BACKGROUND AND AIMS Covering whole vines with shade cloth is used to protect the vines from heat stress, but may have costs on vine productivity through reduced light availability. Our aim was to assess the carbon balance of vines growing with and without shade to quantify the impact of the covering. METHODOLOGY Whole vines were covered with 70 % shade cloth, and shoot leaf area and leaf, ste...

Due to its high theoretical capacity, high energy density, and easy availability, the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) system is considered to be the most promising candidate for electric and hybrid electric vehicle applications. Sulfur/carbon cathode in Li-S batteries still suffers, however, from low Coulombic efficiency and poor cycle life when sulfur loading and the ratio of sulfur to carbon are high. ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficacy of various eye protection measures during carbon dioxide laser laryngoscopy. DESIGN A standard medical mannequin was equipped with indicator paper over the eyes and subjected to multiple passes of direct carbon dioxide laser beam contact at 400-mm focal length with powers ranging from 2.5 to 4.0 W during simulated laser microlaryngoscopy. Several different ...

For practical application of lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs), it is crucial to develop sulfur cathodes with high areal capacity and cycle stability in a simple and inexpensive manner. In this study, a carbon cloth infiltrated with a sulfur-containing electrolyte solution (CC-S) was utilized as an additive-free, flexible, high-sulfur-loading cathode. A freestanding carbon cloth performed double ...

The gas diffusion layer (GDL) is vital to the performance and durability of direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). The GDL plays an important role in water management, catalyst efficiency and conductivity of DMFC. The GDL consists of a carbon substrate that can either be woven or non-woven. The various substrates used to produce GDLs result in very different physical characteristics, particularly su...

Non-corrosive, carbon-based materials are usually used as anodes in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). In some cases, however, metals have been used that can corrode (e.g. copper) or that are corrosion resistant (e.g. stainless steel, SS). Corrosion could increase current through galvanic (abiotic) current production or by increasing exposed surface area, or decrease current due to generation of toxi...

Flexible energy storage devices are highly demanded for various applications. Carbon cloth (CC) woven by carbon fibers (CFs) is typically used as electrode or current collector for flexible devices. The low surface area of CC and the presence of big gaps (ca. micro-size) between individual CFs lead to poor performance. Herein, we interconnect individual CFs through the in-situ exfoliated graphe...

Two-phase phenomena, i.e. bubble flow in the anode and water flooding in the cathode, are critical to design of high-performance direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). A 5 cm2 transparent DMFC has been developed to visualize these phenomena in situ. Two types of membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) based on Nafion® 112 were used to investigate effects of backing pore structure and wettability on cell ...

An inexpensive activated carbon (AC) air cathode was developed as an alternative to a platinum-catalyzed electrode for oxygen reduction in a microbial fuel cell (MFC). AC was cold-pressed with a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) binder to form the cathode around a Ni mesh current collector. This cathode construction avoided the need for carbon cloth or a metal catalyst, and produced a cathode with...

Both the first written historical record and modern radiocarbon analysis date the cloth known as the shroud of Turin to the 13th or 14th century. Interestingly, many people have remained convinced that the cloth was used as the burial shroud of Jesus and thus must be approximately 2000 years old. The primary reason usually cited for this belief is the inability of scientists to explain how a 13...