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In this paper is reported the energy generated in a paper-based microfluidic fuel cell (paper-based mFC) using Pd/CX100 as anode and glycerol from three sources: reagent grade glycerol, crude glycerol from sunflower oil biodiesel, and crude glycerol from used cooking oil biodiesel, as fuels. TEM, SEM, XRD, XPS, and cyclic voltammetry were employed for the Pd/CX100 characterization. The paper-based mFC using Pd/CX100 as anode was evaluated employing 0.1 M and 0.5 M glycerol of each glycerol sample and achieving power densities of 0.242 and 0.160; 0.15 and 0.127; and 0.108 and 0.090 mW cm-2 for reagent grade glycerol, glycerol from sunflower oil biodiesel, and glycerol from used cooking oil biodiesel, respectively.

In this paper, the biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was carried out from 4 different extracellular filtrates (EF): Extracellular Filtrate Czapek (EFC), Extracellular Filtrate Malt Dextrose (EFMD), Extracellular Filtrate Potato Dextrose (EFPD), and Extracellular Filtrate Saccharose (EFS). AuNPs were evaluated as anodes in paper-based microfluidic fuel cells for the oxidation of glucose in blood. In an innovative way and with the aim of having a more realistic application approach, the devices were tested with two different types of blood: one blood with glucose levels in the normal range and the other with glucose levels in the diabetes range. The power densities obtained for these kinds of blood were 0.54 and 0.85 mW cm-2, respectively.

With the enlightenment of knowledge and the inception of databases in large number, how to fetch the important information from the raw data is the major problem which is needed to be solved. Machine learning is a technique which is helpful in solving this issue with more accuracy and in a faster way. Machine learning working process is to train the data and the algorithm develops some rules, based on that learning, evaluation is done with the test data to generate results without human intervention. This paper portrays the various application areas of machine learning, along with its advantages and drawbacks. This paper also describes the various supervised and unsupervised algorithms with their categories, which are used to solve various problems. This paper will help the researcher in finding various application areas of machine learning and also help the researcher in selection of particular techniques according to the situation. Moreover, the researcher can also learn the detailed knowledge about machine learning. This work can be extended further with comparison of machine learning and deep learning techniques. This area has vast scope and is helpful for the researcher in detection of various crop problems, and disease detection like cancer detection, skin problems, etc.

Industrial development is a challenging issue in recent times, as its adverse impact directly influences the environment. Paper and pulp industries are generally declared as one of the highly polluting industries in the country. However, nowadays they are also identified as the industry mounting with environmental and economic pressures to reduce the volume and toxicity of generated industrial wastewaters. Paper industries generate varieties of contaminants depending upon the manufacturing process. Especially, disposal of polluted water directly affects the soil structures, not only in industrial area but also in agricultural fields. Therefore, the present work accentuates on the examination of paper effluent characteristics, its impact on soil quality, and germination of groundnut seedlings. Seedling growth in polluted soil and fertile soil were monitored for 90 days. For this process, effluent, soil samples were collected from the paper industry located in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, India. Soil samples were tested for their nutrients’ level, concentration of heavy metals as per the standard quality procedures. Distribution of nutrients, heavy metal concentrations were studied in the matured crops. Sample crop registered mixed concentration of nutrient levels/heavy metals against the prescribed WHO/FAO standards, whereas control crop exhibited values within standards sufficing its healthier growth. This implies that the irrigation of the farmland with industrial water alters nutrient availabilities, in turn promoting toxic leachates into the soil. Further, the soil performances due to the percolation of industrial discharges reflected in the complexities of crop growth.

The overall performance of pavement is dependent on the subgrade soil type and its properties. Soil stabilization has always been a substantial concern in construction of highways. In situ soil remoulding is an essential criterion to enhance the fundamental engineering properties of subgrade and to meet the standards of road construction. Various stabilization techniques are utilized to annihilate the inadequate properties of sub-grade soils. Principally, traditionally used soil stabilizers like lime, cement, bitumen, etc. and combinations of these have been utilized widely to enhance the properties of problematic soil. These traditionally soil stabilizers are uneconomical and use of gravel or sand to enrich soil properties are depleting. This scenario has led to lots of researches in order to identify and introduce cost efficient and eco-friendly materials, in particular, different types of inorganic to organic stabilizers have been experimented at laboratory level and also in field level in order to scrutinize their suitability as soil stabilizer. This paper elaborates the various research conducted on enhancing sub-grade of the road by stabilizing dispersive soil with biopolymers, bioenzymes, and additives. These stabilizers are environmentally friendly and a cost-effective alternative to traditionally soil stabilizers.

