Author Archives: Chengliang Mao

Sustainable Diesel Fuel

There is a worldwide effort to achieve the IPCC 1.5-degree global warming target by the end of the 21st century. To this end, the major power generation, industrial, and transportation sectors of our economies are undergoing a transformational decarbonization process … Continue reading

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Hidden gems in materials discovery: Healing our climate with barite

The most immediate feeling of the effect of global warming on people will likely be the unbearable long hot days of summer. The Joule-Thompson compression-expansion based air conditioner will be desperately needed in this situation. However, their use intensifies the … Continue reading

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Congratulations Alex Tavasoli on being selected as a Clean50 Award Winner

Alex Tavasoli, graduate student in the solar fuels group and CEO of Solistra , is selected as the Clean50 Individual award winner and one of the Clean50 Emerging Leaders, based on her pioneering accomplishment of making green hydrogen H2 from … Continue reading

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A natural way of turning off the carbon dioxide tap, California style

It is necessary for us to build a net carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative society to counter global warming and related energy security problems. Many possible solutions have been proposed in this regard, however when the goal could be reached via … Continue reading

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DIY Eco-Friendly Fertilizer

It is well-documented that around 0.00470757486 kg active nitrogen should be treated into per square meter soils to nourish the farms and gardens. Meanwhile do you know that each bolt of lightning in a thunderstorm converts about 7 kg of … Continue reading

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Congratulations to Pavani, Geoff, Wei, and co-authors on their publication in Science Advances!

Oil spill happens occasionally, and its cleanup is usually challenging especially at low temperatures. Paraffin waxes in crude oil would crystallise to form a surface layer and block the liquid oil droplet inside, which decreases the capability of advanced oil … Continue reading

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Congratulations to Joel and co-authors on their publication in Nature Communications!

Photoelectrons could initiate excited-state chemistry to enable low-temperature reactions which are kinetically prohibited at ground state. Triggering more photoelectrons is considered as the key to implement solar advantage for facile catalysis, which is usually realized via concentrating photo-intensity. However, this … Continue reading

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Congratulations to Truong and co-authors on their publication in Nano Letters!

In this paper, Truong and coauthors developed a ternary heterostructured TiN@TiO2@In2O3−x(OH)y photocatalyst to enable broadband light absorption, effective photothermal heating and engineered charge carrier transfer. This design enables highly efficient CO2 reduction to CO with the requirement of minimum amount … Continue reading

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Congratulations to Alex Tavasoli and coauthors on their publication in EES!

Transforming the greenhouse gas into fuels via sunlight has attracted great interests recently, but where are we and where should we go for a solar fuel refinery? To answer this question, Alex, who is the Co-founder and CEO of the … Continue reading

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CO2 photocatalysis sees the light of day

Recently, Dimensional Energy, a spin-off company from Cornell University, has designed, built, and tested, a pilot-scale photoreactor for making chemicals using just carbon dioxide and sunlight, no additional heating or electricity is needed. As shown in the photograph, the setup … Continue reading

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