The effect of recuperator on the efficiency of ORC and TFC with very dry working fluid

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) and Trilateral Flash Cycles (TFC) are very similar power cycles; ideally, they have a reversible adiabatic (isentropic) compression, an isobaric heating, an isentropic expansion and an isobaric cooling. The main difference is that for ORC, the heating includes the full evaporation of the working fluid (prior expansion); therefore, the expansion starts in a saturated or dry vapour state, while for TFC, the heating terminates upon reaching the saturated liquid states. Therefore, for TFT, expansion liquid/vapour state (in bubbly liquid or in vapour dispersed with droplets), requiring a special two-phase expander. Being ORC a more “complete” cycle, one would expect that its thermodynamic efficiency is always higher than for a TFC, between the same temperatures and using the same working fluids. Surprisingly, it was shown that for very dry working fluids, the efficiency of TFC can exceed the efficiency of basic (i.e. recuperator- and superheater-free) ORC, choosing sufficiently high (but still subcritical) maximal cycle temperature. Therefore in these cases, TFC (having a simpler heat exchange unit for heating) can be a better choice than ORC. The presence of a recuperator can influence the situation; by recovering the proper percentage of the remaining heat (after the expansion), the efficiency of ORC can reach and even pass the efficiency of TFC.

Luminescent hybrid perovskite nanoparticles as a new platform for selective detection of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol

CH3NH3PbBr3based luminescent perovskite nanoparticles have been used for the selective detection of an explosive, 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (picric acid) with high sensitivity in solution and vapour state.

Ab initio studies on amides: conformational preferences of formimide and barriers to interconversion of the conformers

Formimide (diformamide), the parent of the diacylamines, is capable of existing in three basic ground-state conformations about the N-C bonds. Full geometry optimization with the STO-3G basis set predicts that all three conformers are fully coplanar, that the E,E (1) and E,Z(3) conformers are of similar energy, and that the Z,Z (2) conformer is of somewhat higher energy (by 11 kJ mol-1); 4-31G evaluation of the energies suggests that (2) is by far the least stable and that (1) is of higher energy than (3) by 6.5 kJ mol-1. Analysis of the calculated charge distribution suggests that (2) is destabilized by electrostatic repulsion. These results are consistent with experimental conclusions that planar (3) is strongly preferred in the vapour state at room temperature and that (2) has not been observed in the vapour state or in solution. Partial geometry optimization with the STO-3G basis set of model transition states for internal rotation suggests a barrier height of 52 kJ mol-1 (72 kJ mol-1 when evaluated with the 4-31G basis set) for the conversion (3) → (1).