Suchergebnisse

Seawater desalination and wastewater purification technologies are the main strategies against the global fresh water shortage. Among these technologies, solar-driven evaporation is effective in extracting fresh water by efficiently exploiting solar energy. However, building a sustainable and low-cost solar steam generator with high conversion efficiency is still a challenge. Here, pure organic aerogels comprising a cellulose scaffold decorated with an organic conducting polymer absorbing in the infrared are employed to establish a high performance solar steam generator. The low density of the aerogel ensures minimal material requirements, while simultaneously satisfying efficient water transport. To localize the absorbed solar energy and make the system floatable, a porous floating and thermal-insulating foam is placed between the water and the aerogel. Thanks to the high absorbance of the aerogel and the thermal-localization performance of the foam, the system exhibits a high water evaporation rate of 1.61 kg m(-2) h(-1) at 1 kW m(-2) under 1 sun irradiation, which is higher than most reported solar steam generation devices. ; Funding Agencies|Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (WWSC 2.0 project); Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council [2016-03979]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO Mat LiU) [2009 00971]; AForsk [18-313]; Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion; Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (Tail of the Sun project)

Biomimicry at the hardware level is expected to overcome at least some of the challenges, including high power consumption, large footprint, two-dimensionality, and limited functionality, which arise as the field of artificial intelligence matures. One of the main attributes that allow biological systems to thrive is the successful interpretation of and response to environmental signals. Taking inspiration from these systems, the first demonstration of using multiple environmental inputs to trigger the formation and control the growth of an evolvable synaptic transistor is reported here. The resulting transistor exhibits long-term changes in the channel conductance at a fixed gate voltage. Biomimetic logic circuits are investigated based on this evolvable transistor that implement temperature and pressure inputs to achieve higher order processes like self-regulation of synaptic strength and coincidence detection. ; Funding Agencies|Swedish Foundation for Strategic ResearchSwedish Foundation for Strategic Research [SE13-0045, RMX18-0083]; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research CouncilEuropean Commission [2016-03979, 2018-06197]; AForsk [18-313, 19-310]; Olle Engkvists Stiftelse [204-0256]; European Research CouncilEuropean Research Council (ERC)European Commission [834677]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009-00971]