Ionosphere’s role is most important in vigorous satellite communication for the navigation positional correctness purpose. Ionosphere contains diverse layers reliant on its electron density with altitude in the layer. There are various ionospheric models to forecast electron density with temporal resolutions cited by literatures. GPS data is frequently used by these models. So, the necessity is a prerequisite of evolving ionospheric models with different time duration for low latitudes of India. Also, an ionosphere tomography is considered as an ill-posed problem. Ionospheric TEC found simultaneously at numerous locations can be preserved with several algorithms to conquer electron density. This research is proposed for evolving a model to forecast 3D tomography of total electron density for the whole Indian region. Mainly used satellite data can be collected by various means. The management of vast statistics are planned by using data mining techniques and artificial neural network techniques for estimation. This paper is an outcome of detailed research on ionospheric model development.

SS and Cu electrodes were used in the electrochemical coagulation to treat pulp and paper mill wastewater using 4SS and 3SS 1Cu electrodes by applying cell voltages 12 – 24 V. Optimal cell voltage 18V showed COD removal of 89.64% for 4SS electrode and 84.74% for 3SS 1Cu electrode with simultaneous color removal of 99% and 90%. Other control factors used for optimal operation are sludge volume index (SVI), filterability, etc. SVI values were m). Lower α and Rm values for 4SS and 3SS-1Cu electrodes were found at 60 min ET. Proximate and ultimate analyses showed that 4SS and 3SS-1Cu sludge could be used as additive as well as adsorbent material for treating low strength wastewater.

An electrochemical screen-printed paper based analytical device (EµPAD) was fabricated for the detection of cholesterol based on two electrode system. The working electrode of EµPAD was coated with graphene oxide (GO) and polyaniline composite. The GO was chemically synthesized in the laboratory using modified hummer’s method and characterized using XRD, Raman, UV – Visible absorption, FTIR spectroscopies, and SEM studies. Cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) enzyme was immobilized on the GO/PANI modified EµPAD for the electrochemical detection of cholesterol using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry. In both measurements, the current increased when the concentration of cholesterol increases from 1 mM to 10 mM. This increase in current with increase in cholesterol concentration was due to fact that more H2O2 molecules were generated when the cholesterol concentration was increased. Further, H2O2 is oxidized and electrons were generated which enhanced the current.

The current typical techniques for making electronic passive components are complex, environment unfriendly, energy consuming and expensive. The conventional electronic elements are un foldable and non-flexible. The waste electrical and electronics equipment (WEEE) obtained from printed circuit boards contains organic compounds and heavy metals. The substance causing serious environmental effects, e.g. acidification, global warming, etc. and heavy metals such as tin and lead poisoning and saturating the soil such that the groundwater becomes undrinkable. Considering the recent interest in green electronics, we report foldable, low-cost, eco-friendly passive electronic components. We report low cost and non-energy exhaustive fabrication as direct writing of pencil on paper and direct deposition of conductive materials on substrate. We fabricated foldable passive resistors and capacitors as passive components. Passive components with vast variety of values have been fabricated to use for foldable applications. All the fabricated passive components are foldable, low cost, lightweight, environment friendly and sustainable to the bending. These paper-based components are useful for foldable power electronics, consumer electronics, foldable printed circuit boards, packaging, capacitive touch pads, disposable systems for security and soft robotics.

