[en] Some years back, after the discovery of Petroleum, Kerosene as one of the fraction of the distillation of Petroleum came into use as cooking fuel and a reduction in pressure was seen on wood and vegetation. Along this line, by the improvement of sciences and technology gas cooker and electric cooker were developed; but epileptic supply of electricity, gas and government policy on deforestation showed that continuous dependence on wood, electricity, gas and kerosene as the only sources of cooking fuel is not going to solve Nigeria domestic cooking problem. To solve this, coal as a source of heat energy could be used as a cooking fuel. However, this paper reports the design of coal stove, construction, assembly and test. The test result showed that using coal (anthracite) as the fuel on a pot of 200g containing 800g of water at room temperature could boil the water in 20 minutes

[en] A Dutch public utility (Obragas) introduces a new way to supply gas for their household clients in Helmond, Netherlands: the gas wall socket. The use of gas wall sockets must prevent the decrease of the market share for natural gas compared to the market share of electricity for households

[en] A Dutch public utility (Obragas) introduced a new way to supply gas for their household clients in Helmond, Netherlands: the gas wall socket, which is in use in Japan for years. It appears that the Netherlands will follow. 6 ills

[en] We demonstrate an improved efficiency in OLEDs with a thin Alq₃ interlayer, which is inserted into the hole-transport layer for adjusting the hole-injection and transport, and improving the hole-electron balance. The thin Alq₃ interlayer can effectively influence the electrical performance and electroluminescence (EL) efficiency of the devices. The devices with an optimum Alq₃ interlayer exhibit a maximum EL efficiency of around 3.3 cd/A, which is improved by a factor of two over the conventional devices (1.6 cd/A) without the interlayer

[en] This paper presents the development and characterization of a simple yet effective cartridge-type (i.e. an integrated liquid reservoir) pneumatic dispensing system. The unique design was a backflow stopper inside the dispenser to function as a flow restrictor. A thin flexible membrane with computer-controlled pneumatic actuation is used to produce various droplet volumes. The detailed fabrication is explained, and systematic characterization verified the performance of our device. The current device configuration can dispense droplet volumes from 100 nL to 400 nL by controlling the pressure applied to the flexible membrane

[en] Highlights: • A paper-TENG completely prepared using cost efficient, commercially available commodity materials, is proposed. • Household material, i.e. common paper card, is employed for the first time as an electrification material to construct TENG. • Single-step processes, i.e. penciling and imprinting, are developed to significantly simplify the manufacturing of TENG. • First TENG demonstration realizing controlled manipulation of droplet, which shows an attractive potential in various fields. Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has proven to be a robust power source to efficiently convert ambient mechanical energy into electricity. It experienced substantial growth in the past years owing to its appealing features that make it superior than other self-powering principles. In particular, it excels in high output performance, sustainability in powering capability, as well as the ability to work completely autonomously. However, in order for TENG to make a real impact for societal applications, further improvements towards cost-effective TENG are required, in particular by exploring new inexpensive electrification materials and by simplifying the manufacture procedure. In this work, we present a paper-TENG completely prepared using cost efficient, commercially available commodity materials, such as paper cards, Teflon tape, and graphite pencil. Here, paper was firstly utilized as both supporting structure and functionally triboelectric pair simultaneously, which is widely available at low cost, and in addition, to our advantage, it has a considerably high ability to lose electrons during triboelectrification. As scalable fabrication, we implemented a single step using sandpaper imprinting to increase effective friction area and simple electrode fabrication by means of a graphite pencil. These two technical innovations were systematically studied as to the micro/nano-textured surfaces and conductive electrodes. The electrical properties of fabricated paper TENGs were comprehensively investigated and proved to be a usable power source by using a well-designed vibration platform and practical body motion, respectively. The fabricated paper TENG was successfully utilized to move liquid droplets in designated directions via electro-wetting. This new implementation of controlled droplet manipulation shows an attractive potential of TENG's applications in multidisciplinary fields, such as inkjet printing and lab-on-chip biomedical micro/nano-systems.

[en] Energy efficiency and source air pollutant emission factors of gas heaters, gas engine heat pumps, and electric heat pumps for domestic heating have been evaluated and compared. The analysis shows that with the present state of technology, gas engine heat pumps have the highest energy efficiency followed by electric heat pumps and then gas heaters. Electric heat pumps produce more than twice as much NO_x, and comparable CO₂ and CO per unit of useful heating energy compared to natural gas heaters. CO production per unit of useful heating energy from gas engine heat pumps without any emission control is substantially higher than electric heat pumps and natural gas heaters. NO_x production per unit of useful heating energy from natural gas engine heat pumps (using lean burn technology) without any emission control is about the same as effective NO_x production from electric heat pumps. Gas engine heat pumps produce about one-half CO₂ compared to electric heat pumps

[en] In 1992, Gasunie (Dutch natural gas trading company) started its marketing plan for the public natural gas supply (MOG, abbreviated in Dutch). The aim is to promote the use of natural gas in cooperation with gas utilities. For the commercial sector many different gas appliances are available: high-efficiency deep-frying pans for the catering sector, gas-fired air humidifiers for office and public buildings, gas-fired tumble dryers for small and medium-sized businesses, etc

[en] This paper presents an efficiency and economics evaluation method for methane fired cooling systems. Focus is on direct flame two staged absorption systems and alternative engine driven compressor sets. Comparisons are made with conventional vapour compression plants powered by electricity supplied by the national grid. A first and second law based thermodynamics analysis is made in which fuel use coefficients and exergy yields are determined. The economics analysis establishes annual energy savings, unit cooling energy production costs, payback periods and economics/efficiency optimization curves useful for preliminary feasibility studies

[en] We present a low-cost bonding method for polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microfluidics that combines elements of solvent bonding, thermal bonding and microwave bonding. Rather than using specialized equipment, we take household equipment and combine it to produce an effective bonding method that borrows from food packaging technologies for selective heating in a microwave. A poor solvent for PMMA is applied between two halves of a microfluidic system and clamped together using miniature binder clips. Excess solvent from the channels is then drawn out via capillary action and avoids channel clogging during the bonding process. Placing the whole apparatus in a commercial microwave will heat up the thin metal clips and cause the solvent to dissolve and bond the PMMA interface. The whole bonding process takes only a few minutes, and results in high bond strengths