Scaling Laws Behind Penetrative Turbulence:History and Perspectives

An unstably stratified flow entering into a stably stratified flow is referred to as penetrative convection,which is crucial to many physical processes and has been thought of as a key factor for extreme weather conditions.Past theoretical,numerical,and experimental studies on penetrative convection are reviewed,along with field studies providing insights into turbulence modeling.The physical factors that initiate penetrative convection,including internal heat sources,nonlinear constitutive relationships,centrifugal forces and other complicated factors are summarized.Cutting-edge methods for understanding transport mechanisms and statistical properties of penetrative turbulence are also documented,e.g.,the variational approach and quasilinear approach,which derive scaling laws embedded in penetrative turbulence.Exploring these scaling laws in penetrative convection can improve our understanding of large-scale geophysical and astrophysical motions.To better the model of penetrative turbulence towards a practical situation,new directions,e.g.,penetrative convection in spheres,and radiation-forced convection,are proposed.

Spin-Enhanced C-C Coupling in CO_(2)Electroreduction with Oxide-Derived Copper

Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide(CO_(2))to multicarbon(C2+)products involves intricate multiple protons and electron transfer of C-C coupling,which is dictated by not only the intrinsic reactivity but also the spin states of electrons in the catalyst.Here,we observe spin-enhanced CO_(2)reduction(CO_(2)RR)electrocatalytic activity on an oxidederived copper(OD-Cu)catalyst due to the existence of a specific Cu*site that carried the magnetic moments.Due to the correlation of magnetic and catalytic properties in OD-Cu,the current density through the OD-Cu electrode increases by nearly 10%at 350 mT.The field strength and angle dependence of such magnetic field effect(MFE),together with the time-resolved measurements proved that it originated from the alignment of magnetic moments on Cu*sites.The MFE on the electrocatalytic process enabled an enhancement(up to 15%)of the CO_(2)RR Faradaic efficiency using the OD-Cu catalyst.Importantly,the enhancement was attributed to the spinantiparallel alignment of electrons to promote C-C coupling on asymmetric Cu*-Cu sites;consequently,the optimal bias was reduced by∼0.2 V under the magnetic field for C2 products with Faradaic efficiency>30%and selectivity>75%.Our work uncovers a new paradigmfor spin-enhanced catalysis applicable to a broad range of chemical reactions involving spin singlet products.