The versatility of Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) has meant that the technology can now branch towards a growing variety of applications. One of the big challenges however, has not been the microbial community but the identification of materials that allow the organisms to thrive and ultimately produce power. Paper has recently been adopted as a viable material that functions both structurally and as the medium for proton exchange. To date; the most reported use for paper-based MFCs has been as a diagnostics tool, however it is highly desirable to develop paper MFCs as lightweight, portable power supplies. In a diagnostic role, the paper MFCs reported have been low-power and short-lived (lasting just minutes) which is not suitable if the role were as power supply. There have been reports of longer-term electrical outputs using paper-based MFCs (with air-cathodes) such as origami stacks1 and 3D-tetrahedron MFCs2. However, in both cases the method for feeding was via careful liquid injection. This is all very well in a lab-based environment but in a real-world scenario MFCs might need activating quickly and without delicate feeding requirements. Here it would be advantageous to simply distribute onto pools of liquid and have them passively intake the fuel. The goal of the current study therefore was to look at paper-based MFCs and investigate whether they might be able to passively intake nutrients from the surrounding environment. Two MFC designs were looked at; the first being flat 2D-MFCs with the anode on the underside of the paper, directly in contact with the liquid and the cathode on top, open to air. The second design was 3D-tetrahedron MFCs constructed from standard copier paper but with an absorbent cellulose material incorporated into the base. For all MFCs, air-cathodes were used without platinum or ferricyanide. For the 2D-flat MFCs, two methodologies were tested; the first was to print electrodes on either side of the paper and the second were hand-made, three-layered structures with conductive latex cathodes painted on one side and a sheet of carbon fibre adhered to the other. Each MFC was approximately 2cm x 4cm. In all experiments, there was no inoculation prior to the MFC being placed on puddles of enriched wastewater. The MFCs with printed electrodes reached peak OCV of 300mV which quickly dropped. In closed circuit the current peaked at 2.4 µA before rapidly declining which is clearly unsuitable for real-world use. The reason for the poor performance was the dissolution of the electrode as the liquid displaced the conductive elements as verified by the significant increase in resistance after use. Further work with printed MFCs will investigate incorporating a stabilising material to prevent the electrodes dissolving. The flat hand-made MFCs fared much better. Interestingly the conductive-latex cathodes were more resistive than the printed ones yet the MFCs were superior and more stable over time. These MFCs climbed and stabilised for 4 days at 11 µW (185mV). Different types of paper were trialled including baking, greaseproof and copier and all performed comparably. Further work will investigate stacking multiple flat-MFCs on single sheets of paper. The simple flat-MFCs are promising but for MFCs operating outside and tapping into nutrients in puddles they should ideally have enclosed chambers housing the anode. To trial this, 3D-tetrahedron MFCs with 15mL volume were set up to sit on pools of liquid with the only method of feeding via capillary motion of the absorbent base. The 3D-MFCs with absorbent bases were compared to MFCs with a waterproof coating over their base. Those with the absorbent bottoms immediately generated a current and continued increasing in power for over 2 weeks peaking and stabilising at 40µW (2.7 W/m3). In addition, when fresh nutrient was added to the reservoir (not directly to the MFCs), they responded almost immediately, a factor that could be advantageous if the role were biosensor. The MFCs with plastic coated bases showed no working voltage throughout the period. The output generated by the MFCs relying on a passive feeding mechanism is comparable to that produced by the same MFCs with sealed bases from a previous study (where injection feeding took place2). This output is sufficient to initiate a power management system and broadcast radio signals. These findings are an exciting development because lightweight paper-MFCs could potentially be dropped onto puddles of organic liquid, passively sucking up nutrients from the environment and subsequently broadcasting distress signals. References 1Fraiwan et al., (2016) Biosens Bioelectron 85: 190-197 2Winfield et al., (2015) J Mater Chem A 13: 7058-7065

With the advent of pandemic and when nations have sealed most of their boundaries, conscious consumerism in food has taken great strides. Humans can no longer be oblivious to what they eat or drink. In the age of increased competition for resource availability, age old traditional organic food farming and consumption have become facile and the need of the hour. The review attempts to showcase how organic farming prevailed during the vedic time prioritizing the concept of environmental balance. Furthermore, the 2030 agenda for sustainable development adopted shared a roadmap wherein eco-friendly practices have gained greater importance in order to make our planet a better place. Consumers have become conscious about their purchases. In addition, newer technologies such as blockchain, IoT, robots, and cloud computing all have contributed significantly to satisfy farmer and consumer needs at various levels. All these developments are leading to a Society 5.0.

The COVID-19 epidemic has a profound impact on the global economy and human health. However, in contrast to the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, which required the use of taxpayers' money to rescue banks in many countries, banks are being asked to help reduce the impact of COVID-19 and participate in economic recovery during this time. At the time of the epidemic, the organization was the development of many active participatory activities, such as online family interaction and practice, visual learning, and online construction, team building, training workshops, weekly, or online, video conference, and short sessions, online games, games, challenges and competitions, or online courses, thanks, and times, tests, communication, and game times, online support, insight, and is the sole discretion of the session of workshops devoted to anxiety and stress, meditation, and social interaction in the virtual office, digital class, modules, e‐learning, and many other creative courses. The inclusion of the in-house activity, it is very suitable for both the employees and the organizations. In light of this, the study investigates with an emphasis on the Indian banking sector, the responsible measures were approved by banks to reduce the negative effects of the epidemic on its employees and the community. The findings of our article are based on review of documents and reviews of major banking websites.

