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Taking renewable energy consumption as a concomitant variable and using data from 25 manufacturing subsectors in 38 countries from 2000 to 2014, this paper investigates the impact of economic growth on CO2 emissions at the subsector level by employing an endogenous finite mixture model for the first time. The results are as follows: (1) Manufacturing growth has led to a significant increase of CO2 emissions, but this promoting effect becomes weak as the share of renewable energy consumption expands; (2) With the growing impact of renewable energy consumption, nearly half of the sample countries and two-thirds of the subsectors have experienced the transformation of the nexus between manufacturing growth and emissions; and (3) Compared with coal, coke and crude, the growth of the manufacturing subsector that is mainly dependent on natural gas, electricity and heat, has produced lower emissions. Our findings provide significant evidence of and references for formulating renewable energy policy for various manufacturing subsectors.

By means of electrochemical atomic layer deposition (ECALD), cobalt selenide counter electrodes have been successfully prepared on FTO substrate for the first time. The as-grown films presented amorphous structure and their composition and microstructure could be regulated effectively by adjusting the depositing potential of Se via the route of ECALD. Cycle voltammograms and Tafel polarization measurements revealed that the cobalt selenide counter electrode exhibited an excellent catalytic activity and stability in the I−/I3− system. Due to the more active catalytic sites and less charge-transfer resistance, the Co1.2Se counter electrode yielded faster and more complete reduction of I3− to I− than the Pt and other compositions of cobalt selenide. As a result, the dye-sensitized solar cell based on the Co1.2Se counter electrode yielded a photoconversion efficiency of 9.28%, which improved by 136% than that of the DSSC based on the Pt electrode (6.84%). Taking the facility and cost efficiency into consideration, ECALD has great potential in preparing high efficient counter electrode for high performance DSSCs.

By dipping the mesoporous TiO 2 film in Sr 2+ solutions and subsequent annealing, a modification layer of SrTiO 3 has been formed on the surface of the mesoporous TiO 2 film, and the effect of modification on the photovoltaic characteristics of the perovskite solar cells has been studied detailedly. The XPS and TEM results verified the existence and nature of the SrTiO 3 modification layer. Benifiting from the TiO 2 surface modification, the morphology of perovskite film and light absorption of the CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 absorber have been improved effectively, and a faster charge transfer has also been achieved between the CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 perovskite layer and the modified TiO 2 . As a result, an average conversion efficiency of 11.4% has been achieved in the perovskite solar cell based on the modified mesoporous TiO 2 by 10 mM Sr 2+ solution, and it increases approximately by 46% in comparison with the photovoltaic efficiency of 7.8% of the perovskite solar cell based the bare mesoporous TiO 2 layer.

In this paper, a hybrid generator has been fabricated by connecting a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) with a single p–n junction thermoelectric generator (TEG) in series. Both the open-circuit voltage and the short circuit current of the hybrid generator have been enhanced obviously in comparison with the algebraic sum of those of the DSSC and TEG. The increase of non-equilibrium carrier concentration originates from the synergistic effect between the TEG and DSSC, which lifts the quasi-Fermi energy level and improve the photoelectric response rate thus enhancing the open-circuit voltage and current density of the DSSC. As a result, a conversion efficiency of 9.08% has been obtained in hybrid B, which is greatly enhanced by 20.6% and 725.5% in comparison with that of the separate DSSC and TEG, respectively.

In this study, high coverage and uniformly distributed Bi 2 S 3 and Sb 2 S 3 quantum dots (QDs) are deposited simultaneously on the surface of TiO 2 nanorods (NRs) via electrochemical atomic layer deposition (ECALD) method. The structure, morphology and composition of the deposits are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersion spectroscopy analysis (EDS), respectively. The results show that the deposits are of Bi 2 S 3 and Sb 2 S 3 compound semiconductor, and the Bi 2 S 3 /Sb 2 S 3 QDs cover on the top and side surface of TiO 2 NRs homogeneously. EDS analysis demonstrates that the ratio of both S to Sb and S to Bi are approximately 3:2, indicating that ECALD method can well control the deposition of each element. Owing to the better light absorption property and reduced recombination possibility of Bi 2 S 3 /Sb 2 S 3 QDs co-sensitized solar cells, the power conversion efficiency reaches 0.67% with a short-circuit current density of 4.83 mA cm −2 at AM 1.5 solar light of 100 mW cm −2 , which is much higher than that of Bi 2 S 3 or Sb 2 S 3 QDs sensitized solar cells.

In order to effectively curb the rapidly-increasing energy consumption in manufacturing industry, China has clearly stated in Made in China 2025, to reduce energy consumption per unit of industrial added value of the manufacturing by 18% in 2020 and 34% in 2025 relative to the 2015 level. Based on the ZSG-DEA and CAT models, this paper attempts to establish an efficiency-oriented energy-consuming right trading system (ECRTS) to design the energy allocation scheme along with the energy trading scheme for China’s 18 manufacturing sectors in 2020 and 2025. We find sectors with the allocated energy-consuming right could not only reach the DEA efficiency frontier, but also upgrade their energy-consuming mix. Further, the allocation scheme considering the sectoral heterogeneity is more rational as it relieves the pressure on some sectors to conserve energy. Finally, by integrating energy offsetting mechanism into the united energy market, the energy trading mechanism designed in this work can largely simplify the transaction process and improve the after-trading efficiency for all target sectors.

This paper applies the zero-sum gains data envelopment analysis (ZSG-DEA) model to assess the provincial CO2 emission reduction scheme of China in 2020 and then calculates optimized values for the provinces in 2030. Results from two standard optimization procedures to solve the ZSG-DEA model are compared. We also extend the current methods by improving the iterative approach and then introduce fairness to the efficiency-oriented approach for the 2030 case. We found that the choice of optimization procedures has only a minimal impact on the results, but the specification of model does matter. For 2020, a standard DEA approach shows that only 2 provinces out of 30 are efficient. According to the estimation results of the ZSG-DEA model, 12 provinces need to set higher reduction targets, whereas the other 18 provinces could have lower target values to achieve overall efficiency. These results are generally consistent across different optimization approaches. The improved approach is applied to further evaluate a number of scenarios in 2030, in which the adjustment values towards optimum can be calculated for each scenario. Furthermore, we show that the inclusion of fairness can significantly affect the adjustment targets, which is of great importance to policymakers

A novel bi-layer structure assembled by nanorods and three-dimensional hierarchical TiO 2 is synthesized by a facile two step hydrothermal method. By adjusting the acid concentration, the morphology of three-dimensional hierarchical TiO 2 can be well controlled. This bi-layer structure combines the merits of one-dimensional nanorods which can serve as direct electrons transport pathways and three-dimensional hierarchical structure supplying light scattering ability and large specific surface area for dye loading. Hence, the photovoltaic performance of the dye-sensitized solar cells based on the bi-layer TiO 2 is greatly enhanced compared to that of single nanorods film. The maximum short-circuit current and power conversion efficiency of the DSSCs based on bi-layer TiO 2 structure reach 12.55 mA/cm 2 and 5.61% respectively, which are remarkably larger than those of 5.00 mA/cm 2 and 2.38% for the DSSC based on a single layer TiO 2 nanorods film. The superior performance of bi-layer TiO 2 structure is attributed to the large dye loading amount and light scattering properties due to the unique hierarchical structure.