Production of Benzene from Lignin through Current Enhanced Catalytic Conversion

The directional production of benzene is achieved by the current-enhanced catalytic conversion of lignin. The synergistic effect between catalyst and current promotes the depolymerization of lignin and the selective recombinant of the functional groups in the aromatic monomers. A high benzene yield of 175 gbenzene/kglignin was obtained with an excellent selectivity of 92.9 C-mol%. The process potentially provides a promising route for the production of basic petrochemical materials or high value-added chemicals using renewable biomass.

Ultra-Stable and Durable Piezoelectric Nanogenerator with All-Weather Service Capability Based on N Doped 4H-SiC Nanohole Arrays

Ultra-stable piezoelectric nanogenerator(PENG)driven by environmental actuation sources with all-weather service capability is highly desirable.Here,the PENG based on N doped 4H-SiC nanohole arrays(NHAs)is proposed to harvest ambient energy under low/high temperature and relative humidity(RH)conditions.Finite element method simulation of N doped 4H-SiC NHAs in compression mode is developed to evaluate the relationship between nanohole diameter and piezoelectric performance.The density of short circuit current of the assembled PENG reaches 313 nA cm^(-2),which is 1.57 times the output of PENG based on N doped 4H-SiC nanowire arrays.The enhancement can be attributed to the existence of nanohole sidewalls in NHAs.All-weather service capability of the PENG is verified after being treated at-80/80℃and 0%/100%RH for 50 days.The PENG is promising to be widely used in practice worldwide to harvest biomechanical energy and mechanical energy.

Dopingless impact ionization MOS(DL-IMOS)—a remedy for complex process flow

We propose a unique approach for realizing dopingless impact ionization MOS （DL-IMOS） based on the charge plasma concept as a remedy for complex process flow. It uses work-function engineering of electrodes to form charge plasma as surrogate doping. This charge plasma induces a uniform p-region in the source side and an n-region in the drain side on intrinsic silicon film with a thickness less than the intrinsic Debye length. DL-IMOS offers a simple fabrication process flow as it avoids the need of ion implantation, photo masking and complicated thermal budget via annealing devices. The lower thermal budget is required for DL-IMOS fabrication enables its fabrication on single crystal silicon-on-glass substrate realized by wafer scale epitaxial transfer. It is highly immune to process variations, doping control issues and random dopant fluctuations, while retaining the inherent advantages of conventional IMOS. To epitomize the fabrication process flow for the proposed device a virtual fabrication flow is also proposed here. Extensive device simulation of the major device performance metrics such as subthreshold slope, threshold voltage, drain induced current enhancement, and breakdown voltage have been done for a wide range of electrodes work-function. To evaluate the potential applications of the proposed device at circuit level, its mixed mode simulations are also carried out.