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The interaction of plasmonic nanoparticles with a dielectric platform gives rise to unique optical behaviors and this can be maneuvered to improve the plasmonic/SERS performances of a substrate. Herein, dielectric modified plasmonic-paper SERS substrate is developed by assembling Ag@SiO2 nanocubes on Fe-TiO2 nanosheets (NS) modified paper. The Fe-TiO2 NS being visible light responsive significantly alters the optical property of the paper and serves as a dielectric underlay for the Ag nanocubes. Hence, the incident light reflected back from the dielectric nanosheets couples with the scattered light from the Ag nanocubes leading to spatially enhanced electromagnetic field improving the SERS enhancement. The prepared dielectric modified plasmonic-paper has an average enhancement factor (EF) of 1.49 × 107 using R6G as a probe molecule. This value is superior to unmodified plasmonic-paper highlighting the coupling effect of the dielectric nanosheets. The substrate shows robust detection performance for thiabendazole and achieves a limit of detection (LOD) of 19 μg/L, which is 4-fold more sensitive than unmodified plasmonic paper. Direct swabbing test of thiabendazole sprayed apple fruit shows a discernible Raman signal down to 15 ppb indicating the utility of the substrate for point-of-need applications in food safety.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been investigated as a promising methodology to harvest mechanical energy into electricity. The matching impedance and the transient property of TENGs are important for their practical application. In this work, we proposed novel paper-based methodology for investigation of TENGs. First, we propose a novel method for triggering transience of pencil-on-paper (POP)-TENGs using household microwave oven and commercial graphite pencil. Moreover, a fast, simple and cost-effective approach for measuring the matching impedance of TENG based on paper variable resistor is proposed. The results of this work are beneficial for simple, fast and cost-effective functionalization of TENGs. Keywords: Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), Matching impedance

With the global trend to establish smart distributed-generation grids, the level of AC-voltage harmonics is significantly increasing due to power electronic converters interfacing renewable energy sources with the grid. Such harmonics will not only degrade the power quality and increase the losses in the electricity grids but will also have a severe impact on oil impregnated paper (OIP) in power transformer bushings. While much attention has been given to investigate the deterioration of OIP under thermal and electrical stresses, the impact of voltage harmonics on the OIP structure is still uncertain and calls for more investigations. Therefore, this paper is aimed at investigating the variations of the multilevel structure of an OIP aged under high levels of AC-voltage harmonics. In this context, degree of polymerization of the aged OIP is measured to reveal the changes of OIP secondary structure. Also, X-ray diffraction, deuteration treatment and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy are conducted to analyze the changes of the OIP aggregate structure during the aging process. Further experiments are performed to investigate the variation of the microscopic appearance, thermal behavior and dielectric properties, including scanning electronic microscopy, thermal gravity analysis, differential scanning calorimetry and frequency domain spectroscopy. This investigation on the variation of the multilevel structure of aged OIP not only promotes further understanding to the aging behavior and mechanism of OIP under AC-voltage harmonics, but also proposes crystallinity and accessibility as two new effective aging indicators for the OIP structure.

This paper focuses on the impact of infrastructure on economic development for the countries around the Lake Chad area, an economically- and socially-integrated area in north-west Africa that has development potential, but which has been undermined by multiple and interrelated drivers of fragility, conflict, and violence. The Lake Chad region comprises a set of administrative areas across Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria that surround Lake Chad, with an estimated 17 million to 19 million people, who are primarily involved in agriculture and fishing activities. The region has one of the largest concentrations of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and the world and lags in human development outcomes and access to key public services. The paper analyzes the impact of infrastructure in Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria, from a national and regional perspective, and with a particular focus on the Lake Chad area. The paper is structured as follows. Section two presents the data. Section three presents the empirical strategy and results. Section four develops a spatial general-equilibrium model to produce counterfactuals for more regional integration. Section five concludes.

The industry of disposables has undergone an astronomically immense revolution in this century owing to the diligent lifestyles and technological advancements in its engenderment and manufacturing process. Paper cups are one of the widely used products in disposable industry. It has multi utility options that is it can be acclimated to imbibe water as well as beverages, soups, liquids etc. This paper entirely fixates on incrementing the quality factor of engenderment and manufacturing process of these paper cups by integrating adscititious circuitry to the subsisting machinery to truncate waste of raw materials as well as the per unit cost involved in wastage of electricity. There is a necessity to improvise the quality of overall production parameters using automation techniques. Replacing the whole machinery is a very high costing implementation hence economic feasibility of automation can be achieved by adding an additional circuitry and improving the overall perfoemance. This research work is predicated on utilizing proximity sensors to sense the materials and molded paper cups in front of machinery and minimize the electric wastage through a relay Mechanism assembly. This is a PLC predicated live project example of efficaciously incrementing the overall efficiency of the manufacturing plant

In pulp and paper production black liquor is burnt to recover base chemicals and to generate electricity and steam which is e.g. used in papermaking machines. In the event of paper tearing excess steam has to be condensed usually. We propose a latent thermal energy system to recover that energy and re-use it in the papermaking machines. A storage model was developed and experimentally verified by a lab-scale prototype. For the specific process, we designed a tube-bundle storage using thermally conductive HDPE as PCM and show that up to 30 MWh can be recovered per day. Finally, we describe the potential of storages to improve energy generation and efficiency in plants.

