. The mass transfer effect of ethanol molecules and the reconstruction of the hydrogen bond network of water molecules determined the stability of hydrates. From 0 to 40 mol% ethanol concentration, the hydrate decomposition increased with increasing the concentration of ethanol. Both increasing the temperature and decreasing the pressure are beneficial to the decomposition of the hydrate system. These results provide the selection of optimal ethanol concentration for the decomposition of methane hydrate and reveal its decomposition mechanism, and shed important light for the controllable production of gas hydrates.

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A novel adaptive fuzzy dynamic surface control (DSC) scheme is for the first time constructed for a larger class of (multi-input multi-output) MIMO non-affine pure-feedback systems in the presence of input saturation nonlinearity. First of all, the restrictive differentiability assumption on non-affine functions has been canceled after using the piecewise functions to reconstruct the model for non-affine nonlinear functions. Then, a novel auxiliary system with bounded compensation term is firstly introduced to deal with input saturation, and the dynamic system employed in this work designs a bounded compensation term of tangent function. Thus, we successfully relax the strictly bounded assumption of the dynamic system. Additionally, the fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) are used to approximate unknown continuous systems functions, and the minimal learning parameter (MLP) technique is exploited to simplify control design and reduce the number of adaptive parameters. Finally, two simulation examples with input saturation are given to validate the effectiveness of the developed method.@en

A comprehensive research coupling experiment and computation has been performed to understand the phase transition of Na₃SbS₄ and to synthesize cubic Na₃SbS₄ (c-Na₃SbS₄), a high temperature phase of Na₃SbS₄ that is difficult to be preserved when cooled down to ambient temperature. The formation of c-Na₃SbS₄ is verified by Rietveld refinement, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy as well as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Unlike tetragonal Na₃SbS₄ (t-Na₃SbS₄) appearing phase transition at high temperature, c-Na₃SbS₄ is stable not just at room temperature but also sustaining thermal cycling up to at least 200 °C. Both experiment and theoretical calculation reveal that the ionic conductivity of c-Na₃SbS₄ is higher than that of t-Na₃SbS₄, though the values are in the same order of magnitude. Both structures allow fast ion transport. All-solid-state cells with c-Na₃SbS₄ solid electrolyte demonstrate superior Coulombic efficiency, high specific capacity, and relatively good cycling stability. Na₃SbS₄ solid electrolyte is promising for all-solid-state sodium-ion batteries.

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Snow sublimation is an important hydrological process and its spatial and temporal variation remains largely unknown; however, few studies have been conducted to quantify its spatial variability. Our study focuses on the evaluation of two algorithms, Penman-Monteith (P-M) equation and the bulk aerodynamic (BA) parameterization of snow sublimation. The two methods were first evaluated against eddy covariance (EC) measurements of latent heat flux at towers located in the upper reaches of the Heihe River Basin (China). Both methods were in good agreement with the ground observations with high coefficient of determination (R2) and low root mean squared error (RMSE). Next, we estimated subpixel snow sublimation using remote sensing data at a 1-km × 1-km spatial resolution. The results based on satellite data were evaluated against ground measurements at the two experimental sites. The P-M equation gave R² = 0.75, RMSE = 8.4 Wm^-2 for Dashalong site and R² = 0.36, RMSE = 9.1 Wm^-2 for the Dadongshu site and performed better than the BA parameterization, which gave R² = 0.65, RMSE = 17.5 Wm^-2 for the Dashalong site and R² = 0.06, RMSE = 21.2 Wm^-2 for the Dadongshu site. Overall, the results indicate that P-M is promising for estimating snow sublimation at the regional scale using satellite observations.

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Photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices for solar water splitting require not only high solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency but also high chemical stability in strong acidic or alkaline electrolytes for long-term operation. Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has been considered as a highly promising protection layer to achieve high chemical stability for solar water splitting devices, especially for silicon based monolithic photovoltaic electrochemical (PV-EC) systems, while there is a trade-off relationship between activity and stability in these devices: the high charge transport barrier at the PV (silicon based thin film solar cells)/TiO₂ interface and the high ohmic loss in TiO₂ films hinder the device performance, especially when a thick TiO₂ protection layer (preferred to enhance the chemical stability in the electrolyte) is used. Herein, we show that a hydrogen doped TiO₂ protection layer can break this traditional trend to increase the activity without deteriorating the stability, when thick protection layers are employed to ensure stability. We demonstrated significant performance enhancement in hydrogenated amorphous silicon/silicon germanium (a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H) photocathodes through this approach. On one hand, the H-doping can shift up the Fermi level and reduce the electron transport barrier at the interface of the PV/TiO₂ protection layer. On the other hand, the higher carrier density via H-doping leads to the enhancement of electron transport in TiO₂ films and a shorter depletion layer barrier. Thus, the H-doping results in a higher photocurrent output at 0 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), indicating the high potential of the H-doped TiO₂ protection layer for achieving stable and efficient monolithic solar water splitting devices.

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