3D printing technology can produce complex objects directly from computer aided digital designs. The technology has traditionally been used by large companies to produce fit and form concept prototypes ('rapid prototyping') before production. In recent years however there has been a move to adopt the technology as full-scale manufacturing solution. The advent of low-cost, desktop 3D printers su...

Herein, we successfully applied a facile in-situ solid-state synthesis of conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) as a HTM, directly on top of the perovskite layer, in conventional mesoscopic perovskite solar cells (PSCs) (n-i-p structure). The fabrication of the PEDOT film only involved a very simple in-situ solid-state polymerisation step from a monomer 2,5-dibromo-3,4-eth...

A low-cost bio-mass-derived carbon substrate has been employed to synthesize MoS₂@carbon composites through a hydrothermal method. Carbon fibers derived from natural cotton provide a three-dimensional and open framework for the uniform growth of MoS₂ nanosheets, thus hierarchically constructing coaxial architecture. The unique structure could synergistically benefit fast Li-ion and electron tra...

A critical part of thin-film composite solar cells is conduction through the transparent electrode. Currently the material of choice for the window electrode is indium tin oxide (ITO). The natural abundance of indium however is insufficient for highvolume production of solar cells. Moreover, good quality ITO is made by expensive vapor-deposition processes. We propose to develop nanostructured d...

Between the sheets: Sodium-ion batteries are an attractive, low-cost alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Nitrogen-doped porous carbon sheets are prepared by chemical activation of polypyrrole-functionalized graphene sheets. When using the sheets as anode material in sodium-ion batteries, their unique compositional and structural features result in high reversible capacity, good cycling stabil...

Immobilization of lipase enzyme produced from palm oil mill effluent (POME) by the activated carbon (AC) among the low cost support materials was optimized. The results indicated that immobilization of 94% was achieved by AC as the most suitable support material. A sequential optimization strategy based on a statistical experimental design, including one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) method was used ...

Some bacterial strains such as Komagataeibacter xylinus are able to produce cellulose as an extracellular matrix. In comparison to wood-based cellulose, bacterial cellulose (BC) holds interesting properties such as biodegradability, high purity, water-holding capacity, and superior mechanical and structural properties. Aiming toward improvement in BC production titer and tailored alterations to...

We consider the design of an inexpensive system for acquiring material models for computer graphics rendering applications in animation, games and conceptual design. To be useful in these applications a system must be able to model a rich range of appearances in a computationally tractable form. The range of appearance of interest in computer graphics includes materials that have spatially vary...

Numerous studies have been conducted to minimize material costs and improve efficiency, one of which involves using the genetic algorithm (GA) for selection. Although GA provides best solution, it is computationally intensive. To mitigate this issue, a simple method was proposed. The stiffened plate, primary component ship structure, chosen as optimization model study, with objective minimizing...