The subsector of pulp and paper presented in 2013 an electric power consumption of 9.3% of electricity consumption in the industrial sector in Brazil. It experienced a significant growth of production in the last 20 years, exceeding 160%, and their consumption of electricity increased by 130%, reaching the level of 19,594GWh. Due to its characteristics, with a known structure and production processes, and its importance in the country's industrial sector, this subsector was selected for study in this paper, to evaluate the behavior of its long-term annual electricity demand, at the horizon of 20 years ahead, in energy efficiency scenarios through bottom-up approach. This approach is data intensive and requires data with good quality; it consists of a hierarchical structure that enables to check how specific actions can affect the results at each level and its effect on higher levels.

Nonvolatile memory thin-film transistors (TFTs) fabricated on paper substrates were proposed as one of the eco-friendly electronic devices. The gate stack was composed of chicken albumen gate insulator and In-Ga-Zn-O semiconducting channel layers. All the fabrication processes were performed below 120 °C. To improve the process compatibility of the synthethic paper substrate, an Al2O3 thin film was introduced as adhesion and barrier layers by atomic layer deposition. The dielectric properties of biomaterial albumen gate insulator were also enhanced by the preparation of Al2O3 capping layer. The nonvolatile bistabilities were realized by the switching phenomena of residual polarization within the albumen thin film. The fabricated device exhibited a counterclockwise hysteresis with a memory window of 11.8 V, high on/off ratio of approximately 1.1 × 10(6), and high saturation mobility (μsat) of 11.5 cm(2)/(V s). Furthermore, these device characteristics were not markedly degraded even after the delamination and under the bending situration. When the curvature radius was set as 5.3 cm, the ION/IOFF ratio and μsat were obtained to be 5.9 × 10(6) and 7.9 cm(2)/(V s), respectively.

Power generation from renewable sources is important for sustainable development due to the depletion of traditional fossil fuels and related environmental pollution. In this work, paper is used to generate electricity under moisture ingress. As a result, a piece of untreated print paper (1.5 cm2 in area) can induce a voltage of 0.25 V and a current of 15 nA. The power output can be conveniently tuned by changing the humidity, temperature and number of devices by simple series/parallel connections. Such paper-based moist-electric generators (PMEGs) are expected to find their applications in the daily ambient environment owing to the wide availability and low cost of paper materials. A ‘power’ book is then fabricated to prove the concept, providing new insights into moist-electric power generation and a viable approach for designing extremely simple power generators for various applications.

This paper focuses on the comparison of various methods and quantity of electrical power generation in the countries as Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Germany including sources of electricity and comparison with India is highlighted. In this paper, there is an outlook of various power generation techniques adopted, and the amount of the power with the help of various means are highlighted and put for the immediate comparison. It is also discussed that a brief outlook of power generation and their comparison show the significance of the geographical, climatic and political situations emphasis on the methods of their power generations, respectively. In different countries, the nature of electrical power generation has shown with graphical form on the account of percentage utilization of energies in recent year. Various power generation methods like thermal, wind, solar, gas, nuclear, hydro electricity, other renewable energy sources, etc., are discussed in details. A detailed comparison of cost of generated power and cost of a single unit per person according to the respective country has been discussed. By knowing this, it may be analyzed that different sources of power generation can be compared with the power generated in India. With the help of this, analysis and comparing to the utilization of different types of sources for the purpose of generation of electricity by different countries can be understood including source for production of electricity as compared to renewable source of energy.

The data set includes hourly time series for a period of one year of electricity demand of three different types of industries. The industries include a small food processing company, one small paper industry and one medium-large paper producing company. The data have been synthetized from two years of measured data from industries in Chile using a comprehensive clustering analysis. The synthetic data possess the same statistical characteristics as the measured data but are provided normalized to one kWh and anonymized in order to be used without confidentiality issues. The data were originally used in the associated paper [1] to assess the demand side management potential of the industries but these can be used for further energy system modelling exercises including these types of industries.

Strongly electric fish use gradients of ions within their bodies to generate stunning external electrical discharges; the most powerful of these organisms, the Atlantic torpedo ray, can produce pulses of over 1 kW from its electric organs. Despite extensive study of this phenomenon in nature, the development of artificial power generation schemes based on ion gradients for portable, wearable, or implantable human use has remained out of reach. Previously, an artificial electric organ inspired by the electric eel demonstrated that electricity generated from ion gradients within stacked hydrogels can exceed 100 V. The current of this power source, however, was too low to power standard electronics. Here, an artificial electric organ inspired by the unique morphologies of torpedo rays for maximal current output is introduced. This power source uses a hybrid material of hydrogel-infused paper to create, organize, and reconfigure stacks of thin, arbitrarily large gel films in series and in parallel. The resulting increase in electrical power by almost two orders of magnitude compared to the original eel-inspired design makes it possible to power electronic devices and establishes that biology's mechanism of generating significant electrical power can now be realized from benign and soft materials in a portable size.