This study examines the volatility and seasonality influence on the price discovery of agricultural commodities. The present study intends to review price volatility that has been extensively researched over the last decade. The Web of Science is chosen to extract the data. The PRISMA 2020 flowchart is an eligibility criterion used in the data selection and rejection procedure. Following a thorough evaluation, the final fifty-four studies have been chosen for the review. The data classification is mainly discussing price discovery of agricultural commodities, volatility spillover, and its impact on the agricultural commodity market. Findings of the study signifies agri commodities like corn and soybean’s future marketplace is more competent in price discovery of agri commodities compared to the cash market.

Municipal solid waste, commonly known as garbage, is a waste category comprising of items that are discarded. The waste that is involved is very flagrant, we approach a system called as Involuntary Solid Waste Segregator (ISWS), where the segregation of the waste like metal, glass and plastic, organic and sanitary napkins are carried out. To segregate the metallic waste, a magnetic field is generated with inductive sensor, for glass and plastic and organic waste used capacitive sensor, infrared sensors respectively. Once the waste segregated is amassed in a trash can and the amount is monitored in a server by Internet of things (IoT).

Performance of direct internal reforming (DIR)-solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) can be improved by the application of the paper-structured catalyst (PSC) on the anode material. In the ceramic fiber network of the PSC, any kinds of functional materials can be easily dispersed during paper-making process. The solid solution based on the equimolar mixture of ceria and zirconia (Ce0.5Zr0.5O2-δ), hereafter called CZ, is a promising oxide support of the Ni metal catalyst due to its high specific surface area and high oxygen storage capacity (OSC). By employing the two-step hydrothermal process developed in this study, we could successfully prepare the CZ with flowerlike geometry, which can prevent Ni from sintering under reducing atmosphere. Ni-loaded PSCs with and without the dispersion of CZ, Ni/CZ-PSC and Ni-PSC, respectively, were prepared. Structures of the PSCs were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), BET specific surface area measurement, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP) and thermogravimetric analysis (TG). Catalytic performances of these PSCs for the dry reforming of methane (DRM) in the feed of the equimolar mixture of CH4 and CO2 were evaluated by an automatic gas chromatograph (GC) with the posttest analysis by FESEM observation, temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) and TG to estimate carbon deposition. In the durability (160 h) tests of the prepared-PSCs for DRM at 750oC under gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 2300 h-1 revealed that, for both cases with and without CZ dispersion, methane conversions were stable with the degradation rates (estimated after 10 h) of 13.7 and 21.8% 1000 h-1, respectively. TG measurements after the 160 h tests under oxidizing atmosphere in the range from 300 to 750oC revealed that the weights of the deposited carbon were 0.2 and 3.4 folds of those of PSCs for Ni/CZ-PSC and Ni-PSC, respectively. In the case without CZ dispersion (Ni-PSC), after the TG measurement to burn out the deposited carbon, Ni agglomeration and its detachment from the ceramic fiber could be clearly observed. On the other hand, for the Ni/CZ-PSC, these phenomena were considerably suppressed thanks to the flowerlike morphology for better dispersion of Ni metal particles and higher OSC of CZ solid solution to consume deposited carbon by the lattice oxygen. The developed PSCs will be applied on the anode of electrolyte-supported cell to demonstrate the stable operation of DIR-SOFC fueled by biogas (direct-biogas SOFC).

Magnesium bipolar plates (BPPs) offer great advantage in realizing the ultra-lightweight target of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). However, high corrosion tendency limits its application. To improve the corrosion resistance and surface conductivity of the Mg BPPs, a novel Graphite paper/Cu coating is proposed in this study. 24 h potentiostatic polarization results reveal that the corrosion current density of the coated specimen dropped by 4 orders of magnitude than that of bare Mg. In addition, the interfacial contact resistance (ICR) of Mg BPPs at 1.4 MPa was remarkably reduced after coating, from 597.22 mΩ cm2 to 5.49 mΩ cm2 after the polarization test, respectively, which reached the target set by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The results illustrate that the Graphite paper/Cu coating exhibits excellent anti-corrosion and electrical property, which may offer a promising strategy for the coating design on Mg BPPs for ultra-lightweight PEMFCs.