Since the Second World War, the pulp and paper industry has become one of the most important industries in the world based on its economic benefits. Unfortunately, it is usually associated with high water usage and high electricity expenditure. Currently, pulp and paper mills are faced with various challenges forcing them to follow stringent environmental regulations and adopt sustainable waste management strategies as well as utilizing best available technologies to treat the effluent. While the discharge of hazardous effluent is certainly a growing concern, the pulp and paper industry is making great progress in reducing the quantity of wastewater it expends along with the amount of hazardous materials found in the effluent. This chapter provides a brief overview of waste generation and management in pulp and paper mills, and it also discusses the combined novel and conventional aerobic effluent treatment methods.

Part of the dewatering in a paper machine takes place via vacuum suction boxes situated below the moving web. In addition to the removal of liquid water, considerable amounts of air are sucked through the paper. The air flow that accompanies dewatering is a crucial parameter for the electricity consumption of a vacuum system. The present study models this air flow, combining differential conservation equations with fiber characterization. Measured air flow rates for different vacuum levels, basis weights, and pulp types are compared to model predictions. More than 70% of the data agree within the range of experimental error.

The present scenario in the world largely demands affordable, fast, recyclable, and flexible electronic devices for bio sensing. Varieties of paper-based devices such as microfluidics paper electrodes, paper diodes, and paper-based transistors etc. have been developed and validated. Most of the fabrication techniques published so far have focused on economic, environment-friendly straightforward methods to develop paper-based field-effect transistors (PFET) sensors, additionally, explored their applications. The synthetic-free, mechanically flexible, biocompatible, and signal amplification capability render PFET based sensors for wearable device makers. Modified organic/inorganic PFETs identify target analytes based on the electrical signal and endow them as perfect transducers. In the field of PFET bio sensing technology, numerous challenges are needed to be discussed to proceed forward in biomedical and other analytical applications. Realizing biologically or chemically modified PFET having an exceptional signal to noise ratio, specificity, with rapid detection ability is challenging. This review recapitulates the fabrication techniques, performances of various PFET sensors, and summarizes the report by concluding remarks including the limitations of the existing PFET based sensors and the future holds in regards to the sustainable nature of PFET.

In this paper, a comparison of the various methods and quantity of electrical power generation of countries like Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Mexico, and India is highlighted. It is required to get the outlook of the various power generation techniques, and the amount of the power the other countries are generating. It has been also shown the power generation methods of different countries in graphical form and on the account of percentage utilization of energies in recent year. Various power generation methods like thermal, wind, solar, gas, nuclear, and hydro are been taken into consideration. With the help of this, we may analyze different sources of power generation and compare of the above four countries power generated and compared with the power generated in India. With the help of this study and comparison, it can be observed also that the utilization of different types of sources for the purpose of generation of electricity by different countries and how such countries are major dependent on thermal power source for the production of electricity as compared to renewable source of energy.

Dewatering on the paper machine takes place by gravity, suction, pressing, and evaporation. Optimizing the operation of the vacuum system is important, since the electricity consumption of the vacuum pumps might be one-fifth of the total electricity consumption of the paper machine. Vacuum dewatering involves large volumes of air penetrating the web. The present study presents four sets of measured air flow rates useful for designing industrial equipment. The mass flux of air increases with increasing applied vacuum and decreases with increasing basis weight. Paper technological parameters, such as fiber size and fiber flexibility, also influence the mass flux.

We present a microfabricated paper-based microbial fuel cell (MFC) generating a maximum power of 5.5 μW/cm(2). The MFC features (1) a paper-based proton exchange membrane by infiltrating sulfonated sodium polystyrene sulfonate and (2) micro-fabricated paper chambers by patterning hydrophobic barriers of photoresist. Once inoculum and catholyte were added to the MFC, a current of 74 μA was generated immediately. This paper-based MFC has the advantages of ease of use, low production cost, and high portability. The voltage produced was increased by 1.9 × when two MFC devices were stacked in series, while operating lifetime was significantly enhanced in parallel.

The Swedish pulp and paper industry accounts for half of industrial final energy use in Sweden and 2.3 % in EU-27. On the basis of a disaggregated set of physical production data, a Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index decomposition method is applied to disentangle the influence from activity, structure and energy efficiency improvement (EEI) on its fuel, electricity and primary energy use. An extended analysis tracks the fossil energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to discern past and present developments of industrial decarbonisation. In 1984–2011, the total production output increased by 49 %, whereas growth in primary energy use was limited to 26 %. Compared with an activity-based scenario, 50 PJ of primary energy use has been avoided through EEI and 6 PJ through structural change. The production has become oriented towards more electricity-intensive but less fuel-intensive segments. The electricity use EEI was negligible until year 2000 but sizeable thereafter as it started to outpace the counteracting impact from structural change. Results are consistent with previous bottom-up evaluations, and the policy context is further elaborated in a discussion about the role of relevant energy and climate policies in facilitating the enhanced EEI observed over the last decade.